Al wrote:
"According to the author, the book is based on fact."
Personally, I think this is crap in an attempt to start hype,
as Sleepers did (by the way, is Sleepers any good? I've never
read it, was put off by the false claims it had really
happened). As I wrote during the earlier discussion of the
book:
I figured out very quickly that God Is A Bullet was a
contemporary version of The Searchers if rewritten by James
Crumley. Substituting for the Indians in John Ford's classic
film is the Manson Family, with Cyrus standing in for
Charlie. Unlike Paul Shrader's Hardcore (another updated
remake of Searchers), it retains a southwestern setting, but
like that movie it splits the John Wayne character into two,
"Bob Whatever" the judgemental father and Case the
streetwise, degraded young woman who simultaneously helps the
father and serves as an object lesson on what the daughter
will become if she is not saved.
As with a lot of polarizing books which people are supposed
to either love or hate, I fell somewhere in the middle. The
"shocking" scenes were not that shocking to me and except for
a few calculatingly disgusting images (Case's memories of
being put in the belly of a cow when she was younger) most of
them are barely hinted at, or happen offstage, only to be
mentioned cryptically later on.
My problem with the book came in the characterization. None
of these characters has much depth, each filling out a stock
character and some not even that. So for me the book lagged
somewhat in the middle, during the long drives in which Case
and Bob discuss their philosophies and slowly come to know
and eventually respect and trust each other. Also, to make
Bob's turning away from his religion dramatic, I would have
to have been more convinced of his faith in the first place.
He simply changed from being extremely judgemental of "scum"
like Case, to being extremely judgemental of the hypocrisy of
upright citizens. John Wayne's character was far richer and
more complex --
SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT
-- I found his simultaneous revulsion and joy at finally
finding his niece Natalie Wood far more moving than Bob's
less conflicted response, even though Case had warned him of
just that possibility many times.
Back to the present -- I did enjoy the book, but I didn't
feel any particular urge to pick up his next one when I saw
it. However, keep in mind that I felt much the same way about
Dirty White Boys, which I would place in a similar macho
sub-genre that doesn't do that much for me.
Mark
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