The Brickeaters

by The Residents

If The Brickeaters was a film, it would a buddy movie with the pals being a very tall and young internet content screener teamed up with an aging career criminal whose primary companions are an oxygen bottle and .44 Magnum. After a short crime spree they conspire to defeat a middle aged lottery winner, determined to pollute the LA water supply with massive amounts of fluoride. Desperately in need of distraction, the story is told by an alcoholic writer recently abandoned by his wife.

Genres: Mystery

247 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 10, 2018

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long time Residents fan. When I started reading The Brick-Eaters, I did not like the “noir” feel of the writing in the beginning. The Residents are known for their unique performances and material. This novel seemed too pedestrian. As the story evolves the narrator, characters and story line get more interesting and in the end gratifying. Hint for fellow fans: it helps to hear Randy Rose voice when reading the dialogue.

[chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Starts out promising enough but quickly falls apart. The writing generally ranges from bad to okay. The latter half is a slog so I should be thankful for the abrupt ending, but it still sucks. Two major characters are killed off-screen and I think it's supposed to be darkly funny but whoever wrote or ghostwrote this for the Residents isn't funny, so it just made me feel weird and bad and not really care about what was going on for the rest of the book (and this is a book I struggled to care about at all).

Speaking to that last point -- the narrator sucks, which I understand is the point, but he also fails to be interesting. I went into this thinking it was about the misanthropic adventures of Willy and his sidekick Ted, and had I known from the outset that most of their story is "offscreen" and that the main character is actually a lame LA guy I wouldn't have bothered reading it in the first place.

This is all really disappointing, because I really like the Residents. I struggle to understand why this was written.

Not recommended, even for fans of the band.

[Rich Rosell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no idea if The Residents were actually involved in writing this novel, because it would be sooo Residents-y to have farmed it out under their trippy collective banner. I tend to think this sounds very Homer Flynn-ish, so I am going with that.

As for the story, it's a quirky first-person narrated hard-boiled sort-of conspiracy thriller about a boozy journalist trying to uncover the truth about a dead man found on the side of the road in a small Missouri town. Overall it's nicely dark and often pretty funny, and is one of the only books in recent memory to devote more than a few pages to the notion of a woman having sex with a chimp.

The ending is a bit abrupt (to the point where I wondered if my copy was missing pages) but again - that is soooo Residents-y.

Fun.....

[Mario Alonzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Residents’ foray into novel writing was a resounding success, at least in the eyes of an inveterate fan of their ouvre. With notes of Gonzo craziness and noire fantasy, The Brickeaters delivers everything one would expect from the most prolific art collective America’s swampiest state has ever produced. Long live The Residents!

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Brickeaters" is a bizarro noir crime story which is quite outlandish in plot although perhaps too conversational in tone to be more than superficiality engaging. However there were some genuinely surprising twists which were well played and quite bleak that I enjoyed. Certainly interesting to read a longer narrative from this band.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of a mess but enjoyable. Picked this up at a Residents concert in Detroit and read it in a few days. Shows Homer's fascination with the dark seedy underbelly of reality. Ends almost ridiculously abruptly, like a chapter was accidentally left off. But enjoyable anyway.

[Booked podcast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hear the complete review: https://bookedpodcast.podbean.com/e/4...

[fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Messed up. Excellent read for a fan of 'alternative' literature. One of the better books by rock bands i've read.

[Kiana Nunez · Rating 3 out of 5]

i’m glad i read it. picked it up from one of their 50th anniversary shows. it was an entertaining read for sure. i luv da residentz.

[Patrick H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a classic noir with some bizarre twist. I am a huge Residents fan (WEIRD member # 516). With the exception of one character singing Constantinople, I missed any other Residents references there might have been. I truly liked this book. It took so long to read because I did Kindle on my phone.

[Vanyo666 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge Residents fan, so I was more than a bit curious about this novel, the first they publish which is not based upon a previous project (as Bad Day on the Midway, which was based upon the game and which I have not gotten around to reading yet).

The narrative style is familiar to a Residents fan but it does not feel like "proper" literature if there is such a thing. Reading this book is very much like hearing the singing Resident spinning a longer tale than usual. Details are designed to make it enticing to any reader. The plot is interesting, and while some of its premises are wildly far-fetched or implausible, this is almost to be expected. I would be curious to learn the opinion of readers who are not familiar with the Residents and their work.

Alternately fun and mildly disturbing, it slows down in the latter third when we get into the mind of the "villain". And the ending... The ending... is that the ending? Was it designed as a no-explanations-offered mother of a cliffhanger or are we looking at a printing error? Where are the words "To be continued"?.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reads like a Raymond Chandler noir mystery thriller, except written by the Residents. The ending was darker than the ending of Jim Thompson's The Getaway.