10 Books That Stayed With Me: Mono Fiction Edition A couple of people have asked me to take part in this 10 book thing so here goes. I stuck to fiction for my list because I just love reading shit people made up -- and writing stuff I have made up as well -- but mostly because when I think about books that stay with me they are often books that I discovered on my own. It happens more rarely in this day and age but there is just such a feeling of exhilaration when you hone in on an author and are dazzled by what they have done. Non-fiction does not work that way for me. I usually end up reading something without ninjas and dames in it only when a critical mass of friends and acquaintances have clamored for me to read it. Even when it is exceptionally well done it feels a little like homework. (Not tagging anyone but happy to read other peoples lists.) TLDR is I like stories about ninjas and dames (and by ninjas I mean private eyes, criminals, or aliens...and actual ninjas) Here goes my list in no particular order. THE WRONG CASE by James Crumley Within the open pages of the book you find out that the PI hero, Milo Milodragovich, is the son of a dead drunken timber magnate who will not inherit his fortune for many years. The image that really stood out for me from the opening chapters was Milo looking out at the downtrodden people in the their dying town who are wearing his dead fathers expensive clothes that were donated on the spirit of uncharitably by his mother. The book quickly descends into drunken, drug-hazed violence. I have enjoyed pretty much everything Crumley wrote but this was the first one I read and it was one of the first books to come to mind for this list. THE SCORE by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark I love all the Parker books -- even the lesser ones in the middle -- but this was the first one I read and it was a doozy. Parker masterminds an operation to rob an entire town. I had gotten tuned into the Parker books by reading Stephen King, who talked about Westlake/Stark often after he himself was outed as Richard Bachman. This goes back to a time before you could just find whatever you wanted online and you really had to hunt down out of print books. The Score was the first one I found and devoured and through a fair amount of luck and determination have most of the series in first editions. THE HOT ROCK by Donald Westlake Allegedly Donald Westlake starting writing the Dortmunder series when he could not put Parker through such a comedic disaster of a heist writing as Richard Stark. He wrote the two book series simultaneously -- and they both did very well -- without anyone knowing the writer of the comedic capers was the same guy who wrote the brutally crisp heist novels. I actually laughed out loud several times while reading this which does not happen to me often. I have to give honorable mention here to JIMMY THE KID which was the third Dortmunder novel in which Dortmunder and the gang use a fictional Richard Stark Parker novel as the template for a job. THE DEAD ZONE by Stephen King Another tough one to hone in on since this was absolute favorite writer growing up. I went tearing backwards and forwards through Stephen Kings catalog after staying up all night reading this book. I would have to say this is the one that has stayed with me the longest. I was a young kid when I read this and needless to say it was not like anything I had ever encountered before. I have always been a sucker for the little dirt roads that are the lives of minor characters that King takes you down in his books and there was plenty of that in here. As he wrote later into his career the meandering got to be a little much and as such I came very close to picking the tight collection of tight stories that is DIFFERENT SEASONS. Also for my aforementioned love of Stark/Westlake I have to at least nod in the direction of THE DARK HALF. SLAM by Lewis Shiner This is a weird small book about a guy who gets out of prison, learns how to use a computer and hangs out with some skate kids. It is the most cyberpunk, skate punk, and just actual punk book I have ever read. ANUBIS GATES by Tim Powers There are so many mind-blowing images in this time travel fantasy novel that is just unfathomable to me that HBO or Netflix or anyone who makes great genre television has not jumped on this book to make it into an epic mini-series. I used to think it would have to be animated to be filmable but nothing is unfilmable anymore. Images that remain with me vividly include a stilted clown living in a belfry and an armada of homunculi in egg shell boats paddling by night across a body of water. A FIRING OFFENSE by George Pelecanos I am not exactly sure which of the three books in the Nick Stefanos trilogy the moment occurred but I think it was this first book. I have always loved crime novels but rarely -- I realized, reading this book -- did i share a common cultural experience with the characters in those books. Either the books were written in another era or the characters would hate whatever transgressive music -- rap, punk, new wave -- I might like at various points in my life. I was reading this trilogy on an airplane with my headphones in and listening to Let It Be by The Replacements as I got to a section of the book where Stefanos also listened to a track by the same band. That moment completely reordered my crime pecking order and Pelecanos -- who uses music to create a sense of place and time better than anyone in the business -- moved up the charts with a bullet. SAVAGE SEASON by Joe R. Lansdale Hap and Leonard are two of my favorite characters in all of crime fiction and this was this was the first book they appeared in. Nothing about a Lansdale book every goes quite the way you expect from the friendship between Vietnam War conscientious objector Hap Collins to gay Vietnam War veteran Leonard Pine to the slice into the dark underbelly of rural America that somehow always manages to shock and repel me. If you have not seen COLD IN JULY, which is based on a Lansdale book of the same vintage, I strongly recommend it. The same filmmakers are currently working on a Hap and. Leonard TV series for the Sundance Channel. SNOW CRASH by Neil Stephenson Ninjas, amirite? For a book that was dismissed by some as a parody of cyberpunk when it was released it certainly had a much longer lasting impact on me than almost any of its predecessors. I cannot think of many other books that so successfully blended satire, roller coaster action, and visionary, world-changing futurism so effortlessly. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain Best opening line from any novel in my opinion -- an opinion it turns out I share with Stephen King, who used the line I his dedication for his latest novel. You know completely what kind shiftless drifter you are going to be traveling with from the top of page one. “They threw me off the hay truck about noon.” HONORABLE MENTIONS (any of which could be shuffled interchangeably into my list of 10) THE LAST COIN by James Blaylock WHEN THE SACRED GINMILL CLOSES by Lawrence Block GRAVEYARD FOR LUNATICS by Ray Bradbury THE BIG NOWHERE by James Ellroy RED DRAGON by Thomas Harris LIVE BY NIGHT by Dennis Lehane GET SHORTY by Elmore Leonard GUN WITH OCCASIONAL MUSIC by Jonathan Lethem GHOST STORY by Peter Straub AFTER DARK, MY SWEET by Jim Thompson CHINAMANS CHANCE by Ross Thomas BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS by Kurt Vonnegut THE PICK UP by Charles Willeford
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 03:01:50 +0000
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