A few weeks ago, I asked here for info about the novels by
Andrew McGahan, Australian writer.
Finally I've red his novel LAST DRINKS (2000),
and it was a good surprise.
The book is about ordinary corruption in
Brisbane, the alliance between political control, civil
servants and "entrepreneurs". The background of the novel is
a real fact: in 1987-89 a huge political scam was heavily
investigated and put on court, involving the highest
political personnel of Queensland.
Here it's described as seen by an insider,
passively participating to the system through a small part of
it, and the book starts when he discovers that one of his
best friends of the past was brutally murdered in a place not
far from the small forgotten mountain town where he lives now
after the Great Investigation, the official cleansing.
The whole story is a clever analysis of
corruption without the too easy manichaeism exaggeration so
often seen in some novels handling the same subject. In LAST
DRINKS they are all culprits and accomplices: not only the
corrupters but also the ordinary folks, the average
population of the State of Queensland, believing in
opportunistic official tales about simplicity and glorified
idiocy.
On top of this: a good description of alcoholism
as a social plague. Alcohol: The remedy to avoid to look at
the real life, here IMO a symbolism of the conscience
occultation that ordinary corruption requires to survive by
its participants- as *all* the main characters are hardcore
alcoholics in the novel.
The whole story is told by the main character in
a novel extremely well constructed and beautifully written.
It's dark, melancholic (not nostalgic) and rather
pessimistic.
A first class noir novel, pure melancholy Noir.
Even if there are some weaknesses in its very last
developments.
Highly recommended.
I'm not sure, however, that the following novels
published by McGahan are still belonging to "mystery
noir".
E.Borgers
HARD-BOILED MYSTERIES
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384/
---------------------------------
Ne gardez plus qu'une seule adresse mail ! Copiez vos
mails vers Yahoo! Mail
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 15 Jun 2007 EDT