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Get Poor Slow
By forty you're meant to have the face you deserve. I got the face early. It took me a while to earn it. I believe I am finally there.
Ray Saint is in trouble. A young woman is dead and he was the last person to see her alive. No one is impressed by his excuses: Ray, you see, is the most hated book reviewer in Australia - a hatchet man with a belly full of bourbon and curdled dreams of literary greatness. Now he will need all of his acid-tongued wit and even some moments of lucidity if he is to discover who murdered the beautiful publishing assistant who got so far beneath his skin.
As a battered and bloodied Ray investigates more deeply, he is obliged to face the truth: he can't be entirely sure that he isn't the killer.
'My favourite Australian literary critic, David Free instantly becomes my favourite Australian author of psychological thrillers, with this gripping tale of a literary man thoroughly screwed up by sexually intriguing women and crazy editors. Free is far too civilized for this kind of thing, which is probably why he's so disturbingly good at doing it.' Clive James
Ray Saint is in trouble. A young woman is dead and he was the last person to see her alive. No one is impressed by his excuses: Ray, you see, is the most hated book reviewer in Australia - a hatchet man with a belly full of bourbon and curdled dreams of literary greatness. Now he will need all of his acid-tongued wit and even some moments of lucidity if he is to discover who murdered the beautiful publishing assistant who got so far beneath his skin.
As a battered and bloodied Ray investigates more deeply, he is obliged to face the truth: he can't be entirely sure that he isn't the killer.
'My favourite Australian literary critic, David Free instantly becomes my favourite Australian author of psychological thrillers, with this gripping tale of a literary man thoroughly screwed up by sexually intriguing women and crazy editors. Free is far too civilized for this kind of thing, which is probably why he's so disturbingly good at doing it.' Clive James
272 pages, Paperback
Published June 27, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 5, 2018
There were so many reasons I wanted to love GET POOR SLOW. The concept of the most hated book reviewer in Australia being the only suspect in a murder, right down to the belly full of bourbon and the curdled dreams of literary greatness sounds like great fun. And I did so like the opening lines:
I'm starting to doubt this thing will end soon. Last night one of them came up to the house. I was inside, doing what I do these days when it gets dark. No lights on, no book, no TV, no sounds, just a glass in my fist with not much left in it.
There is so much portent in the opening chapters of this novel, it drips with potential, until it doesn't. Which comes surprisingly quickly given the excellent commencement.
The writing is wonderful, it's slightly ironic, tongue in cheek with the story told from Ray's own point of view, almost a riff on the private investigator's of old. Ray's asides are as eloquent and nasty as his reviews, he's sarcastic and unflinching, and yet, not too far in, I was bored witless. Perhaps it's the coyness of the plot, which doesn't really have a lot to be coy about. Perhaps it was the general thinning of the whole reason for the tale - it's hard to spin bittered and twisted done wrong bloke for too long before it all gets a bit ho hum. Perhaps it was the sneaking suspicion that Ray Saint ain't no Rake no matter how hard he tried to be. There just wasn't quite enough bite to the humour, quite enough rakishness overall, certainly never quite the twinkle in the eye that you suspect a Rake like character needs to be forgiven over and over again. Maybe it was because at one point Saint started to feel like his favourite thing was him - it all got very self-indulgent and at that point the thinness of the overall plot really struggled for relevance in the light of the somewhat lukewarm personal character assassination.
Whatever the reasons, about half the way into GET POOR SLOW, I suddenly found myself easily distracted by the dishes, or the dusting, or anything really. Which is never a good sign.
October 11, 2017
I hadn't come across a book featuring a protagonist who works as a newspaper book critic until I read 'Get Poor Slow', which also happens to be written by one of Australia's best newspaper book critics. Here, the fictional critic in question is Ray Saint, a broke and broken alcoholic, and a failed novelist who is known for tearing strips off practically everything his editor assigns him to review.
The novel begins with Saint under siege from the press, who are camped outside his house because he was the last person to see Jade Howe alive. She was a beautiful young publishing assistant who just so happened to wind up dead, soon after she and Saint had a brief fling. Did he do it, or has he been framed? This is the question that kept me turning pages and laughing often, as Ray Saint is among the darkest, funniest characters I've seen committed to the page.
Author David Free is primarily a reviewer for The Weekend Australian, and – full disclosure – that's where he favourably reviewed my book 'Talking Smack' in 2014. I've reviewed quite a few books for that publication, too, and I greatly enjoyed the comic exaggeration he places on the diminishing role of literary critics who write for newspapers. Ray Saint loves classic literature and loathes the state of modern publishing, and his cynicism has earned him a poor reputation in the industry and a lack of wealth, too: the book's title is taken from an aside on page 130, where Saint notes, "I was getting poor much slower, before she came along."
I can't recommend this book highly enough, especially to anyone who works in publishing or the media. I think its real genius is that David Free has captured the voice of a writer who thinks he's much better than everyone else in the game, to the point where his prose reflects that opinion: at times, Saint self-consciously wonders whether he's already used a particular phrase earlier in the piece. His memory's fucked due to a childhood accident, and the booze and prescription painkillers he feeds his brain with probably aren't helping, either. Saint is the very definition of an unreliable narrator, and much of the story is devoted to trying to remember what really happened to Jade Howe. There's a great twist late in the piece, and the ending is wholly satisfying. I look forward to reading this for the second time, purely to savour the stark sharpness of Free's writing once again.
The novel begins with Saint under siege from the press, who are camped outside his house because he was the last person to see Jade Howe alive. She was a beautiful young publishing assistant who just so happened to wind up dead, soon after she and Saint had a brief fling. Did he do it, or has he been framed? This is the question that kept me turning pages and laughing often, as Ray Saint is among the darkest, funniest characters I've seen committed to the page.
Author David Free is primarily a reviewer for The Weekend Australian, and – full disclosure – that's where he favourably reviewed my book 'Talking Smack' in 2014. I've reviewed quite a few books for that publication, too, and I greatly enjoyed the comic exaggeration he places on the diminishing role of literary critics who write for newspapers. Ray Saint loves classic literature and loathes the state of modern publishing, and his cynicism has earned him a poor reputation in the industry and a lack of wealth, too: the book's title is taken from an aside on page 130, where Saint notes, "I was getting poor much slower, before she came along."
I can't recommend this book highly enough, especially to anyone who works in publishing or the media. I think its real genius is that David Free has captured the voice of a writer who thinks he's much better than everyone else in the game, to the point where his prose reflects that opinion: at times, Saint self-consciously wonders whether he's already used a particular phrase earlier in the piece. His memory's fucked due to a childhood accident, and the booze and prescription painkillers he feeds his brain with probably aren't helping, either. Saint is the very definition of an unreliable narrator, and much of the story is devoted to trying to remember what really happened to Jade Howe. There's a great twist late in the piece, and the ending is wholly satisfying. I look forward to reading this for the second time, purely to savour the stark sharpness of Free's writing once again.
August 8, 2017
Writing makes up for the thin/slow plot. Interesting take on crime/noir.
September 14, 2021
The sexy publicity girl Jade tells book reviewer Ray Saint that she has an idea for making a lot of money – to choose a really rotten writer from the slush pile at the publishers where she works and market him into fame and fortune.
‘You want to market some patsy all the way to the top?’
‘I want to try.’
‘Of course, he’d have to be no good at all.’
‘Exactly. Because that way it’d all be me.’
‘An Ern Malley for the age of spin.’
‘You think it’d work?’ Her eyes flashed wickedly.
‘I know it would. They’re doing it already. The industry thrives on overhyped shit.’
David Free is playing a trick, too. Not the same one – he’s very far from a lousy writer. But he’s taking the mickey – in this case the Mickey Spillane, with a touch of Raymond Chandler thrown in. It’s not surprising that David Free, who’s a book reviewer himself, with a jaundiced view of the industry, enjoys going right out on a limb with a central character, Ray Saint, who’s not only a monumental alcoholic and addicted to painkillers, but who manages to survive brutal assaults from bad guys and hand out a fair bit of violence himself in spite of the fact that he’s suffered from intractable pain since a childhood accident:
"Thirty years later, the thumped gong of my body is still shivering. The nerves along my spine still scream as if they got crushed yesterday."
You might say that Ray’s the full catastrophe, with bells on. Did I mention that he’s a failed novelist too, with high literary standards that have no place in modern publishing?
Sexy girls and violence aren’t the only similarity. After all, Spillane shrugged off criticism of his works with, “You can sell a lot more peanuts than caviar,” and “The literary world is made up of second rate writers writing about other second rate writers.” These are exactly the views of Ray Saint.
Some characters in the book – the literary editor Ray reviews for, and a successful author with a criminal past – I was pretty sure I recognised from the Australian literary world, and insiders would probably recognise more. I certainly did recognise the general outlines of some popular Australian novels. So it’s an enjoyable roman-à-clef, a nice satire of the publishing and media industry, and a pretty good thriller. Sexy Jade is murdered, Ray is in the frame, and the problem is, given his drink and drug problem, he can’t quite remember what happened between them on the night she died.
And Raymond Chandler?
"He said nothing and I didn’t like the way he said it."
"She wore jeans and a V-neck jumper the colour of charcoal. A lot went on inside it when she moved …. She moved without scruple, as if things generally went her way. When you looked like that they probably did."
Unlike Jade’s patsy, David Free is clever, self-knowing and blackly funny. I don’t think I ever want to see Ray Saint again, but I did enjoy meeting him.
‘You want to market some patsy all the way to the top?’
‘I want to try.’
‘Of course, he’d have to be no good at all.’
‘Exactly. Because that way it’d all be me.’
‘An Ern Malley for the age of spin.’
‘You think it’d work?’ Her eyes flashed wickedly.
‘I know it would. They’re doing it already. The industry thrives on overhyped shit.’
David Free is playing a trick, too. Not the same one – he’s very far from a lousy writer. But he’s taking the mickey – in this case the Mickey Spillane, with a touch of Raymond Chandler thrown in. It’s not surprising that David Free, who’s a book reviewer himself, with a jaundiced view of the industry, enjoys going right out on a limb with a central character, Ray Saint, who’s not only a monumental alcoholic and addicted to painkillers, but who manages to survive brutal assaults from bad guys and hand out a fair bit of violence himself in spite of the fact that he’s suffered from intractable pain since a childhood accident:
"Thirty years later, the thumped gong of my body is still shivering. The nerves along my spine still scream as if they got crushed yesterday."
You might say that Ray’s the full catastrophe, with bells on. Did I mention that he’s a failed novelist too, with high literary standards that have no place in modern publishing?
Sexy girls and violence aren’t the only similarity. After all, Spillane shrugged off criticism of his works with, “You can sell a lot more peanuts than caviar,” and “The literary world is made up of second rate writers writing about other second rate writers.” These are exactly the views of Ray Saint.
Some characters in the book – the literary editor Ray reviews for, and a successful author with a criminal past – I was pretty sure I recognised from the Australian literary world, and insiders would probably recognise more. I certainly did recognise the general outlines of some popular Australian novels. So it’s an enjoyable roman-à-clef, a nice satire of the publishing and media industry, and a pretty good thriller. Sexy Jade is murdered, Ray is in the frame, and the problem is, given his drink and drug problem, he can’t quite remember what happened between them on the night she died.
And Raymond Chandler?
"He said nothing and I didn’t like the way he said it."
"She wore jeans and a V-neck jumper the colour of charcoal. A lot went on inside it when she moved …. She moved without scruple, as if things generally went her way. When you looked like that they probably did."
Unlike Jade’s patsy, David Free is clever, self-knowing and blackly funny. I don’t think I ever want to see Ray Saint again, but I did enjoy meeting him.
July 1, 2017
The first part of this book took my breath away. I found myself marking paragraphs and sentences that leapt out at me, folding over page after page. That did slow down and whether I became inured to David Free’s prose or his writing reduced to a (still amazing, but) low simmer, I’m not sure but I was initially mesmerised.
Interestingly this book is written by a literary critic. And it’s about a literary critic. Of course I’m no critic. And not even vaguely literary. But I blog about books and review books so could relate to a lot of this book’s narrative.
It’s hard to describe Ray, the key suspect and our book’s narrator. We’re in his head and the book’s written in first person so we’ve got little choice but to trust him. I’ve read a spate of books by unreliable and secretive narrators lately, but that’s not Ray. Indeed, Ray’s incredibly honest with us and himself. Although not with the police. Ray’s problem is well… Ray.
He blames his heavy drinking and pill taking on severe headaches which are the result of an accident when he was young. Indeed he feels (and seems) defined by the scars (physically, mentally and emotionally) he suffered. As a result – of the headaches and / or pills and booze – he has blackouts and cannot remember significant chunks of time. Which, of course, makes it difficult for him to really know what happened during the time of the murder or, indeed, remember his own movements.
I probably wasn’t as enamoured by the plot itself as I was by Free’s writing – particularly in the beginning. I’m a fan of the old gumshoe / PI authors (like Robert B Parker and similar) so there’s something slightly spoofy and ironic about this book, which I think is reflected by the cover – giving it that retro vibe.
I must now seek out David Free’s reviews as I’m intrigued if they’re as nasty (and eloquent) as Ray’s.
Read the full review on my site: http://www.debbish.com/books-literatu...
Interestingly this book is written by a literary critic. And it’s about a literary critic. Of course I’m no critic. And not even vaguely literary. But I blog about books and review books so could relate to a lot of this book’s narrative.
It’s hard to describe Ray, the key suspect and our book’s narrator. We’re in his head and the book’s written in first person so we’ve got little choice but to trust him. I’ve read a spate of books by unreliable and secretive narrators lately, but that’s not Ray. Indeed, Ray’s incredibly honest with us and himself. Although not with the police. Ray’s problem is well… Ray.
He blames his heavy drinking and pill taking on severe headaches which are the result of an accident when he was young. Indeed he feels (and seems) defined by the scars (physically, mentally and emotionally) he suffered. As a result – of the headaches and / or pills and booze – he has blackouts and cannot remember significant chunks of time. Which, of course, makes it difficult for him to really know what happened during the time of the murder or, indeed, remember his own movements.
I probably wasn’t as enamoured by the plot itself as I was by Free’s writing – particularly in the beginning. I’m a fan of the old gumshoe / PI authors (like Robert B Parker and similar) so there’s something slightly spoofy and ironic about this book, which I think is reflected by the cover – giving it that retro vibe.
I must now seek out David Free’s reviews as I’m intrigued if they’re as nasty (and eloquent) as Ray’s.
Read the full review on my site: http://www.debbish.com/books-literatu...
March 18, 2018
This is a dazzlingly written book. It took me a little while to get into the story, as the reader is dropped into the plot after it's started, with the main character ruminating on how he got into the situation of being a murder suspect. But right from the start I was struck by the clever, lyrical, trenchant prose and the cynical, embittered weariness of the protagonist. Yet as disillusioned literary critic Ray Saint investigates the murder of publicist Jade Howe, he is surprisingly motivated by love as much as by self-preservation.
The mystery is interesting enough (although I wouldn't say everything is completely explained by the end) but ultimately I was more entertained by Ray's interactions with those around him and by the unflattering portrait of the publishing industry. I had a great time with this book and recommend it to anyone who loves language.
The mystery is interesting enough (although I wouldn't say everything is completely explained by the end) but ultimately I was more entertained by Ray's interactions with those around him and by the unflattering portrait of the publishing industry. I had a great time with this book and recommend it to anyone who loves language.
June 12, 2018
This book has a common premise, but played out by uncommon characters. It's the first time I've read a book in which a book reviewer was the protagonist. I liked the characters, even though they remained superficial and all of them were really screwed up. The main character is colourful, inept and tragic - all at the same time. (Another reviewer compared him to Rake, the character played by Richard Roxburgh in the ABC Australia television series).
It seems a story that shouldn't be taken too seriously though, because I couldn't decide if it was murder mystery or satire.
My interest in it was erratic. In parts it really plodded, in others it just confused me, yet it sometimes enthralled me.
It seems a story that shouldn't be taken too seriously though, because I couldn't decide if it was murder mystery or satire.
My interest in it was erratic. In parts it really plodded, in others it just confused me, yet it sometimes enthralled me.
January 10, 2018
To start with Ray Saint, the lead character, was interesting in a "Rake-ish" kind of way but then the book got more and more violent and more and more nasty and more and more unbeleiveable (all that alcohol and drugs and memory loss and still a great literary critic - really?) and eventually, I just didn't want to be in the same room as Mr Saint. So I stopped reading.
August 7, 2017
This is an interesting and original story with lots of twists and turns but I found the protagonist very self indulgent - which of course he is meant to be, but I got sick of his whingeing and carping - I felt that some of those monologues could have been cut without detracting from the story.
October 12, 2017
Interesting crime novel. Well written. Offbeat.
January 22, 2018
Maybe 3.5. Reasonably good read but a bit cliched in one or two places.
Read
September 28, 2018I’m not rating this because I have discovered, I am not a fan of Crime Noir.
I mean, what’s the point? I admit I used to wonder about the popularity of the crime genre until I worked out that a lot of readers need the satisfaction that in the end the good guys (usually) win. Justice prevails. In fiction at least.
So, why go the opposite way? This article “https://electricliterature.com/noir-i...” suggests it is a form of protest.
In this case, presumably against the world of publishing, the writers, those who decide what gets published, what doesn’t, the marketers, the critics.....
And this article suggests the genre is all about losers: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/otto-p...
So this story ticks all the boxes. None of the characters are likeable. The women are only good for sex or conniving. The men are bigoted, violent and untrustworthy. At the end the narrator is worse off than where he started. Thing is, I don’t care. To me they were all a bunch of Darwin Award winners.
So, I guess the author succeeded.
But if that’s what crime noir is meant to be. I’ll give it a miss.
Give me a Michael Connelly or Peter Temple any day.
I mean, what’s the point? I admit I used to wonder about the popularity of the crime genre until I worked out that a lot of readers need the satisfaction that in the end the good guys (usually) win. Justice prevails. In fiction at least.
So, why go the opposite way? This article “https://electricliterature.com/noir-i...” suggests it is a form of protest.
In this case, presumably against the world of publishing, the writers, those who decide what gets published, what doesn’t, the marketers, the critics.....
And this article suggests the genre is all about losers: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/otto-p...
So this story ticks all the boxes. None of the characters are likeable. The women are only good for sex or conniving. The men are bigoted, violent and untrustworthy. At the end the narrator is worse off than where he started. Thing is, I don’t care. To me they were all a bunch of Darwin Award winners.
So, I guess the author succeeded.
But if that’s what crime noir is meant to be. I’ll give it a miss.
Give me a Michael Connelly or Peter Temple any day.
Read
January 1, 2019briliant, aussie ripe roarer of a tale!
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