| Posted: 07 May 2011 at 10:17am | IP Logged | 1
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I'm really digging Adam Corolla's IN 50 YEARS WE'LL ALL BE CHICKS. Just great so far. I bailed out on, gulp, an Andrew Vachss novel THE WEIGHT. That man is seriously heavyweight and he's written some of the best short stories and at least one novel (SHELLA) that is in my top ten, but THE WEIGHT is weighed down with a protagonist who spends far too much time without a reason to do anything. Meanwhile, there's a lot of portention that doesn't seem to pay off, and too much focus on characters I could give a sh*t about. In a rare occurance, I just finally gave up, flipped to the end, saw the book didn't really do anything, and quit on it. In the old days, I'd have read it all just because I'd started it and, like my plate, always finished. Not here. Doesn't make me think less of Vachss, but it was a disappointment. Some good inner-prison-life info in there, though. So not a total loss. I'm also reading James Ellroy's THE HILLIKER CURSE, which is probably more hardboiled than his most hardboiled fiction. It's a well-done self-examination in Ellroy's staccato kick-nuts style. It's a fascinating view of a writer in full-on Henry Miller mode, so check it.
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