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One Hit Wonders
Lila is dead. And the likely suspects are all men: her flash-in-the-pan literary husband, a washed up golf pro turned criminal with a cocaine habit, and two small-time thugs looking for the perfect score. As a crime novel for a new age, this is sex, drugs, and a story that unfolds as a map of bad intentions. In One Hit Wonders, Patrick Warner weaves an energetic tale that is part caper and part murder mystery relentlessly satiric, brutally funny, and obsessively readable.
270 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 2, 2021
Yet again a publisher in here praising its own author. Come on. Do you think, Breakwater, your opinion influences anyone except negatively? This is a readers' forum, is it not? Not a marketing site. Breakwater gives its author 5 stars. There's a shock...
Reserving judgment on the book until finished. Judgment on Breakwater already made.
Update: halfway through and bored by the entire business. Flipping ahead to find out when, if Lila actually gets killed and things move toward the end. Not sure what this is:Elmore Leonard wannabe hobbling his plot and action with laboured philosophizing and structure too obviously conceived to engage by its own clever design: it's neither clever nor engaging. Central casting hoodlums, small town terrorism... Halfway through, as I say, and flipping ahead. Surely something must happen at some point? Is there a point? Is there an answer to 'so what?'
A book like this with its gimmicky style and plot driven (is it?) by its presumed readers' desire to find the truth among unthruths needs a strong editor and strong characters. Editor? Consider one who lets pass such things as notes written on prison STATIONARY (a bike, one assumes) and characters weakened by their lack of dimension and increasing annoyance factor. 40 pp. left and slogging thru more fictional truths in the form of diary entries and therapy sessions... Seriously?
I don't care how it ends so long as it does. Seems this guy made a list of narrative devices, determined to use as many as possible in one book. Makes for a literary exercise, not a novel.
Reserving judgment on the book until finished. Judgment on Breakwater already made.
Update: halfway through and bored by the entire business. Flipping ahead to find out when, if Lila actually gets killed and things move toward the end. Not sure what this is:Elmore Leonard wannabe hobbling his plot and action with laboured philosophizing and structure too obviously conceived to engage by its own clever design: it's neither clever nor engaging. Central casting hoodlums, small town terrorism... Halfway through, as I say, and flipping ahead. Surely something must happen at some point? Is there a point? Is there an answer to 'so what?'
A book like this with its gimmicky style and plot driven (is it?) by its presumed readers' desire to find the truth among unthruths needs a strong editor and strong characters. Editor? Consider one who lets pass such things as notes written on prison STATIONARY (a bike, one assumes) and characters weakened by their lack of dimension and increasing annoyance factor. 40 pp. left and slogging thru more fictional truths in the form of diary entries and therapy sessions... Seriously?
I don't care how it ends so long as it does. Seems this guy made a list of narrative devices, determined to use as many as possible in one book. Makes for a literary exercise, not a novel.
December 31, 2015
This was an enjoyable read but some of the technique and subject matter bothered me.
First, I am not a fan of writers writing about writers. It's overdone, cliché, and arguably lazy. Write about plumbers or car mechanics or jet pilots. Every time I read a writer writing about how difficult writing is I want to slap them: yes, we all get it. But honestly, who cares? *end pet peeve* Warner did a great job writing about a writer, and about writers. His approach was unique, as much as unique can be on this subject, and throughout the story we feel as if we are being pulled into this writer's novel. We wonder what is true and what is not, and this dreamy, uncomfortableness grows and grows. I felt disjointed, as if maybe I had been drugged.
Much of the story is told in past tense and I found it somewhat telling. I felt disappointed I didn't experience the major events but was told about them afterwards, sometimes from ephemeral positions. I am not saying it needed to be told differently or that this doesn't work, but a haunting feeling of being cheated balances the positives of this structure.
Overall, Patrick Warner can write. He gives us a fine example on pages 233 and 238, sort of before editing and after editing snapshots of prose. I won't say much more, but every page, every paragraph, every sentence, and nearly every word worked, and it worked very well. This man can lay down the lines!
The words that did not work were very subtle. Freddy has never driven and argues he cannot drive, yet he has no trouble discerning fourth gear in a beat up Mexican van. I remember when I first drove and had to be told where the gears were and was made to learn them before we moved. Way back when cars were started with cranks. There is a line about only one ferry in service on the Tickle. Warner doesn't state the station, but the only station I've heard that on was CBC and they always said ",The ferries are running on the Tickle." Took me a month to figure out what a Tickle was. His line is plausible and probably accurate, but my short-lived life in St. John's disagreed with the line. It's me, not the story. The other lines, especially about the moose on the outer ring road, brought me back to St. John's in a concrete way. His descriptions were just enough to keep the prose focused on the conflict but detailed enough to fly me back to one of my favorite cities. Looking at the rooftops from Harvey Road! My old stomping grounds. :)
Overall a book anybody who writes should read. Warner explores technique you will not find elsewhere. It is also a book non-writers should read. This story has an important lesion: what goes around comes around!
First, I am not a fan of writers writing about writers. It's overdone, cliché, and arguably lazy. Write about plumbers or car mechanics or jet pilots. Every time I read a writer writing about how difficult writing is I want to slap them: yes, we all get it. But honestly, who cares? *end pet peeve* Warner did a great job writing about a writer, and about writers. His approach was unique, as much as unique can be on this subject, and throughout the story we feel as if we are being pulled into this writer's novel. We wonder what is true and what is not, and this dreamy, uncomfortableness grows and grows. I felt disjointed, as if maybe I had been drugged.
Much of the story is told in past tense and I found it somewhat telling. I felt disappointed I didn't experience the major events but was told about them afterwards, sometimes from ephemeral positions. I am not saying it needed to be told differently or that this doesn't work, but a haunting feeling of being cheated balances the positives of this structure.
Overall, Patrick Warner can write. He gives us a fine example on pages 233 and 238, sort of before editing and after editing snapshots of prose. I won't say much more, but every page, every paragraph, every sentence, and nearly every word worked, and it worked very well. This man can lay down the lines!
The words that did not work were very subtle. Freddy has never driven and argues he cannot drive, yet he has no trouble discerning fourth gear in a beat up Mexican van. I remember when I first drove and had to be told where the gears were and was made to learn them before we moved. Way back when cars were started with cranks. There is a line about only one ferry in service on the Tickle. Warner doesn't state the station, but the only station I've heard that on was CBC and they always said ",The ferries are running on the Tickle." Took me a month to figure out what a Tickle was. His line is plausible and probably accurate, but my short-lived life in St. John's disagreed with the line. It's me, not the story. The other lines, especially about the moose on the outer ring road, brought me back to St. John's in a concrete way. His descriptions were just enough to keep the prose focused on the conflict but detailed enough to fly me back to one of my favorite cities. Looking at the rooftops from Harvey Road! My old stomping grounds. :)
Overall a book anybody who writes should read. Warner explores technique you will not find elsewhere. It is also a book non-writers should read. This story has an important lesion: what goes around comes around!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews