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A literary exploration of one man's quest to find meaning through the eye of an out-dated film camera, the desert, and two women who just may or may not love him after all.
- GenresFiction
148 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2005
1 person is currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
Les Plesko
21 books37 followersMy new book, Who I Was, is now available through Small World Books in Venice, CA, on amazon (type my name) or by visiting blog.whoiwasthebook.com.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 14, 2009
Best book in the whole wide world!
May 5, 2014
Les Plesko died on Monday and I'm rereading all his books--Slow Lie Detector's the second one, with a far sparer poetry than the Last Bongo Sunset and extremely beautiful in its own way. Pared to the bone, they're scenes from a non-existent movie, something that should have been shot by Antonioni in the high desert of Southern California, a love story in the ultimate Plesko sense, where it's a half-bleached out film, a set of polaroids and you have to enter that world to see past the edges. Beautiful, quiet, romantic in all senses and grainy as an old film. Les you had the detector, always.
October 16, 2010
Review copy from author/Signed
I wasn't always sure where this book was headed, what the characters were doing, or even what their purpose was... But I loved the ebb and flow, and the amazing sentence structure. Les Plesko's chapters were a short page and a half each, the words woven together so fluidly that I had finished reading the novel before I had even really begun.
The cover caught a lot of attention. I was reading it at the gym while my kids were practicing their Jiu Jitsu, and though I read there every night and no one usually says a word, on this particular night everyone was asking what the book was about. They wanted to see the cover, feel it, they were interested to hear what it was about. They saw me jotting down notes and asked to read them. I was slightly embarrassed and secretly thrilled that a book could draw so much attention - at a GYM no less!
Les Plesko's novel doesn't need a summary, heck - it doesn't even have a cover blurb, it really doesn't matter what the story is about. But I can't look at someone and say "I just read the words and let them take me where they will".
So if I had to sum it up, here is what I would say:
It's about this guy, Max, who wants to make a film. A film about real things. A film that catches every moment of everyone's lives. A documentary of life. And while he is driving and filming out the window of the car, he stops and picks up this chick, Winn, who he falls for, but she is married to a sailor. Somehow her sailor husband tracks her down, and finds her with Max. And then there's this weird love triangle between Max, Winn, and her husband. Then Max knocks up Winn, and her husband accepts this, until Winn has the baby, and tells her husband that the baby looks like him, which pisses him off and he leaves.
The story then follows the roller coaster of a relationship between Max, and Winn, and their very many additional 'partners'. It deals with infidelity in such a real yet abstract way.
Don't let that be the selling point though. Take a look at the writing:
"The best understanding that he had of himself was always second hand".
"Bad thoughts were alright, only what you did counted, not what you thought, how you felt".
"Did you drink because you felt bad, or did the drinking become the badness"?
"He did ordinary things that were made extraordinary from it".
The novel takes each character's personal emotions and exposes them for everyone to see. The author cracks open each person's chest, and allows the reader to pull back the skin and crawl inside. To live in the moment with them. To know what they think, and what they feel, and why they act the way they do. His characters are vulnerable, and honest, and as real as his words can make them. They are ugly, damaged, ruined people - these characters - and they are unapologetic. They are human, and make mistakes, and accept each others faults.
And that is what makes this novel such an amazing read.
I wasn't always sure where this book was headed, what the characters were doing, or even what their purpose was... But I loved the ebb and flow, and the amazing sentence structure. Les Plesko's chapters were a short page and a half each, the words woven together so fluidly that I had finished reading the novel before I had even really begun.
The cover caught a lot of attention. I was reading it at the gym while my kids were practicing their Jiu Jitsu, and though I read there every night and no one usually says a word, on this particular night everyone was asking what the book was about. They wanted to see the cover, feel it, they were interested to hear what it was about. They saw me jotting down notes and asked to read them. I was slightly embarrassed and secretly thrilled that a book could draw so much attention - at a GYM no less!
Les Plesko's novel doesn't need a summary, heck - it doesn't even have a cover blurb, it really doesn't matter what the story is about. But I can't look at someone and say "I just read the words and let them take me where they will".
So if I had to sum it up, here is what I would say:
It's about this guy, Max, who wants to make a film. A film about real things. A film that catches every moment of everyone's lives. A documentary of life. And while he is driving and filming out the window of the car, he stops and picks up this chick, Winn, who he falls for, but she is married to a sailor. Somehow her sailor husband tracks her down, and finds her with Max. And then there's this weird love triangle between Max, Winn, and her husband. Then Max knocks up Winn, and her husband accepts this, until Winn has the baby, and tells her husband that the baby looks like him, which pisses him off and he leaves.
The story then follows the roller coaster of a relationship between Max, and Winn, and their very many additional 'partners'. It deals with infidelity in such a real yet abstract way.
Don't let that be the selling point though. Take a look at the writing:
"The best understanding that he had of himself was always second hand".
"Bad thoughts were alright, only what you did counted, not what you thought, how you felt".
"Did you drink because you felt bad, or did the drinking become the badness"?
"He did ordinary things that were made extraordinary from it".
The novel takes each character's personal emotions and exposes them for everyone to see. The author cracks open each person's chest, and allows the reader to pull back the skin and crawl inside. To live in the moment with them. To know what they think, and what they feel, and why they act the way they do. His characters are vulnerable, and honest, and as real as his words can make them. They are ugly, damaged, ruined people - these characters - and they are unapologetic. They are human, and make mistakes, and accept each others faults.
And that is what makes this novel such an amazing read.
August 18, 2009
writing with hidden undertones, messages, lives. we all have a darwin in our head. awesome work by an awesome guy. loved it.
January 25, 2010
An odd story of odd people. An odd love story of odd people -- just like you and me.
September 24, 2013
This book is so cinematic. I loved it. I saw every brush stroke.
December 6, 2015
Broken into chapters of a uniform, concise length, Les Plesko’s Slow Lie Detector, a romantic tragedy set in rootless poverty, can be finished in time for lunch. This is a road story along the artist’s way. No pot of money or triumph of achievement awaits at the dark end of that street. A ride along is safe enough, Plesko seems to be saying, but commit to this route at your own risk.
June 11, 2012
Beautiful poetry, but lots of empty space.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews