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3.11 AVERAGE
3.11 AVERAGE
The jacket blurb sums this novel up perfectly: It’s as if Tarantino had remade Vertigo after bingeing on Nero Wolfe novels.
Our hero, Sam Kornberg, loves modern, experimental fiction; his best friend works in a video store and trade in the obscure and hard-to-find, the cultish and beloved. His foxy wife surprises him by walking out and that propels him into job hunting.
The only job he gets is with the agoraphobic, morbidly obese Solar Lonsky, a detective-slash-armchair-psychologist who hires Sam to do the running around he can't do. The assignment is to keep tabs on a 'mysterious girl', a young woman named Mona, who is wild and pretty. Following her, literally, takes him through Los Angeles and along the coast, until something happens (sorry! don't want to give it away!) Sam realizes his seemingly simple case is far more complicated.
Gordon's writing style is the star, although the characters are a very close second. The novel is primary narrated by Sam, but now and then another character pops in to fill out the story. And Sam's voice hooked me from the first line. He's wry, dry, self-deprecating and very smart, and while he might border on maddening at times, he also completely charmed me.
While funny, this is hardly a fluffy or silly mystery. Real crime, real (awkward) sex, real blood, real anguish. It's about Los Angeles, and the film industry, and small businesses, vocations and passion. It's a story of the geeks, the outsiders who find love in the obscure, who find each other; and it's about loss, letting go, moving on.
Perfect for the summer, I picked it up Sunday morning and didn't stop until it ended, which meant I skipped swimming, strawberries, and a hike, but it was absolutely worth it. I'm having a hard time shaking the bittersweet humor and surprising tenderness.
Our hero, Sam Kornberg, loves modern, experimental fiction; his best friend works in a video store and trade in the obscure and hard-to-find, the cultish and beloved. His foxy wife surprises him by walking out and that propels him into job hunting.
The only job he gets is with the agoraphobic, morbidly obese Solar Lonsky, a detective-slash-armchair-psychologist who hires Sam to do the running around he can't do. The assignment is to keep tabs on a 'mysterious girl', a young woman named Mona, who is wild and pretty. Following her, literally, takes him through Los Angeles and along the coast, until something happens (sorry! don't want to give it away!) Sam realizes his seemingly simple case is far more complicated.
Gordon's writing style is the star, although the characters are a very close second. The novel is primary narrated by Sam, but now and then another character pops in to fill out the story. And Sam's voice hooked me from the first line. He's wry, dry, self-deprecating and very smart, and while he might border on maddening at times, he also completely charmed me.
What job did I (or she, really) think I could get? By training and nature, I was equipped to do nothing but lie thusly and think deep thoughts. I blamed my hardworking parents for encouraging me to obtain a useless, outrageously expensive, and still unpaid-for education best suited to a minor nineteenth-century aristocrat. I could read philosophy and discuss paintings. Not that I ever did, but I could, if I had to, in an emergency. (p11)
While funny, this is hardly a fluffy or silly mystery. Real crime, real (awkward) sex, real blood, real anguish. It's about Los Angeles, and the film industry, and small businesses, vocations and passion. It's a story of the geeks, the outsiders who find love in the obscure, who find each other; and it's about loss, letting go, moving on.
Perfect for the summer, I picked it up Sunday morning and didn't stop until it ended, which meant I skipped swimming, strawberries, and a hike, but it was absolutely worth it. I'm having a hard time shaking the bittersweet humor and surprising tenderness.
Mystery Girl can be simply described as a pulpy mystery novel–handsome detective, beautiful women, crime, drugs, sex, etc. Sam Kornberg is no Philip Marlowe (which in some ways is a good thing), but he’s a pretty hilarious narrator. In fact, Mystery Girl is full of characters who are larger than life (no pun intended, in the case of Kornberg’s detective boss) and quite chuckle-worthy. The plot itself is just ridiculous (in a good way).
The mystery aspect of Mystery Girl is very good–it’s suspenseful and well-written. I had parts of it figured out here and there before the end, but I couldn’t figure out how it all tied together until the very end, which is a good thing. Had Gordon stuck to the mystery and Kornberg’s personal life, this would have been a great mystery novel.
Aside from one small annoyance (that you can read about in my full review), Mystery Girl is a good book. Again, I really enjoyed the mystery itself and Gordon is a good writer. I plowed through the book because I wanted to know what happened next, which is always a good sign. I’d recommend this book to readers who like a good, modern, noir-type mystery.
Read my full review on Between the Covers...
The mystery aspect of Mystery Girl is very good–it’s suspenseful and well-written. I had parts of it figured out here and there before the end, but I couldn’t figure out how it all tied together until the very end, which is a good thing. Had Gordon stuck to the mystery and Kornberg’s personal life, this would have been a great mystery novel.
Aside from one small annoyance (that you can read about in my full review), Mystery Girl is a good book. Again, I really enjoyed the mystery itself and Gordon is a good writer. I plowed through the book because I wanted to know what happened next, which is always a good sign. I’d recommend this book to readers who like a good, modern, noir-type mystery.
Read my full review on Between the Covers...
I am not a fan of books that deceive the reader. This is one of those stories. The tone of most of the novel is entirely different from that established at the beginning of the book. The plot progresses slowly at the beginning, disappears around page 100, and then races back onto the scene in the last 20 pages. Gordon takes the reader on a weird journey through avant-garde porn and the drug scene of the 1970s using a lopsided switch from first person POV to meta fiction. The main character of the novel, Sam, calls himself "an unnovelist" because he writes books that no one, not even himself, can bring themselves to read. The books he writes have no plot and simply meander through random scenarios. I feel like I read one of Sam's worthless books.
I almost never encounter a book that I strongly dislike. This, however, was one such book.
I almost never encounter a book that I strongly dislike. This, however, was one such book.
A really enjoyable noir mystery with a hapless hero, a socially and physically challenged genius savant, femmes fatales, potentially dangerous lost films, and a plot that is maybe just slightly too convoluted. In other words, a fun read and a great ride.