----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Thornton" <
tieresias@worldnet.att.net> To: <
rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004
12:46 AM Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Anyone read this?
>
>
> > From BOOK LUST (2003) by Nancy Pearl, one of
those "best books" or "what
> > to read next if you liked ___"
books:
> >
> > | I couldn't sleep for days after I read
William Hjortsberg's FALLING
> > | ANGEL, which I'd been lured (by an
unscrupulous friend) into thinking
> > | was a aymond Chandleresque private-eye novel.
It isn't. It might
> > | share all the conventions of the hardboiled
mystery genre, but the
> > | plot--the search for a missing singer in
1950s New York--is animated
by
> > | supernatural evil, and the denouement is
stunning and disturbing.
> >
> > The title's been mentioned on the list, but
never with a review. It
came
> > out in 1978, and was made into the movie ANGEL
HEART (which I avoided)
in
> > the late eighties. Is it as good as Pearl says?
I see that No Exit has
> > it in print.
>
> I saw the movie. It was ghastly bad. Mickey Roarke
needed a shave and a
> BATH, Lisa Bonet was wooden, and DeNiro's screen
time was severely
limited.
>
> I wouldn't read the book from what I saw of this
movie.*shudder*
>
> Brian
I, too, read *Falling Angel*, but I read it when it first
came it in the late 1970s. I was in my early 20s and a less
demanding consumer of writers of the genre. Usually, I didn't
stay up late reading but this one kept me absorbed through
the then-considered "surprise" denouement. I thought it was a
masterpiece.
(Of course, I also thought *Billy Jack* was the best movie
ever produced. When I saw *Billy Jack* on the late show while
in my 30s, I couldn't believe what a truly grand misfire it
was.)
*Falling Angel* was nominated for a 1978 Edgar as best first
novel, but bowed to *Killed in the Ratings* by William L.
DeAndrea.
-- jim roberts
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