Night People

by Barry Gifford

The author of Wild at Heart and The Wild Life of Sailor and Lula writes of what Tennessee Williams called “something wild in the country/that only the night people know.” He draws his characters from the shadows of the Deep South, where they confront the chaotic horror of the United States at the end of the twentieth century.

Genres: Fiction, Noir, Dark, Novels, Short Stories, Southern Gothic, Contemporary

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness.

He is described by Patrick Beach as being "like if John Updike had an evil twin that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and wrote funny..."He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction.

Reviews

[Dani Morell]

Els personatges de Gifford no els voldries pas d'amics. Rednecks alcoholitzats, prostitutes violentes, pervertits sexuals, motards desheretats, delinqüents d'estar per casa... Un descens episòdic i aparentment aleatori a la part més fosca del Deep South americà. Tones d'humor negre, provocació, sexe hilarant, sectarisme religiós, subtrames tancades amb absurds deus ex machina i una violència inherent impossible de defugir. This is America! És un autèntic pecat que no tinguem res de Gifford (Perdita Durango, Wild Heart, Lost highway) traduït al català.

'La vida té alguna cosa de salvatge que només la gent de la nit coneix...'
(Tennessee Williams).

[B.J. Swann]

In an age in which the average book is a bloated mess that's about 50% too long, we need Gifford's lean, mean storytelling more than ever. Fast-paced interwoven tales of weirdoes, lowlives, criminals, killers, and wonderful human beings.

[AC]

Fun. Certainly a nice break from what I’ve been reading..

[Andy Weston]

This was my first foray into Gifford's novels, and I certainly enjoyed it. I've come to them from The Roy Stories, and though completely different, some of their appeal is evident here also.

These are four interwoven novellas, all set in Florida, and told with a Crews-esque southern gothic style, and full of colourful characters with improbable names.

In the first tale, Big Betty Stalcup and Miss Cutie Early, two lesbian ex-convicts, with a mission. They hit the road, canoodling and smooching until they find a corrupt black lawyer recovering from a heart bypass, and add to his tattoos with a razor. But are they the serial killers responsible for all the recent decapitations, or is that Wapiti Touche, the Irish-Seminole-French Canadian-Dutch prostitute from Egypt City...

Beatifica Brown, a devout abortionist, is visited by the ghost of abolitionist John Brown, who implores her to adopt his methods in fighting the anti-abortion activists of Louisiana.

Dallas and Dilys Salt, brother and sister rival preachers and the parents of a child with Down's syndrome, preach their respectively pro-life and pro-choice messages from the Church on the One Hand and the Church on the Other Hand respectively.

But the best is last - Fourteen year old Marble Lesson, is the sole survivor of a lightning strike on a crowded bus, and subsequently to an attempted rape. She spells out her philosophy in letters to a Jesus she has been brought up to see as an icon of the Klan, in a white robe.

This is Gifford at his stongest; with passion, clarity and piercing brevity, diffusing these bizarre and sleazy episodes with engaging emotion.

[Amanja]

Full review of Night People

[Jodi Sh.]

Gifford was recommended because of my love of Harry Crews, as if Crews was a mere shadow of this guy. I'm not buying that. Harry Crews is in a class by himself and incredibly underappreciated, far and above anything Barry Gifford, or almost anyone else of this southern creepy character genre can write.

Night People, meanders through vignettes and silhouettes of tangentially connected folks, each and every one a certified "character" with a wacky Southern character name. There's Althea & Zelmo and their six children: Zenoria, Zelma, Zoroaster, Lana Turner, Pocohantas, and Rita Hayworth. The evangelical serial killer lesbians Big Bet & Cutie Early. The gun-toting abortionist, Beatifica Brown who has sex with the ghost of John Brown. The incestuous brother sister preachers, Dallas & Dilys Salt. And Jesus' pen pal, 14-year-old Marble Lesson and her father, Wesson Lesson.

This is really four novellas, and reading this straight through is a mistake akin to walking through a carnival side show after dropping a hit or three of acid. Taken one at a time, the characters and their stories are fascinating.

Gifford also wrote Wild At Heart - a film with Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage, and of which nothing else is memorable except the title, and while I'm still not sure how I feel about Gifford, I did come away with the feeling that he's worth another taste. Much like an exotic food with such a specific taste, you need to time to figure out if you like it, or hate it.

[Eddie Villanueva]

Very fun little book by sometime David Lynch collaborator, Barry Gifford. It tells interconnected stories of "bad" stuff happening in the American South during the early 90's. I enjoyed it!

[Fen'Harel]

I really wanted to like this book, but it really wasn't for me. At first, we're launched into the first story that has multiple main characters and a bit of a difficult grip to understanding the plot. By the time I understood what was going on, the story was over and I felt... nothing.
This was a mentality I kept throughout the entire book. I didn't really feel anything for the characters or any of the plots happening. The dialogue felt like it was lacking somewhat, and the constant writing in an accent made it difficult to read some pages. I felt myself slowing down to go over and over a line to figure out what the character is saying. Sometimes, a bit of accent can help an audience understand an accent (or some key words like g'day), but this was brutal and difficult to read sometimes.
The art was where it gained a couple of stars. It was interesting in its structure and unique to the story. I also felt like it matched the horror feel of the stories it was sharing with us.
Overall, the story was fine but the plot went no where and I didn't feel anything towards any of the characters or their stories. I would have liked to have seen a bit more from the author in regards to dialogue and plot, but it left me high and dry.
Thank you Netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for a review.

[Mrn DaNi]

this book drove me nuts..

it was sos anticlimactic to me. every story was a promise with no answer
not once did i get a satisfactory ending and maybe thats what the book was trying to accomplish but i couldn't get into it..

it was recommended to me and i read it in spanish. The weird names of the character probably suffer from bad translation soo i might eventually try and find it in its original language

one word for it "chaos". thats how i felt while reading it and i can't tell if it was good or a bad thing

[Brent Legault]

This has all of the Barry Gifford hallmarks: plenty of pepper-hot dialogue, plenty of extravagant eccentrics, plenty of outree exoticism. Sometimes it's a bit too cute for my taste (for example, the outlandish character names: Cutie Early, Sister Dilys Salt, DuMont 'Du-Du' Dupree, Easy Earl, Boca Demente, ad vomitum) but it made me crave strange things, like Crown Royal and milk. And any novel that can worm its way into my fundament like that isn't all awful.

[Joseph plasan]

I hate to be a jerk, but since Barry Gifford appears to be somewhat successful I don't mind saying this is the STUPIDEST f***ing thing I have read in a long time. This book did NOT deserve publication. I paid $4 for this and all I got was a childish assault on my patience---The author just took a massive dump on a page---
Some things should not be published

[Jeff Swesky]

I do enjoy Gifford's Sailor and Lula stories, but I just couldn't get into this book. I found the characters flat, uninteresting (if not cliche',) and lacking emotion. And I found the plot to be disjointed. Gifford had lost my attention before the end of the first novella, I'm afraid.

[Emily]

I’m just not sure how I feel.

[AestheticFanatic]

A crass and crude series of novellas woven with sharp, witty writing...in only the first of four stories told. I am sad to report that, unfortunately, Mr. Gifford does not quite keep up the intrigue and the game is dropped once you get used to his style. The wackiness recedes into annoyance rather quickly and you start to notice Gifford picking a fight with the Southerner in parts while presenting his so called "night people" as simultaneously the victims and villains of whatever issue he wants to take up (usually women). There is a consistent tone, certainly, but the character payoffs basically amount to: this character was bad therefore they die or this character was justified in their actions and will carry on into the next novella. Worse yet is that Gifford will reuse his more subtle jokes throughout the novel and rather than it feeling like a recurring gag it just feels tiresome. For such a short novel, I feel bad not recommending it, especially since the first story is quite a fun romp, but this book is just too long and unabashedly itself for me to find much room in recommending it.

[Pilar]

Impresionante. En un principio me costó un poco leerla pues no estoy acostumbrada a leer textos explícitos, pero me ha terminado gustando bastante esta vuelta de moneda.
Tantas historias que reflejan la normalidad de la crudeza humana, tantas historias que pisan nuestro mundo. La libertad amenazante del hombre, hablando tanto del ser humano como del sexo, es el protagonista de cada una de las páginas. También el desamparo, la esperanza y desesperanza hacen su juego.
Estretenido y de rápida lectura. El encuentro de historias y nombres es lo más llamativo. Lo único que se me ha dificultado ha sido la mención de los lugares y calles, pues contiene mucho detalle, y para mí que no provengo de Estados Unidos ha sido difícil leer tantos nombres y encima distintos.

[Josh]

I'm finally back in my novel swing! I took a year to focus on nonfiction, which was fine, but there ain't nothin' like a good novel.

This novel was mentioned in a book I read about David Lynch, and about how it inspired his films. He later made a movie of this same author's Wild at Heart.

I liked this a lot. Four sections with several three-to-four page chapters, each one usually jumping from one character to another, sometimes killing off or abandoning characters along the way until one remains in the end. Bunch of seedy people in seedy situations.

Recommended for fans of Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son.

[Adam Delahoussaye]

Gifford’s four interwoven stories attempt to tell the tale of a broken America through the countries most unfiltered lense-residents of the Deep South. It’s Tarantino if he knew real poverty, and to an extent a cynical observation of the unabashed American Dream. Short, never too sweet, a book that feeds you hope in the most vile of circumstances. Time to go to the local watering hole and see the look on their face when I order a CR and milk.

[Juan Pinilla]

If I said from Perdita Durango, by the same author, that it was excellent dirty and irrespectful narrative not on this side of the law, or morals or correct thinking, Night People is even more so, and it will give a couple of interesting, illegal suggestions to some angry groups. Read it if you can. Hard but excellent.

[Edvige Ciccarelli]

Tre storie, tre racconti tra loro sottilmente legati pieni di umorismo nero. Una costellazione di personaggi lontani dalla normalità, violenti e grotteschi, ma anche divertenti. Sono storie di bassifondi, di città del sud americano, di criminali e seguaci di strane religioni. Insomma una colorata macedonia molto rock.

[Clint Banjo]

Slick dialogue and the best character names in literature (some very clever foreign language puns also to spot)...having read Sailor & Lula first I missed their calm, pragmatic outlook on all the madness, I’d still recommend it though. The short, spicy chapters make for quick reading too.

[Javier Núñez]

Una novela sin personajes estrictamente principales. Pese a que son capítulos breves no se echa en falta más descripción del entorno ni perfilar más los personajes. Los diálogos aportan todo lo necesario. Y el libro en sí no se desinfla en ningún momento.

[Bicho]

Me gusta todo lo que he leído de Gifford, pero este libro es el que más me gustó, sin dudas. Su escritura siempre es amena, aunque en general los temas que trata no lo sean.
Gente nocturna está en la línea que siempre tiene, pero lo más interesante es la cantidad y calidad de los personajes que habitan en este novela, y en cómo se entrecruzan algunas de las historias.

[Guy Salvidge]

Perhaps I’ve read too much Gifford lately, but this dragged a little. It’s carnivalesque and often grotesque in a similar vein to Harry Crews, but never stayed with any set of characters for long.

[Josh Sherman]

Gifford wrote what's basically the most #woke pulp fiction right here. And it's southern gothic. If Faulkner wrote neo-noir, it would be something like this.

[Adam Dudley]

Disturbing yet somehow delightful

[Scott]

I'm still undecided on this one, but have a feeling it will grow on me. Incidentally, many of the reviews here seem to be of a comic book adaptation, which only added to my confusion.

[Abigail Sanderson]

I was attracted to the Crash-esque cover.
Really enjoyed got through it as easy as a drive down the desert roads…that’s the vibe.

[Hex75]

leggendo i racconti di questo "gente di notte" capisci bene perchè david lynch e alex de la iglesia han tratto film dai suoi libri ma al tempo stesso te li vedi mentre riponendolo via scuotono la testa dicendo "no, questo è meglio non portarlo al cinema". perchè? perchè definirlo estremo è poco: è follia pura, intrisa di atmosfere da america profonda, diluita in quattro racconti (in qualche caso intrecciati) le cui trame sono fuori da ogni schema e genere. cercatelo se temete di aver letto ultimamente troppi libri noiosi: questo libro è un sacco di cose, ma "noioso" sicuramente no...

[David]

More Southern gothic comic books without the illustrations...

"Chick reminds me of that cafe au lait gal was in C Block, Pearline Nail. You remember her?"

"Oh, yeah, sure do. She the one razored up Rupee Moreno when Rupee said a Baptist just someone don't favor lynchin' on Sunday."

[Dave]

Both Michael and Carol gave this 4 stars