Bolt Risk

by Ann Wood

Charles Bukowksi, Hubert Selby Jr., and Denis Johnson are familiar names in the literature about the druggies, rockers, criminals, and whores who habituate the dark side of American fiction, but there are few women writers in the club. Enter Ann Wood, an award-winning journalist who’s been down and out and survived to laugh it off. With a frighteningly matter-of-fact style and no social agenda, Wood is an American original who writes like a female Charles crude, rude, and raw; often very funny, sometimes shocking, disarmingly poignant, and incredibly readable. In a story with parallels to the author’s own life, Bolt Risk is an unapologetic bildungsroman about a young woman from an exclusive New England college who becomes a personal assistant, otherwise known as a “paid butt-wiper,” to a Hollywood sitcom star.  Fleeing the boredom of the tinsel town fringe, she lands a job as an exotic dancer and falls for Adam, lead guitarist of the popular thrash band Z, six feet four inches of raw talent, stud beauty, and unrestrained ego. Thus begins a droll and harrowing ride through the underworld of Los Angeles strip clubs, dive bars, and drug motels that sends her to a mental hospital, where she is astutely classified as a “bolt risk,” a kid who is very likely to escape.  Here the author re-creates the absurd daily world of Girl, Interrupted with a remarkable toughness that laughs in the face of institutional horror. Ann Wood writes like few women before her. If Charles Bukowski had been a woman, Bolt Risk might have been his first novel. Ann Wood graduated from Bennington College before heading to Hollywood, where she became an exotic dancer. She is currently a newspaper staff reporter and first-place winner of the New England Press Association Award for Arts and Entertainment.

160 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

Reviews

[Xavier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast and interesting read. I liked the pacing of the story and how it segued into other parts of the story. It felt more like an aside explaining the backstory to the backstory rather than a jarring separation. The main character kept describing "speed time" where time would just fly by as she was snorting the drug. I've never taken speed but narrating the story in this "speedy" mindset really helped to convey the main character.

[Caty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this on the street and read it at the recommendation of my therapist who probably thinks i need to chill TF out. Classic tale of young free woman having lots of sex and doing lots of drugs, great beach read.

[John Butero · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst book i have read.

[Maha Aoki · Rating 1 out of 5]

I want my $7.50 back

[dead letter office · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is just bad. Unless you have a voyeuristic desire to read crappy fiction about sex and drugs in LA, this has no redeeming features. There's no plot, and the writing is amateurish and unremarkable.

The blurb on the back of the book says, "If Charles Bukowski had been a woman, Bolt Risk might have been his first novel". This strikes me as very hypothetical, and along these lines I would like to add that if Zadie Smith had spent her early twenties experimenting heavily with meth during the two weeks it took her to dash it off, Bolt Risk might have been her first novel. Also, if Bubba Paris hadn't gotten fat, he might have been the best left tackle ever to play in the NFL, and if Kim Il Sung had had started planning immediately when he took office in 1948, North Korea might have been the first nation to put a monkey into space.

Just not worth the time at all.