I came across GOD IS A BULLET at a local B&N earlier this
week and
wasn't too impressed with some of the overblown rhetoric I
came across
when flipping through pages at random, but, having not read
the book I
decided to refrain from comment when the subject came up on
this list.
I noticed this review of the book in today's Washington Post,
so I
thought I'd pass it along. Cheers.
# # # # # # # # #
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-04/04/192l-040499-idx.h
tml
Bloody Rites in the Desert
Reviewed by Bliss Broyard
Sunday, April 4, 1999; Page X06
The Washington Post
GOD IS A BULLET
By Boston Teran
Knopf. 302 pp. $24
I happened to read God Is a Bullet while visiting a part of
California
not far from the deserts where much of the novel takes place.
My friend
and I were sitting in a hot spring in the middle of a cattle
ranch under
a pale moon and miles from any civilization. If it had been a
scene from
Boston Teran's debut novel, we would soon have found
ourselves
surrounded by a gang of blood-hungry junkies, to be tortured,
raped,
stuffed inside an animal carcass and/or eviscerated as
dictated by the
whims of Cyrus, ringleader for a devil-worshiping cult, the
Left-Handed
Path.
In God Is a Bullet Cyrus kidnaps 13-year-old Gabi, and much
of the
action involves a rescue chase across Southern California and
into
Mexico by her father, Bob Hightower, a God-fearing police
sheriff, and
Case Hardin, an ex-junkie and ex-Left-Handed Path member who
was
inducted into the cult when she was 12. But despite the
frequent
references to Helter Skelter, Son of Sam, the Polly Klaas
case, and Mein
Kampf to remind us that unfathomable evil does exist in the
world, the
exploration of the darker side of human nature within these
pages feels
only skin (or rather celluloid) deep.
At many turns, one can imagine Teran asking himself, What
would Quentin
Tarantino do here? From the dialogue ("I'm the belly of the
beast now,
Captain. So consider yourself swallowed." Or "Blood and
bones, baby
doll. It's all crossing over time") to the cast of characters
(a speed
freak named Granny Boy communicates primarily in
rock-and-roll lyrics)
to the images ("he is naked now, swigging tequila and firing
his pistol
into the heart of the sky, his prosthetic arm and leg
twitching madly
with each shot"), much of the book feels camera-ready. These
same
ingredients -- which will undoubtedly make the book a hot
movie property
-- also make it fun to read if one takes it as a slightly
over-the-top,
brilliantly paced, suspense-packed, often clever, richly
imagined
thriller. But as the title suggests, the author has loftier
ambitions.
Let's see. Some of the philosophical ground covered here
includes the
contagion of corruption in a community; the need to take
personal
responsibility for one's fate; the thin line between the
devout and the
deviant; what, if any, moral imperative a person should live
by; the
exclusionary, patriarchal nature of the Christian faith; and
whether
there is meaning in the world. For good measure, a few tenets
from
12-step addiction recovery programs and a running commentary
on the
media's own brand of bloodthirstiness are thrown in. Clearly,
Boston
Teran gets around. In the end, he suggests that violence is
the ultimate
authority and the only judge. He or she who lives wins, a
prize that
comes with a high price -- becoming a murderer, turning away
from your
faith, and taking the poison of evil inside you.
The problem for me lies not with these questions but with the
characters
doing the questioning and the language used to render their
emotions.
Take Bob Hightower, for example. His teenage daughter has
been abducted
by the same people who butchered his ex-wife and her husband
in "the
worst massacre since Manson" and who drowned the pet dog in
the toilet
bowl to boot; he knows about Cyrus's treatment of Case -- the
beatings,
the rapes, the forced addiction; and upon stumbling on the
site of a
recent "death rite" (in which children are forced to rape
each other and
often killed), all he can manage is to "close his eyes in
despair."
Well, not quite. A half a page later there is "desolation in
his voice"
and "devastation across the shapeless mortality of his
features."
Neither his suffering nor his faith was ever real to me;
therefore, I
couldn't become interested in his moral conflicts.
Case is an equally enigmatic figure. Her motive for seeking
out Bob and
accompanying him on his rescue mission is never fully
convincing. At one
point, Teran himself seems to give up and Case says, "I don't
judge why
I'm here. I'm just here." Again, the novel's language fails
her. Here's
Case looking at a photograph of what remains of the face of
Gabi's
stepfather: "a heartless host of the horribles comes warring
up through
her belly."
It's hard not to admire God Is a Bullet for all its gory
glory and
attempts to tackle such issues as the nature of good and
evil. It's even
harder to put the book down. But as with many movies of this
sort, in
the end its impact fades to black.
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