About

Follow Me

Picks of the Week

  • Harry Dolan: Bad Things Happen

    Harry Dolan: Bad Things Happen
    BAD THINGS HAPPEN is a nifty debut, cleverly told and unfurled from the very first line: "The shovel has to meet certain requirements" on through meeting "the man who calls himself David Loogan." There are reasons for concealment, just as there are reasons the editor of a mystery magazine bearing little resemblance to EQMM or AHMM might bring him into the fold, thus catalyzing a series of murderous events. The twists come quickly and the dialogue is sharp and if it falls apart slightly at the end, no matter - I want to read much more from Dolan from now on.

  • Ian MacKenzie: City of Strangers: A Novel

    Ian MacKenzie: City of Strangers: A Novel
    MacKenzie's debut novel reminded me a lot of Paul Auster's NEW YORK TRILOGY, whether it was intended or not, in terms of his choice of words, the thrust of the narrative and the existential nature of the main character (whose first name, incidentally, is Paul) caught up in a snowballing sequence of strange and violent events in and around New York City. MacKenzie straddles the line between thriller and internal examination of a man's failings, and his ability to do so establishes him as a young writer of serious talent and future.

  • Megan Abbott: Bury Me Deep

    Megan Abbott: Bury Me Deep
    In a word: amazing. In more words: Megan Abbott, who has never delivered anything less than an excellent novel, exceeds expectations and takes a very bold and very necessary step forward both in the quality of the prose, the development of her characters and especially in portraying how obsession seeps into the very soul of people, transforming them into their worst nightmares all too easily. Just read this book. And then tell many others to do so as well.

  • Ninni Holmqvist: The Unit

    Ninni Holmqvist: The Unit
    Understandably, echoes of THE HANDMAID'S TALE are hard to ignore in this dystopic examination of a society where fertility is so high a priority that older, single, marginal women are shut away in secret locales to live out the rest of their lives in seemingly perfect harmony - at least, until the "donations" begin. But Holmqvist's marvelous book doesn't browbeat her thesis into the reader and smartly expands her ideas to look at the plight of all marginalized folk, women and men alike, and how the promise of comforts can be the most horrifying of all. Prepare to be disturbed, but prepare further to think about the ramifications.

  • Paula Froelich: Mercury in Retrograde

    Paula Froelich: Mercury in Retrograde
    This is possibly the most perfect novel for today's economically challenged times. Why? Because it has plenty of glitz and glamor and blind items, as befitting a narrative by the deputy editor of Page Six, but Froelich isn't arch or snarky or acid-tongued in the slightest. Her trio of protagonists land in all manner of embarrassing situations but they aren't played for mean-spirited laughs. The New York here is something of a fantasy-land, but not so far off the mark that it's completely unbelievable. Most of all it's clear Froelich remains sincere and optimistic about her chosen city, and has retained her sense of fun. So no need to check your brain at the door, but sometimes it just needs to chill out and relax.

Archived Picks

Archives

Categories

The Harem of Cabana Boys

...And Cabana Girls, Too

Crime Fiction

They Write, They Blog

The Lit Brigade

The Idiosyncratic Part

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Stats


« Today's reading can be found elsewhere | Main | Mystery radio on KCRW »

November 18, 2005

Don't stay away from this DOPE

Sara Gran, whose forthcoming novel DOPE absolutely blew me away, talks to Bookmunch's Peter Wild about her novels and what prompted her to tackle the subject matter she did for the new one:

PW: Your next novel Dope is published later this year in the US and early 2006 in the UK - and it's a bit of a departure from your earlier books in that it's historical fiction. What attracted you to the action of Dope ?

SG: Well, lots of stuff. For years I had wanted to write a mystery novel, but particularly a mystery novel with all the minor characters made major. If you're a fan of mystery books & noir movies from the forties & fifties you'll know what I mean: the bums, the addicts, and most of all The Girls -- I wanted to take the background and make it the foreground. There's a kind of formula, which you also see a lot in contemporary fiction and film, of Nice Guy meets Bad Girl and gets nothing but trouble. So I'd always thought, well, what if you just get rid of the nice guy? I mean, who needs him? Why not just shift the perspective over. So, with my main character being a woman, a former drug-addict and very much a Bad Girl, in 1950 New York, I got to play around with that.

I also was interested in how you can break some of the rules of a mystery novel, while still including all that satisfies about a mystery. I think to get into genre, you have to first of all love the genre, even if you want to fuck with a bit. So, I don't know if I fulfilled my own rules here, but I tried, and it was fun.

Boy, did she ever. I could probably rhapsodize for hours if I had the chance, but I'll limit my praise to this: everything, absolutely everything, is pitch-perfect. From the opening scene, a simple transaction that illuminates character in a variety of ways, to Josephine Flannigan's valiant struggle against addiction, to the spare but decaying description of 1950s New York, to a plot that always surprises, and an ending that I never saw coming.

There is no earthly reason not to read this book.

 

Posted at 09:30 AM in World of Mystery |

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451af9169e200d8346c959d53ef

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Don't stay away from this DOPE:

Comments


Sarah you're teasing me again. DOPE sounds terrific, but now i gotta use a favor from putnam to get an ARC. can't wait. jon

Posted by: jonathon king | November 18, 2005 at 05:46 PM

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

Posted by:  | 

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment