The Sweet Ride

by William Murray

*Here are the cats who get their kicks from sex, acid and assorted turned-on sensations *You'll meet Choo Choo and the jazzman. Mousie, the dirty-talking star of nudie movies. Denny, king of the surfers. And Vickie, the all American girl gone wrong. Then there's the nightmarish Jimmy, Jawbone, and Moron Jane. *The scene is a shack on the Malibu beach. The story explodes to the beat of the surf, the revv of a motorcycle, the blast of an orgy. The action is all the kicky pleasures of the drop-out generation. *And it's a shocker all the way

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

William Murray was an American fiction editor and staff writer at The New Yorker for more than thirty years. He wrote a series of mystery novels set in the world of horse racing, many featuring Shifty Lou Anderson, a professional magician and horseplayer. Among his many contributions to The New Yorker was the magazine's "Letters from Italy" of which he was the sole author. The majority of his later years were spent living in Del Mar, California, "exactly 3.2 miles from the finish line" of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. Murray died in March 2005 at age 78. Just prior to his death, Murray had completed a book about Chicago's Lyric Opera Center for American Artists.

Reviews

[Nick Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightfully lurid amalgamation of every 60s AIP film I’ve ever seen. Surfers, bikers, starlets and aging tennis hustlers mix & mingle on Malibu beach with sordid, tragic results. A heavy dose of Hollywood melodrama, late-60s slang and pseudo musings on the state of, y’know, society add to the vintage, sun-kissed fun.

[Beer Bolwijn · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first book in a long time that I had to put down. You know, kind of like putting down a doggie. I read until about page 120, until I realized it was going to be just some bogus story.

So many times the narrator tells about some boring day of a character that doesn't tie in with anything else, and fails to stand alone as engaging literature, things get dreary quickly. The narrator, Collie, sometimes reminded me Cutter from "Cutter and Bone", another washed-up thirtysomething.

Maybe the Hell's Angels were intimidating in their depiction here, but Sir Hunter S. Thompson's book is where the actual party is. Anyway, regarding the story I didn't finish, my best guess is that Denny killed that movie producer guy over what he did to Vickie, end of story. The reactions of several characters at the end - oh yeah, I forgot to mention I skipped chapters 9, 10, 11 to flip through chapters 12 and 13 - also didn't do anything to reignite my interest.

If you find yourself looking for a nice, obscure novel, look elsewhere. It reads like a bad Hollywood movie from the late 60s.

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

A physically rare book about a tennis pro spending listless days in Santa Monica until he is pulled into a deeper drama involving bikers and producers