Life is Hot in Cracktown

by Buddy Giovinazzo

With echoes of Richard Price's Clockers, Life is Hot in Cracktown paints a realistic and disturbing picture of life on the edge in New York's drug-infested neighborhoods. It's a world of drug addicts, pimps, prostitutes, transsexuals, low-life criminals and the homeless, all caught in the deadly orbit of crack.

In "Miss Lonely Has a Date Tonight," a call girl's night on the town includes giving sexual favors to a brutal chauffeur in exchange for a few hits of crack, a client with a penchant for handcuffs and "that look in his eye," and a final drop-off, not on her doorstep, but in the Hudson River. "School's Out" tells the story of ten-year-old Willy, living in a drug-infested hotel, begging for money for food, learning to smoke crack, being introduced to sex by a much older woman, and falling in love with Melody, a twelve-year-old prostitute who disappears. And in "Homos off Houston," Marybeth, a transsexual, achieves a kind of grace through her commitment to her crack-addicted husband, Benny, who may or may not have AIDS.

Not since Last Exit to Brooklyn has there been a book as shocking and emotionally riveting as Life is Hot in Cracktown. The landscape is dangerous and compelling, and the insight with which Giovinazzo stakes out his territory makes this an important and impressive work of original fiction.

Genres: Canon, Short Stories, Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Buddy Giovinazzo is a filmmaker and author, perhaps best known for his shocking debut film Combat Shock about a troubled Vietnam War veteran. He holds a Masters in Cinema from College of Staten Island.

Reviews

[Chak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buddy Giovinazzo writes with a stark level of realism that pulls you into a story like no other, but can be difficult to read. I loved the visceral, raw characters, but they are so very real that reading about the horror that comprises their lives was a bit much for me. Hell, this book was way too much for me. Who am I kidding? I am a fan of Mr. Giovinazzo's books and movies, but they challenge the reader/viewer, sometimes too much. I did enjoy "Poetry and Purgatory" (also by Buddy Giovinazzo) more. But no one writes modern urban bleak like this guy!

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is what life keeps giving you the short end of the stick over and over again, and not only is it short, but it's also covered in dog sh*t!

[Antonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really feel like the author was smoking Crack when he wrote this.

[Alexander Jäger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hart!!Nichts für zart besaitete.Mir hat es gefallen,der Stil ist gewöhnungsbedürftig.

[Tara Donahue · Rating 4 out of 5]

simply insane

[Not Here · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrifying, yet perhaps necessarily so?
Enthralling and gripping (too tightly, in fact), yet perhaps necessarily so?

[Egghead · Rating 4 out of 5]

endless misery
punctuated by violence
hope not even thought

[xCoffeeGhoulx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this first as a movie and then read the book. Very much gritty with a transgressive vibe to it, reminds me a lot of Hubert Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice collection of short stories with an insane pulp touch. The characters that populate the stories are cruel, yet often portrayed warmly and humanely. I was very put off by the first story, but by the second story I was glad that I had kept on reading.

The author biography at the back of my 1995 edition says that the author is a movie director who at the time is turning down offers from Hollywood because he doesn't want his movies watered down to superficial horror comedies. A look at Wikipedia then reveals that he migrated to Germany quite a while ago and that in the meantime he's directed the Münster Tatort and Wilsberg? Maybe he should have taken those offers from Hollywood.