A big, messy, ambitious, both brilliant and embarrassing, partly autobiographical novel by the author of The Godfather—and fans of that blockbuster will be thrilled with only about half of it. Puzo probably writes about money better than anyone since Balzac, and, in one of the most mesmerizing first chapters in recent fiction, he introduces us to three "degenerate gamblers" one night in Las Vegas circa 1959: casino stoolie Cully, boyishly intense Merlyn, and middle-aged runaway Jordan, who wins half a million this one night at the tables and then shoots himself. Though Jordan's image and the irony of his big win haunts the whole book, the focus then shifts to—and stays with—writer Merlyn, whose interest as a hero-narrator decreases as his fortunes rise. Living in the Bronx with wife and kids, supporting them and his serious writing efforts with a civilian job in the Army Reserves, Merlyn is immensely appealing—whether compulsively disappearing for a gambling binge in Vegas or succumbing to the temptation of bribes from would-be Reservists: the money piles up ("I had become the Tiffany's of bribe-takers"), and Merlyn must turn to Cully (now on the rise in Vegas casino management)—who helps him launder the cash and saves him from jail when the bribe scandal is exposed. But when Merlyn starts to climb in the literary world and then scores with a whopping best-seller, the book loses its tension and drifts into cliches—vigorously, often hilariously fleshed out—but cliches nonetheless. There's the kitchen-sink portrait of famous writer Osano, who's a brawling, wenching, dying composite of Mailer and a half-dozen others, mouthing such Hemingwayisms as "Cunt is the only thing worth living for. Everything else is a fake. . . ." And, worse, there's Merlyn vs. Hollywood—those ruthless hacks are raping his book—and Merlyn & His Hollywood Mistress; previously faithful to wife Val (self-righteously so), Merlyn falls for actress Janelle—liberated, smart, funny, and bisexual ("Sure she fucked other guys and women too, but what the hell, nobody's perfect"). Puzo obviously wants to say Big Things about survival (fools die), art vs. money, love vs. sex, and (most successfully, as in Godfather) betrayal vs. loyalty; and a lot of readers will feel that loquacious Merlyn, supposedly so modest, is awfully full of himself. But whenever the money is changing hands—which is pretty often—Fools Die does indeed live, breathe, and squirm with the "magic" of writing that Merlyn (he was an orphan and named himself) keeps bragging about.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0451160193
Page Count: 531
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1978
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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