Headlock

by Adam Berlin

This “powerful debut novel” follows two cousins on a dangerous road trip from New York to Las Vegas ( Booklist , starred review). Odessa Rose is the kind of guy who gives the term “hair-trigger temper” a whole new meaning. His violent nature has, more than once, produced blood. Dess was a college wrestling star who blew it all just shy of graduation when he lost a match and beat another wrestler to a pulp. Since his inglorious dismissal from college, he’s been parking cars for a living in downtown New York. It’s there that his cousin Gary finds him and lures him away to Las Vegas. Gary has some uncontrollable impulses of his hugely overweight, he’s a compulsive gambler, playing fast and loose with thousands of dollars. But now there’s an enforcer tailing him, a sunglasses-wearing thug who has no trouble breaking hands, arms, legs. Gary needs protection in Vegas. Who better than his strong, volatile cousin Dess? What do you do when you’re at a crossroads in life? When you want to be a different person than the one who’s made all the wrong choices? When your strength has become your greatest weakness? Headlock is “a brutal and potent debut novel . . . A grim, suspenseful drama to the end” ( Valley Advocate ). “Odessa Rose has a violent temper and a wrestler’s strength, both inherited from his Russian immigrant grandfather, having skipped the generation of his father the economics professor . . . Gary’s uncontrolled appetites and Dess’s uncontrolled anger add to the tension of the trip, which is really about self-examination and redemption. The cousins struggle with the Rose family legend of a grandfather who fought hard and worked hard for the sake of the family, a family from which they are alienated. A powerful debut novel with fascinating characters.” — Booklist , starred review

265 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Adam Berlin is the author of the post-9/11 novel The Number of Missing (Spuyten Duyvil), the boxing novel Both Members of the Club (Texas Review Press/ winner of the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize), Belmondo Style (St. Martin’s Press/winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley Award) and Headlock (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). His stories and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. He teaches writing at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and co-edits the literary mag J Journal: New Writing on Justice. For more, please visit adamberlin.com

Reviews

[Jayson Scott]

Personally I really enjoyed this book. It shows you that sometimes you need to keep a cool head in certain situations. Rose used to wrestle like his grandfather until he got in one to many fights and got kicked off the team. He then started working at a garage parking cars as a valet for a living. He felt like he was a disappointment. Then his high rolling cousin Gary comes into town with his jaguar sports car. Gary then convinces Odessa to drop his job and go to Vegas with him. On the way there Gary teaches Odessa the secret to counting cards in hopes of getting rich in Vegas. While in Vegas Odessa realizes that someone is tailing Gary because he owes large amounts of money to very bad people. Odessa said he really wanted to go to California because hes never been. That is why Gary was so persistent for his strong wrestler cousin to come, for protection. Odessa just wanted to start over and make all of the wrong decisions that he has made in life right again. Odessa then has another decision to make. Either help protect his obese cousin while he cheated in a casino to pay these mobsters that are after him, or go back to his boring life in New York where he felt like a disappointment. After a couple run ins with the mobsters Gary and Odessa make their way to California with only a broken knee on Gary. This book explains that in life you will be making many decisions and that you will not always make the right ones, but it is how you recover from those decisions. When I first picked up the book I thought it was going to be more about wrestling but it is not, it is more in the mind of a former wrestler. I would recommend this book to most people especially if you are a wrestler because you can relate on some levels with the main character.

[Trevor]

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was very interesting and kept me entertained. The book never really bored me, the author did a good job on entertaining the reader. It may seem like the book is just about fighting, because of title, but it's not.

This book is mainly about this kid named Odessa Rose and he goes on trip across the country with his cousin Gary Rose. Why did Odessa go with him? Well I don't want to give it away, so you will have to find out.

I recommend this book to anyone that likes a good laugh, violence, and some sick humor. But I don't recommend it to to anyone that does not like explicit language, sexual content, and violence.

[Bart · Rating 2 out of 5]

For my full review of Adam Berlin's work, please see here:

http://www.15rounds.com/adam-berlin-t...

[John Haggerty]

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