Infra

by Ron Dakron

A failed artist receives a letter. It's a photo of his lost love, brutally murdered. He knows who the killer is-a young Venice mafioso. He does nothing, until the dreams start. Then he plots vengance. He buys a gun in Paris, then sleeps on trains towards death. He slays the mafioso. Yet the killer starts chasing him, through Spain and nightmares. And now the fun begins.

239 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Ron Dakron is a poet and novelist.

He is the author of six novels — Tricky (his latest), Hello Devilfish!, infra, Newt, Hammers and Mantids, and two collections of poetry. His work runs the gamut from surrealism to sci-fi pastiche.

Publishers Weekly reviews Hello Devilfish!: "Resistance may be futile, but this book at least makes it fun" and named him "a writer with a fine ear and plenty of gusto."

Library Journal lauds Hello Devilfish! as "an audacious, laugh-out-loud novel that is brilliantly committed to its conceit."

Kirkus Reviews called Hammers "cartilaginous prose, soft as fishbone, sense-bending and scattershot as a Robin Williams shtick."

Point No Point magazine tagged Hammers as "a cross between jive bullshit, hip-hop Henny Youngman, and full-tilt Rimbaudian street-smartass sublimity."

Raven Chronicles judged him "as sinister as a thirteen-year-old with a lighter and a keg of butane."

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found this one used: the mysterious circumstances of the back blurb made me take the risk. Finished on a plane ride.

This one was put out by Black Heron Press, a press that I am surprised isnt just a print on demand operation, because this needed an editor or five. There are inconsistencies everywhere in spellings. There are so many poorly used commas that style can't really be the excuse. There is way too much verbing. "Oww," I owwed. "I am joyful" I joyed. "Grumpy or cynical stance," I darked. The text is littered with these turns of phrase. It makes the whole proceedings feel like a child wrote it.

Ironically, this was not a terrible feature at the start. No, the beginning of the story just felt pointlessly gruff and angry, the sort of stuff that Bukowski would find heavy handed. The mysterious photo, the narrator unraveling, the revenge he swears... all basic blurb data... that all gives you enough to hang onto. The comical colorations added to every description feel sensible due to the narrator's work as a painter. The terrible similes and metaphors ("clean as a face" or "we drank java and ate toast taste") feel like clunky beat writing. I could even ignore the two main women in the novel being Joan and Joanne. I wasnt optimistic about it, but it had legs, in that weird, gruff, burnout way. It was the story of a failure, at a dead end, confronted with a tragedy and feeling the need to avenge it.

By the time the avenging happens, halfway through, the book has come unhinged.

Really, Europe itself is an unhinging. The narrator's plans are constantly foiled by himself, and his plans to rectify his missteps are more and more implausible. By the time he is traveling with the Icelandic sisters, it becomes clear that this book was written by a living, breathing penis. Just a penis writing a book. There is so much sex, and none of it is particularly well written, but it is all just conveniently happening. By the end of this episode, it starts reading more like a full-blown twilight fan fiction. Things get more and more absurd and pointless and borderline offensive. Whatever illusion of tightness was there at the beginning is well and truly lost. The ending is by necessity simply not satisfying anymore by the time we get there.

I do, however, want to pour one out for Teresa. Teresa gets one good fuck at the beginning of the novel and then is not seen or thought of again. I see you, Teresa. I hope someone in some other story is giving you better sex than Sean was. That motherfucker just forgot about you. You deserve better.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

very reminiscent of the beat era...