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thomasroche's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting gothic sort of ultra-noir crime novel, but just plain depressing. Gorgeous at points, but not all that convincing. Beautiful but haphazard. More like a one-star plot execution, but two extra stars for the completely amazing tone, atmosphere and style. The guy's an incredible writer, I'm just not sure this was a novel.
janhicks's review
2.0
I'm a fan of Derek Raymond's Factory series, and my husband bought me Nightmare on the Street because I'm a completist. Posthumously published, this forgotten typescript reads like a skeleton of ideas waiting for the flesh of narrative flow to be added. I skim-read huge chunks of text where lots of words were saying nothing much. I'd hazard a guess that only a fifth of the book is actually story with a plot.
On the whole, it's a mixture of polemic and dialectics - almost like reading the ravings of a madman having a conversation with himself. It made me think of Wilde or Coward in tone on a couple of occasions.
It's more a ghost story than a crime novel. Crimes happen, but they're not that significant to the story. Only one crime matters, and it leaves the main character haunted and raving with madness.
There are echoes of scenes in the Factory novels - a chippy detective at odds with the system who believes himself to be morally superior and is fond of punching higher ranking officers finds himself suspended. A couple of the ideas in this typescript were certainly used in the final Factory book, which makes me wonder whether Raymond abandoned the typescript for a reason.
There's a line on page 171 that sums up the tone of the book: "He thought he had probably never grown up much after sixteen." The florid, over emotional outbursts about love and justice are quite juvenile in tone, especially the daydreaming about Madonna-Slut stereotypical women.
In all, I think it would have been better to leave this 2/5s work unpublished. If you're a Factory series aficionado, give it a miss. You'll be disappointed.
On the whole, it's a mixture of polemic and dialectics - almost like reading the ravings of a madman having a conversation with himself. It made me think of Wilde or Coward in tone on a couple of occasions.
It's more a ghost story than a crime novel. Crimes happen, but they're not that significant to the story. Only one crime matters, and it leaves the main character haunted and raving with madness.
There are echoes of scenes in the Factory novels - a chippy detective at odds with the system who believes himself to be morally superior and is fond of punching higher ranking officers finds himself suspended. A couple of the ideas in this typescript were certainly used in the final Factory book, which makes me wonder whether Raymond abandoned the typescript for a reason.
There's a line on page 171 that sums up the tone of the book: "He thought he had probably never grown up much after sixteen." The florid, over emotional outbursts about love and justice are quite juvenile in tone, especially the daydreaming about Madonna-Slut stereotypical women.
In all, I think it would have been better to leave this 2/5s work unpublished. If you're a Factory series aficionado, give it a miss. You'll be disappointed.
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