People were discussing Connellys recently; I can't remember
if there were two or three and I can't find the thread in the
archives (too soon?).
So I picked up Crumbtown at the library. This Connelly is a
former New Yorker. His first novel was Bringing Out the Dead;
this is the second.
Bank robber Don Reedy has been released from prison on "TV
parole," meaning he has to act as a consultant for a crime
show, like many other parolees. The assistant producer (or
someone like that) doubles as his parole officer. I can just
see it happening. The story is set in an imaginary suburb of
New York. Most of the real stores, bars and restaurants serve
as TV and movie sets. It gets so it's hard to tell what's
really happening and what's being staged. Even the actors and
real people get confused.
There's a fairly comprehensive review and plot summary here.
http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/c/crumbtown.shtml
The reviewer doesn't seem to like the satirical angle, but I
enjoyed it immensely. I loved the names of the streets and
cars and drinks. No product placement here: all the brands
are made up.
I found this essay Joe Connelly wrote on moving to the
Adirondacks and writing his books very interesting:
http://www.adirondacklife.com/template/ArticleDetail/assetid/28822
(halfway down the page)
He's slightly more articulate and cogent than Trevor and his
pal.
Karin
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 02 Jul 2004 EDT