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A review by unabridgedchick
Mystery Girl by David Gordon
4.0
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.