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Clockers
Award-winning author Richard Price here offers a viscerally affecting and accomplished portrait of inner-city America.
Veteran homicide detective Rocco Klein's passion for the job gave way long ago. His beat is a rough New Jersey neighborhood where the drug murders blur together, until the day Victor Dunham — a twenty-year-old with a steady job and a clean record — confesses to a shooting outside a fast-food joint. It doesn't take long for Rocco's attention to turn to Victor's brother, a street-corner crack dealer named Strike who seems a more likely suspect for the crime.
At once an intense mystery, and a revealing study of two men on opposite sides of an unwinnable war, Clockers is a stunningly well-rendered chronicle of modern life on the streets.
Veteran homicide detective Rocco Klein's passion for the job gave way long ago. His beat is a rough New Jersey neighborhood where the drug murders blur together, until the day Victor Dunham — a twenty-year-old with a steady job and a clean record — confesses to a shooting outside a fast-food joint. It doesn't take long for Rocco's attention to turn to Victor's brother, a street-corner crack dealer named Strike who seems a more likely suspect for the crime.
At once an intense mystery, and a revealing study of two men on opposite sides of an unwinnable war, Clockers is a stunningly well-rendered chronicle of modern life on the streets.
608 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 1992
503 people are currently reading
11962 people want to read
About the author
Richard Price
132 books956 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Also writes under the pen name Harry Brandt
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. Today, he lives in New York City with his family.
Price graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and characterizations. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, of which the best known are The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15 minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and others.
Also writes under the pen name Harry Brandt
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. Today, he lives in New York City with his family.
Price graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia. He also did graduate work at Stanford. He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and characterizations. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, of which the best known are The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15 minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and others.
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August 5, 2014
A drug dealer is gunned down in a diner and the brother of another drug dealer is the prime suspect. Did he do it? That's what Rocco Klein wants to find out. But can he get the suspect's brother, a crack dealer named Strike, to cooperate?
This is the fourteenth book in my Kindle Unlimited Experiment. For the 30 day trial, I'm only reading books that are part of the program and keeping track what the total cost of the books would have been.
Like most people who have read this in recent years, I loved HBO's The Wire and Price was one of the writers. This feels like the novelization of four Wire episodes in the best way possible.
Clockers is a crime book but it's also a window into the lives of cops and the crack dealers they're trying to catch. Much like The Wire, Clockers shows that both sides of the conflict are fairly ordinary human beings, not knights in shining armor or scene-chewing villains.
Strike and Rocco, the two leads, are both well-drawn, conflicted characters. Neither is particularly happy with his lot in life. Rocco sees an actor as his way out of the cop's life and Strike just wants to make enough money to get out.
The mystery is actually secondary. The real focus is on the lives of Rocco, Strike, and the rest. The crack business is a lot more complicated than I thought and now I'm even more keenly aware of why so many cops wind up divorced, alcoholic, and/or eating their guns.
The writing is a notch above most crime books, akin to Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos. I thought the plot meandered a bit but not as much as in the last Price book I read, Lush Life. The city of Dempsey is almost a character.
Four out of five stars. Maybe it's time I rewatch the entire run of The Wire.
Current Kindle Unlimited Savings Total: $77.48.
This is the fourteenth book in my Kindle Unlimited Experiment. For the 30 day trial, I'm only reading books that are part of the program and keeping track what the total cost of the books would have been.
Like most people who have read this in recent years, I loved HBO's The Wire and Price was one of the writers. This feels like the novelization of four Wire episodes in the best way possible.
Clockers is a crime book but it's also a window into the lives of cops and the crack dealers they're trying to catch. Much like The Wire, Clockers shows that both sides of the conflict are fairly ordinary human beings, not knights in shining armor or scene-chewing villains.
Strike and Rocco, the two leads, are both well-drawn, conflicted characters. Neither is particularly happy with his lot in life. Rocco sees an actor as his way out of the cop's life and Strike just wants to make enough money to get out.
The mystery is actually secondary. The real focus is on the lives of Rocco, Strike, and the rest. The crack business is a lot more complicated than I thought and now I'm even more keenly aware of why so many cops wind up divorced, alcoholic, and/or eating their guns.
The writing is a notch above most crime books, akin to Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos. I thought the plot meandered a bit but not as much as in the last Price book I read, Lush Life. The city of Dempsey is almost a character.
Four out of five stars. Maybe it's time I rewatch the entire run of The Wire.
Current Kindle Unlimited Savings Total: $77.48.
December 27, 2012
Detective Klein and Detective Mazilli are discussing the suspect they've just brought in. He's an author who's accused of recklessly wasting readers' time. That's something that'll get you 3 to 5 in New Jersey and up to 10 in New York where they take reading more seriously. The suspect is an oldish Jewish guy who's currently in the interrogation room looking bored. The charges relate to three long novels published between 1992 and 2008, Clockers, Freedomland, and Lush Life. Together these add up to 1732 pages. Small print pages. They can hurt your eyes.
The detectives are perplexed.
- I'm telling you this is the guy.
- This is the guy? This skinny white mope?
- What's the problem, he even says he's Richard Price. He admits it. We got his driver's licence, we got that woman who ID'd him –
- That one who says she's some kind of fan?
- She got a book signed by this guy. She waited in line for him to sign it. This is big in some people's world. A guy writes his name in a book. It's big.
- I could write Richard Price on any damn book you want. Here, give me one, I show you. This is just some sad fuck who has the same name, you know it, I know it. You seriously telling me an old Jewish guy can write thousands a pages a authentic black dialogue not to mention taking the reader on a tour of the whole inner city experience, the crack trade, the slingers, their apartments, their families, their mothers, how you step on an ounce, I mean exactly how, what these gangbangers wear, what they spend their dough on, who they wake up with, colour of their damn mother's underpants, a whole tour of black spaces – fast food joints, churches, jail visiting rooms, - and people – stone killers, outsize wheelerdealers, oily preachers, angsty thin wore down mothers, this white Jewish guy does all that? Nah. Toss him.
- Mazilli, you're going on appearances. In fact I now perceive, the scales have fallen from my fucking eyes, that you're one of those racist cops I have heard of. You think the perp who did Clockers has had to be black himself. You gonna tell me next that white boys can't sing the blues. You never heard of Dusty Springfield, the Righteous Brothers, never heard of Eric Clapton…
- I got no idea who those people are. But okay, it'll make you happy, let's do this Richard Price, see if it's our Richard Price.
He shrugs. They open the door to the interview room.
EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD PRICE, 10 AUGUST 2012
Klein : Way I see it, Richard, we're about the only friends you got right now.
Price : Yeah, with respect, it's my constitutional right to doubt that. Look, I'll make it simple - I wrote all those novels, all of them. Sure I did. And there's more you don't even know about. I could show you where to find em. I could take you there. But I never wasted any damn reader's time. That's God damned defamation. Who's sayin this shit?
Klein : Okay Richard, I'll make it simple for you. What you have here in each of these long novels are slight tales cranked up to elephantine proportions like, you know, supersize me. Each one concerns a simple plotline – who shot Darryl Adams? why is this guy confessing to it when he didn't do it? Or what happened when this lady's car got carjacked and her baby was in it? And in the end, after 700 pages, the solution, resolution, what have you, comes down to a banal twist of circumstance, a common misapprehension, oh I shoulda realised back on page 120 that this actually meant that and not that, blah blah, and certainly nothing which warrants slogging the reader through these interminable pages. Your damn long novels are monstrous sledgehammers cracking itty tiny nuts. You're wasting readers' time.
Mazilli : And you're a one trick pony, Price. These three books? They're essentially the same thing. Read one, why read another one?
Price : I want to call my lawyer.
Klein : Now why'd you wanna do that, we were getting along like a house on fire.
Price : Lawyer. Now!
***
Detective Klein and Detective Mazilli continue their conversation outside the interview room.
- Now do you believe me?
- Okay, he's our Richard Price. What do I know from modern crime literature anyways.
- We lost him.
- Yeah. We did. But he wasn't gonna cop for it. He really doesn't think he's wasted anbody's time. 1700 pages…
- Although, to be fair, he is very good on the power certain individuals hold over others in the drug underworld.
- True that, but not just there, your Rodney Little figure in Clockers could be encountered in any school playground, any local political party, he's the bully we all fear. And yet how hard is that fear to explain to outsiders? They'll say – why didn't you just walk away and keep walking? He is excellent on showing all of that. Do you remember how he has Rodney Little explain to Strike how if he, Rodney, takes a hundred dollar bill and nails it onto a tree on JFK and leaves it there, after a year it'll still be there, whereas if Strike did the same, what do you think would happen? That's cause people know who Rodney Little is.
- Also, he's brilliant in showing throughout Clockers the vapourous risings and fallings of all these visions of a life outside the clocker ghetto that Strike keeps imagining for himself – all these alternatives, they rise up like chimera and fade away when the next cruel ineluctability crashes into his life and they leave but not one trace.
- So what ya think – four stars?
- No, three. I coulda watched six ball games, time it took me to get through this damn Clockers.
The detectives are perplexed.
- I'm telling you this is the guy.
- This is the guy? This skinny white mope?
- What's the problem, he even says he's Richard Price. He admits it. We got his driver's licence, we got that woman who ID'd him –
- That one who says she's some kind of fan?
- She got a book signed by this guy. She waited in line for him to sign it. This is big in some people's world. A guy writes his name in a book. It's big.
- I could write Richard Price on any damn book you want. Here, give me one, I show you. This is just some sad fuck who has the same name, you know it, I know it. You seriously telling me an old Jewish guy can write thousands a pages a authentic black dialogue not to mention taking the reader on a tour of the whole inner city experience, the crack trade, the slingers, their apartments, their families, their mothers, how you step on an ounce, I mean exactly how, what these gangbangers wear, what they spend their dough on, who they wake up with, colour of their damn mother's underpants, a whole tour of black spaces – fast food joints, churches, jail visiting rooms, - and people – stone killers, outsize wheelerdealers, oily preachers, angsty thin wore down mothers, this white Jewish guy does all that? Nah. Toss him.
- Mazilli, you're going on appearances. In fact I now perceive, the scales have fallen from my fucking eyes, that you're one of those racist cops I have heard of. You think the perp who did Clockers has had to be black himself. You gonna tell me next that white boys can't sing the blues. You never heard of Dusty Springfield, the Righteous Brothers, never heard of Eric Clapton…
- I got no idea who those people are. But okay, it'll make you happy, let's do this Richard Price, see if it's our Richard Price.
He shrugs. They open the door to the interview room.
EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD PRICE, 10 AUGUST 2012
Klein : Way I see it, Richard, we're about the only friends you got right now.
Price : Yeah, with respect, it's my constitutional right to doubt that. Look, I'll make it simple - I wrote all those novels, all of them. Sure I did. And there's more you don't even know about. I could show you where to find em. I could take you there. But I never wasted any damn reader's time. That's God damned defamation. Who's sayin this shit?
Klein : Okay Richard, I'll make it simple for you. What you have here in each of these long novels are slight tales cranked up to elephantine proportions like, you know, supersize me. Each one concerns a simple plotline – who shot Darryl Adams? why is this guy confessing to it when he didn't do it? Or what happened when this lady's car got carjacked and her baby was in it? And in the end, after 700 pages, the solution, resolution, what have you, comes down to a banal twist of circumstance, a common misapprehension, oh I shoulda realised back on page 120 that this actually meant that and not that, blah blah, and certainly nothing which warrants slogging the reader through these interminable pages. Your damn long novels are monstrous sledgehammers cracking itty tiny nuts. You're wasting readers' time.
Mazilli : And you're a one trick pony, Price. These three books? They're essentially the same thing. Read one, why read another one?
Price : I want to call my lawyer.
Klein : Now why'd you wanna do that, we were getting along like a house on fire.
Price : Lawyer. Now!
***
Detective Klein and Detective Mazilli continue their conversation outside the interview room.
- Now do you believe me?
- Okay, he's our Richard Price. What do I know from modern crime literature anyways.
- We lost him.
- Yeah. We did. But he wasn't gonna cop for it. He really doesn't think he's wasted anbody's time. 1700 pages…
- Although, to be fair, he is very good on the power certain individuals hold over others in the drug underworld.
- True that, but not just there, your Rodney Little figure in Clockers could be encountered in any school playground, any local political party, he's the bully we all fear. And yet how hard is that fear to explain to outsiders? They'll say – why didn't you just walk away and keep walking? He is excellent on showing all of that. Do you remember how he has Rodney Little explain to Strike how if he, Rodney, takes a hundred dollar bill and nails it onto a tree on JFK and leaves it there, after a year it'll still be there, whereas if Strike did the same, what do you think would happen? That's cause people know who Rodney Little is.
- Also, he's brilliant in showing throughout Clockers the vapourous risings and fallings of all these visions of a life outside the clocker ghetto that Strike keeps imagining for himself – all these alternatives, they rise up like chimera and fade away when the next cruel ineluctability crashes into his life and they leave but not one trace.
- So what ya think – four stars?
- No, three. I coulda watched six ball games, time it took me to get through this damn Clockers.
March 20, 2020
”’It’s the cycle of shit and you can’t do nothing about it.’
Rocco smiled and began beating his fists rhythmically on the table, distant jungle drums. ‘I believe in fear. I believe in punishment. I believe in revenge.’
Mazilli said, ‘Fuck you, it’s true.’
‘I believe that each man,’ Rocco said, raising his voice, ‘whether black, white, yellow or brown, is entitled to have his ass kicked free of charge, regardless of race, creed or color.’
‘Cycle of shit,’ Mazilli shot back.”
Strike is clocking; he’s out on the benches, overseeing the crew that supplies the crack fiends who need a hit as often as possible. He doesn’t use. He doesn’t spend his money on frivolous symbols of affluence, such as gold jewelry, cars, or whores . He socks his money away. He buys real estate because he has a dream of moving up off the streets and going legit. Next step, move up to the ounce business. ”Strike had no real love of things for themselves, but he loved the idea of things, the concept of possession. Sometimes he was crazed by wanting, blind with visions of things he was too cagey to buy, and at moments like this he felt tortured, tantalized, sensing in some joyless way that he was outsmarting someone, but he wasn’t sure who.”
Then, there is Detective Rocco Klein, who has been disillusioned by too many years on the streets. He has become a part of the ‘cycle of shit’ and dreams of achieving something new and different when a Hollywood actor named Touhey starts following him around for material for developing a movie. ”Rocco gazed down at the waving, grinning movie star, he understood for the first time that whatever was jamming him up in his life right now would never be healed by any kind of glory or fame or recognition from others, that the healing would come from the life around him--his work, his partner, his family. It was just a matter of finding a few small gifts of connection.”
This is one of those philosophically enlightening moments that we all hope we realize before we are too old to make the changes we need to make to have a chance at being happy.
When an ounce dealer is murdered in cold blood in the street and the only guy in the frame is Vincent Dunham, a hard working father, husband, and son, who is the most unlikely of murderers, Rocco finds a cause that can finally reinvigorate his life. He knows in his gut that Vincent didn’t kill that man and that Vincent’s brother, Strike, did. With this ounce dealer out of the way, Strike is finally going to get a chance to get off the benches.
There are, of course, inevitable comparisons with the hit series The Wire. This book has a lot of that authenticity that viewers feel when they watch the TV show. I haven’t seen the new movie based on this book by director Spike Lee, but I feel that the story is in the right hands.
The paranoia that is rampant among the drug dealers and cops is like a cluster of trapped flies buzzing against a window. When a stone cold killer named Buddha Hat befriends Strike, it is a scary thing. Having friends is way more dangerous than having enemies. His boss, Rodney, the pontificating showboat, is proving to be more and more vulnerable as the cracks grow larger in his bombastic persona. When he goes down, is this an opportunity, or does Strike need to scoot to greener pastures? On the other side of the blurred line, Rocco is pushing the boundaries of the investigation, and the deeper he digs, the more unsure he becomes that his partner or the system will have his back. This is a redemptive moment for Rocco, and it feels like any risk is worth a chance to really feel like he is one of the good guys.
As to be expected with Richard Price, there are some unexpected lyrical moments. ”The shards of bottle glass that studded the chained-in grass island behind the benches caught the sun and turned an eyesore into a field of diamonds.” There are insights into our collective character. How do we let this cycle of shit continue? We let the system grind up all these young men and toss them aside like empty plastic bags. We kill them. They kill each other. We incarcerate them, harden them, and then spit them back out to become role models for young men with no prospects, who see the money and the flash as maybe their only moment of glory before an early grave. We make cops into killers and drunkards, who entered the job with thoughts of saving people, but soon realize they can’t save anyone, not even themselves. The cycle of shit grinds them all up.
We need to get the addicts off the street and into drug rehab programs. We need for recreational drug users to quit being part of the problem. People die, lives are ruined, to bring those drugs in so they can get high. We need to identify these at-risk kids and put them in programs to teach them skills we need, like plumbers, electricians, and nurses. Incarcerating them is just making society part of the problem. In other words, we need a complete overhaul of our justice system, our natural punitive natures, and to start seeing all of these people as people worth saving.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/
Rocco smiled and began beating his fists rhythmically on the table, distant jungle drums. ‘I believe in fear. I believe in punishment. I believe in revenge.’
Mazilli said, ‘Fuck you, it’s true.’
‘I believe that each man,’ Rocco said, raising his voice, ‘whether black, white, yellow or brown, is entitled to have his ass kicked free of charge, regardless of race, creed or color.’
‘Cycle of shit,’ Mazilli shot back.”
Strike is clocking; he’s out on the benches, overseeing the crew that supplies the crack fiends who need a hit as often as possible. He doesn’t use. He doesn’t spend his money on frivolous symbols of affluence, such as gold jewelry, cars, or whores . He socks his money away. He buys real estate because he has a dream of moving up off the streets and going legit. Next step, move up to the ounce business. ”Strike had no real love of things for themselves, but he loved the idea of things, the concept of possession. Sometimes he was crazed by wanting, blind with visions of things he was too cagey to buy, and at moments like this he felt tortured, tantalized, sensing in some joyless way that he was outsmarting someone, but he wasn’t sure who.”
Then, there is Detective Rocco Klein, who has been disillusioned by too many years on the streets. He has become a part of the ‘cycle of shit’ and dreams of achieving something new and different when a Hollywood actor named Touhey starts following him around for material for developing a movie. ”Rocco gazed down at the waving, grinning movie star, he understood for the first time that whatever was jamming him up in his life right now would never be healed by any kind of glory or fame or recognition from others, that the healing would come from the life around him--his work, his partner, his family. It was just a matter of finding a few small gifts of connection.”
This is one of those philosophically enlightening moments that we all hope we realize before we are too old to make the changes we need to make to have a chance at being happy.
When an ounce dealer is murdered in cold blood in the street and the only guy in the frame is Vincent Dunham, a hard working father, husband, and son, who is the most unlikely of murderers, Rocco finds a cause that can finally reinvigorate his life. He knows in his gut that Vincent didn’t kill that man and that Vincent’s brother, Strike, did. With this ounce dealer out of the way, Strike is finally going to get a chance to get off the benches.
There are, of course, inevitable comparisons with the hit series The Wire. This book has a lot of that authenticity that viewers feel when they watch the TV show. I haven’t seen the new movie based on this book by director Spike Lee, but I feel that the story is in the right hands.
The paranoia that is rampant among the drug dealers and cops is like a cluster of trapped flies buzzing against a window. When a stone cold killer named Buddha Hat befriends Strike, it is a scary thing. Having friends is way more dangerous than having enemies. His boss, Rodney, the pontificating showboat, is proving to be more and more vulnerable as the cracks grow larger in his bombastic persona. When he goes down, is this an opportunity, or does Strike need to scoot to greener pastures? On the other side of the blurred line, Rocco is pushing the boundaries of the investigation, and the deeper he digs, the more unsure he becomes that his partner or the system will have his back. This is a redemptive moment for Rocco, and it feels like any risk is worth a chance to really feel like he is one of the good guys.
As to be expected with Richard Price, there are some unexpected lyrical moments. ”The shards of bottle glass that studded the chained-in grass island behind the benches caught the sun and turned an eyesore into a field of diamonds.” There are insights into our collective character. How do we let this cycle of shit continue? We let the system grind up all these young men and toss them aside like empty plastic bags. We kill them. They kill each other. We incarcerate them, harden them, and then spit them back out to become role models for young men with no prospects, who see the money and the flash as maybe their only moment of glory before an early grave. We make cops into killers and drunkards, who entered the job with thoughts of saving people, but soon realize they can’t save anyone, not even themselves. The cycle of shit grinds them all up.
We need to get the addicts off the street and into drug rehab programs. We need for recreational drug users to quit being part of the problem. People die, lives are ruined, to bring those drugs in so they can get high. We need to identify these at-risk kids and put them in programs to teach them skills we need, like plumbers, electricians, and nurses. Incarcerating them is just making society part of the problem. In other words, we need a complete overhaul of our justice system, our natural punitive natures, and to start seeing all of these people as people worth saving.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/
May 1, 2024
This was one of my favorite books of the 1990s. The burned-out cop character was a bit of a cliché, but the setting of the novel in a post-apocalyptic New Jersey housing project was the work of inspired journalism. Price had a lot of great insights in this work that could only have been the result of going out and being a witness to the world he was describing. As the great novelist once said, "You can't make this shit up."
Take for example the scene of the cop giving the guy shit for walking into the convenience store to buy one cold beer at a time, admonishing him on his lack of thrift for not buying a six-pack which is cheaper. He learns that the one-beer-at-a-time method is the poor man's version of sitting at a bar, but much less expensive. As I said, Price couldn't have made this up and must have witnessed it first-hand, much like Tom Wolfe did when he wrote his Bonfire of the Vanities, a process he describes in a forward he wrote to a later edition (something I've been looking for if anyone has it).
I’m sure this novel is completely ignored in college classrooms because professors want kids to read books by writers who write about writing (Updike, Roth, Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, and lot of other literati who need to get outside and get some fresh air once in a while). I’ve never been too curious as to what takes place in the exciting world of academia or literary circles. Once a writer writes about writing, I stop reading. Price went out and found a great story. The human imagination is way over-rated in literature these days. They say that you have to write about what you know. The problem is that a lot of novelists don't know anything and aren't willing to go out and learn something new.
While I enjoyed Spike Lee's film adaptation, I thought he got the housing project from the book all wrong. His Brooklyn setting was too sunny and green for me.
Take for example the scene of the cop giving the guy shit for walking into the convenience store to buy one cold beer at a time, admonishing him on his lack of thrift for not buying a six-pack which is cheaper. He learns that the one-beer-at-a-time method is the poor man's version of sitting at a bar, but much less expensive. As I said, Price couldn't have made this up and must have witnessed it first-hand, much like Tom Wolfe did when he wrote his Bonfire of the Vanities, a process he describes in a forward he wrote to a later edition (something I've been looking for if anyone has it).
I’m sure this novel is completely ignored in college classrooms because professors want kids to read books by writers who write about writing (Updike, Roth, Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, and lot of other literati who need to get outside and get some fresh air once in a while). I’ve never been too curious as to what takes place in the exciting world of academia or literary circles. Once a writer writes about writing, I stop reading. Price went out and found a great story. The human imagination is way over-rated in literature these days. They say that you have to write about what you know. The problem is that a lot of novelists don't know anything and aren't willing to go out and learn something new.
While I enjoyed Spike Lee's film adaptation, I thought he got the housing project from the book all wrong. His Brooklyn setting was too sunny and green for me.
April 1, 2016
Extraordinary. The story of a uniquely talented, scrupulously clean and intelligent teen-aged dope peddler in the projects, in some city in the north east. Spike sits on the benches with a bleeding ulcer, tolerating the daily inconveniences of thuggish cops and pondering his future. He is totally alone, caught between the urge to be upwardly mobile in the ultimately fatal drug trade, tutored by a hardened old (30 something) psychopath who runs an unending number of scams. This is a how-to about the drug trade, from the connections coming in, the turf skirmishes, the “cuts” tailored to the clientele, the supply chain mechanics on the street, and the complex system of police payoffs. Every other chapter is from another point of view, a homicide detective who is nearing the end of his career and is equally competent and empathetic to his impoverished community, despite shocking instances of tactical brutality as the cops and drug dealers conduct their orchestrated dance in an insane ritual. Richard Price displays an intimate knowledge of both ends of these spectra (law enforcement, street crime) and somehow gets deep into the heads of the entire distribution of individuals. He does not attempt to describe any female points of view, consequently this is a very masculine book. It deals with race in a frank and realistic way, without a shred of politeness, as I imagine it would have played on the street in 1992 (somehow my last 2 novels were published in this year).
I had to give this my top rating because the characters were so real and made me care deeply about their destiny as the frightening plot was revealed. I could have read this in one setting if my schedule permitted – it is not a short book but every word, every sentence crackled with realistic dialogue and constant fear and motion. I recall seeing this movie back in the day, with Spike Lee as a character, and that it struck me as more deeply meaningful and complex than most movies, but I don’t remember much else (thankfully, so my mind was not contaminated as I read the book). The book was down and dirty, in the streets, and rich with detail (the complex management required to be a middle man dope peddler is a mean feat beyond the capabilities of most white collar safe jobs, and 1000% more perilous).
I’ll be reading more Richard Price. I seem to be reading about cities, cops, thieves, black culture, crime and humans trapped in circumstances they cannot control. This book was not heroic in any sense, and far less stereotyped than others of its ilk (LeHane, e.g.). But it is the dialogue that really stands out as exceptional, building the characters into the true complex beings they are.
I had to give this my top rating because the characters were so real and made me care deeply about their destiny as the frightening plot was revealed. I could have read this in one setting if my schedule permitted – it is not a short book but every word, every sentence crackled with realistic dialogue and constant fear and motion. I recall seeing this movie back in the day, with Spike Lee as a character, and that it struck me as more deeply meaningful and complex than most movies, but I don’t remember much else (thankfully, so my mind was not contaminated as I read the book). The book was down and dirty, in the streets, and rich with detail (the complex management required to be a middle man dope peddler is a mean feat beyond the capabilities of most white collar safe jobs, and 1000% more perilous).
I’ll be reading more Richard Price. I seem to be reading about cities, cops, thieves, black culture, crime and humans trapped in circumstances they cannot control. This book was not heroic in any sense, and far less stereotyped than others of its ilk (LeHane, e.g.). But it is the dialogue that really stands out as exceptional, building the characters into the true complex beings they are.
May 29, 2021
Stop being lonely and listen to the full review here.
Price put together 600 pages of well-researched, unflinching, accessible language here, an accomplishment that I can’t help but applaud.
I tell my students in my worldbuilding class that once the rules are established, you have to play by them, and can only break them for a damn good reason. Price knows the rules of the game well (both for drug dealers and corrupt cops) and we explore them with characters representing each side of that coin, whose daily existence relies on navigating rules and hierarches more complicated than the British Royal Monarchy.
Unlike the average citizen, they actually have to follow these rules closely, because it’s a death sentence if you disobey. Loyalty is real and constantly checked, not just a word to throw on an Instagram caption.
Although we all familiar with this genre, it really is worldbuilding with Price, every crackhead lovingly rendered, every abandoned lot containing its own person history, and every interaction between law enforcement and a drug dealer an exercise in gamesmanship. What Price captures here is what every good book in this genre captures, only at a higher frequency: the cops and criminals need each other. Professionally, of course, but personally also. The familiarity breeds a begrudging respect and, at times, a fondness for one another, like two basketball players dapping up after a competitive series. The familiarity also, at times, spills into gross abuses of violence and power.
This is not a perfect book. The mystery is really just an excuse to explore the town and its cast of characters, as others have pointed out. We are blitzed with a wide net of characters, which makes it hard to track every little subplot or grudge. And, occasionally, the details get tiresome, Price showing off his research a little too much, and not always in the service of the story.
The drugs change, the slang changes, the clothes change, but the story remains the same—this time evocatively rendered.
Price put together 600 pages of well-researched, unflinching, accessible language here, an accomplishment that I can’t help but applaud.
I tell my students in my worldbuilding class that once the rules are established, you have to play by them, and can only break them for a damn good reason. Price knows the rules of the game well (both for drug dealers and corrupt cops) and we explore them with characters representing each side of that coin, whose daily existence relies on navigating rules and hierarches more complicated than the British Royal Monarchy.
Unlike the average citizen, they actually have to follow these rules closely, because it’s a death sentence if you disobey. Loyalty is real and constantly checked, not just a word to throw on an Instagram caption.
Although we all familiar with this genre, it really is worldbuilding with Price, every crackhead lovingly rendered, every abandoned lot containing its own person history, and every interaction between law enforcement and a drug dealer an exercise in gamesmanship. What Price captures here is what every good book in this genre captures, only at a higher frequency: the cops and criminals need each other. Professionally, of course, but personally also. The familiarity breeds a begrudging respect and, at times, a fondness for one another, like two basketball players dapping up after a competitive series. The familiarity also, at times, spills into gross abuses of violence and power.
This is not a perfect book. The mystery is really just an excuse to explore the town and its cast of characters, as others have pointed out. We are blitzed with a wide net of characters, which makes it hard to track every little subplot or grudge. And, occasionally, the details get tiresome, Price showing off his research a little too much, and not always in the service of the story.
The drugs change, the slang changes, the clothes change, but the story remains the same—this time evocatively rendered.
April 27, 2016
Clockers - the term refers to the low-level, 24-hour drug slingers staked outside the projects - was written in 1992, and takes place before then. Which is why it took me so long to figure out why the characters referred to the cops as "Furies." It's because the police drove Plymouth Furies. Natch.
My disorientation has a point: this is a book that takes place in a world that most goodreads.com members have never been to. It's set in the fictional town of Dempsey, but is as real and bleak a look at the projects as you're likely to get. (As far as I know, of course. I was born in Bloomington, Minnesota. You know what's dangerous about Bloomington? Nothing. Stray hockey pucks from the Pee-Wees practicing on the rink).
Clockers is built around a murder, but it's not a murder mystery. You're pretty much told who did the killing, and the secret is why this person shot this other guy. In the end, the surprise is that there is no surprise. Which is life, I guess, but also a gyp in dramatic terms. Like Lush Life, though, the plot is not the point. It's the place. The people, the places, the dangerous and unending cat-and-mouse between cops, detectives, drug lords and clockers.
The story is told in chapters that switch between a detective's point of view (Rocco) and a clocker's point of view (Strike). Rocco is the somewhat-dated archetype: the cop who still believes in the Job. He's burnt out, of course, and has an endearing habit of chugging vodka from his freezer before he goes to bed. Strike is the more interesting character: a young man who drinks a ton of Yoo-Hoo to mask his ulcer, who is unapologetic about his business yet equally scared of his boss than of the cops.
Strike is drawn into Rocco's world after Strike's brother, Victor, is apprehended for murder. Rocco doesn't think Victor did it; he's after Strike. Strike is oblivious to this, because he's got to deal with the terrifying and enigmatic Rodney, a drug kingpin who also happens to run a convenience store and who preaches paternally to his young clockers about saving for the future: buy real estate, not sneakers. Strike also serves as reluctant mentor to young Tyrone, clocker-of-the-future, until he runs into the formidable force of Tyrone's mother.
Clockers ran on too long. At least for me. I'm not adverse to plot-less books, if I'm enjoying the world I'm in. Here, though, I was as desperate to escape as any of the street thugs. Moreover, some of the goings-on were a waste of time. For instance, there is a ludicrous sub-plot about a filmmaker shadowing Rocco in order to prepare for his next movie. This leads to Rocco harboring dreams of becoming an executive producer. In such a gritty tale, these proceedings have a shiny, plastic, sitcom feel. The whole thread could have been snipped.
Overall, though, this is a heck of a read. It's weighty, it's epic. It is filled with indelible, fully-realized, flawed and struggling characters. The dialogue rings. It is true to its world; that is, it's bleak and despairing. Probably the only reason I enjoyed Lush Life more is that it allowed some sunlight to filter through. In my mind, the City of Dempsey is like Fincher's New York City in Se7en: a place where it's always raining, where the sky is a black ceiling. At the end of the day, though some might be saved, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
My disorientation has a point: this is a book that takes place in a world that most goodreads.com members have never been to. It's set in the fictional town of Dempsey, but is as real and bleak a look at the projects as you're likely to get. (As far as I know, of course. I was born in Bloomington, Minnesota. You know what's dangerous about Bloomington? Nothing. Stray hockey pucks from the Pee-Wees practicing on the rink).
Clockers is built around a murder, but it's not a murder mystery. You're pretty much told who did the killing, and the secret is why this person shot this other guy. In the end, the surprise is that there is no surprise. Which is life, I guess, but also a gyp in dramatic terms. Like Lush Life, though, the plot is not the point. It's the place. The people, the places, the dangerous and unending cat-and-mouse between cops, detectives, drug lords and clockers.
The story is told in chapters that switch between a detective's point of view (Rocco) and a clocker's point of view (Strike). Rocco is the somewhat-dated archetype: the cop who still believes in the Job. He's burnt out, of course, and has an endearing habit of chugging vodka from his freezer before he goes to bed. Strike is the more interesting character: a young man who drinks a ton of Yoo-Hoo to mask his ulcer, who is unapologetic about his business yet equally scared of his boss than of the cops.
Strike is drawn into Rocco's world after Strike's brother, Victor, is apprehended for murder. Rocco doesn't think Victor did it; he's after Strike. Strike is oblivious to this, because he's got to deal with the terrifying and enigmatic Rodney, a drug kingpin who also happens to run a convenience store and who preaches paternally to his young clockers about saving for the future: buy real estate, not sneakers. Strike also serves as reluctant mentor to young Tyrone, clocker-of-the-future, until he runs into the formidable force of Tyrone's mother.
Clockers ran on too long. At least for me. I'm not adverse to plot-less books, if I'm enjoying the world I'm in. Here, though, I was as desperate to escape as any of the street thugs. Moreover, some of the goings-on were a waste of time. For instance, there is a ludicrous sub-plot about a filmmaker shadowing Rocco in order to prepare for his next movie. This leads to Rocco harboring dreams of becoming an executive producer. In such a gritty tale, these proceedings have a shiny, plastic, sitcom feel. The whole thread could have been snipped.
Overall, though, this is a heck of a read. It's weighty, it's epic. It is filled with indelible, fully-realized, flawed and struggling characters. The dialogue rings. It is true to its world; that is, it's bleak and despairing. Probably the only reason I enjoyed Lush Life more is that it allowed some sunlight to filter through. In my mind, the City of Dempsey is like Fincher's New York City in Se7en: a place where it's always raining, where the sky is a black ceiling. At the end of the day, though some might be saved, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
July 9, 2015
Amazing!!!
Clockers tracks the parallel stories of two men on different sides of the drug game (one a young, mid-level, crack dealer, the other a homicide cop), revolving around a murder in Price's fictional New Jersey city of Dempsey. The engaging characterizations of these two men are what truly make this novel shine. From the dealer Strike (with his paranoia, orderliness, and his frustration with both his lower-level dealers and his perforated ulcer), to Detective Rocco (with his jaded outlook on is job, love for his wife and daughter, and his embarrassing obsession with pleasing a famous actor), the characters are truly vivid and feel totally genuine! Price is so wonderful at creating characters that feel really alive.
But there's also so much more here. At times it's flat-out funny, it has a suspenseful mystery, and has a huge dose of urban social commentary. An all-around classic and one of my favorites!
July 22, 2024
“...almost nobody made it out of the game in one piece, and almost everybody thought they would be the exception.”
This story of a "Clocker" (illegal narcotics salesperson) and a homicide detective whose lives collide over a murder in a squalid part of New Jersey has a gritty realness that few other books can match, from the characters to the dialogue to the settings and even the various morally ambiguous situations throughout that fairly jump from the pages. That level of detail is not without a cost however, as the book is awfully long and, at times, slow. But the patient reader will appreciate the opportunity to examine the many different facets of the ambitions, moral codes, personal squabbles, misunderstandings, and entanglements shared by the characters who emerge less as heroes or villains but rather as a couple of guys trying to figure out their lives and just get by.
“Everybody was full of shit in this game. The cops bullshitted each other, the dealers bullshitted each other, the cops bullshitted the dealers, the dealers bullshitted the cops, the cops took bribes, the dealers ratted each other out. Nobody knew for sure which side anybody was on; no one really knew how much or how little money anybody else was making. Everything was smoke.”
This story of a "Clocker" (illegal narcotics salesperson) and a homicide detective whose lives collide over a murder in a squalid part of New Jersey has a gritty realness that few other books can match, from the characters to the dialogue to the settings and even the various morally ambiguous situations throughout that fairly jump from the pages. That level of detail is not without a cost however, as the book is awfully long and, at times, slow. But the patient reader will appreciate the opportunity to examine the many different facets of the ambitions, moral codes, personal squabbles, misunderstandings, and entanglements shared by the characters who emerge less as heroes or villains but rather as a couple of guys trying to figure out their lives and just get by.
“Everybody was full of shit in this game. The cops bullshitted each other, the dealers bullshitted each other, the cops bullshitted the dealers, the dealers bullshitted the cops, the cops took bribes, the dealers ratted each other out. Nobody knew for sure which side anybody was on; no one really knew how much or how little money anybody else was making. Everything was smoke.”
September 10, 2008
Like Dostoevsky meets Tupac and it's pretty awesome for it. An amazingly complex and l-o-n-g tale of half-flawed people negotiating the pretty bleak world of the north Jersey projects. Every time I thought one of the characters was stooping to stereotype, Price introduced another layer of ambiguity that made much of said characterization ring true. Best of all, the story is so long that no detail is extraneous; the author had time to make everything more or less add up to something. Even Strike's annoying stutter mattered in the end. If you can stomach the bleakness of the landscape, this is well worth the effort.
February 23, 2022
Brilliantly written, a powerful character study and vivid setting. It's the nineties and Dempsey, NJ is suffering the dual epidemics of crack and AIDS. Strike, a young Black man living in the projects, is making good money running a crew of Clockers, the children who make drop the coke and collect the cash from an unending stream of drug addicts. Rocco, a homicide cop, is working the shooting of a fast-food manager, also a drug dealer. The cops are harsh, dedicated, full of gallows humor and holding their hope at arm's length. The poor kids running drugs are self-important, quick to anger, on a treadmill to murder or prison. It's a dark, cruel world brought shockingly alive by Price. My only criticism is that the book is too long--300,000 plus words. Though ever scene is engaging, there's a point where more is just more. I don't really want to live in this world permanently.
March 22, 2018
Awesome! Price has got the inner city down. This novel which switches back and forth between two points of view. Strike is an inner city 🌃 drug dealer who lives in the projects and sits at the benches slinging “bottles” (crack vials), hiding his cash in safe houses, and thinking someday he’ll have the balls to walk out of the life still breathing. His mother told him never to come back and his brother Victor works the straight life with two jobs and a dream of getting out of the projects and a wife and two kids. The other point of view is homicide detective Rocco, who is not completely jaded even after working these mean streets. There’s an unsolved homicide tying these two characters together.
What makes this 610 page behemoth sing is how well Price captures the language and the rhythm and the attitude of the two worlds that Strike and Rocco inhabit. The dialogue and the narrative is real. It’s genuine. It’s authentic.
Strike is not completely bad, at least compared to some of the hard cases he deals with. He’s maybe in the wrong game but can’t walk out. But he recruits younger kids, sells dope, and plans a murder.
You not only get the juxtaposition of Strike and his hardworking brother but the contrast with Rocco who really wants to do right and not sacrifice a lamb to the wolves.
All in all, Price gives us one helluva top-notch crime fiction novel here.
What makes this 610 page behemoth sing is how well Price captures the language and the rhythm and the attitude of the two worlds that Strike and Rocco inhabit. The dialogue and the narrative is real. It’s genuine. It’s authentic.
Strike is not completely bad, at least compared to some of the hard cases he deals with. He’s maybe in the wrong game but can’t walk out. But he recruits younger kids, sells dope, and plans a murder.
You not only get the juxtaposition of Strike and his hardworking brother but the contrast with Rocco who really wants to do right and not sacrifice a lamb to the wolves.
All in all, Price gives us one helluva top-notch crime fiction novel here.
June 1, 2024
... about as shabby and grim a gig as you could ask for.
My first Richard Price novel delivered the promised goods in terms of a shabby and grim story. The subject: a detailed look at drug dealing in the tenements / ghetto of fictional Dempsy [in the same area as New Jersey], should not be made pretty or funny, so the author has probably made the right decision. And he’s a damn good writer.
But as an honest reviewer, I can’t say I ‘liked’ my stroll through the mean streets of Dempsy. The only adjectives that come to mind are bloated, over-written, contrived instead of realistic and gripping as I was led to expect by other reviewers.
It’s probably my fault for being unable to care about the fate of the two major POV characters, or of any of the minor bit players. Or for thinking there is simply not enough plot here for 600 pages of introspection and edgy dialogue that is repeated with minor variations like a broken record that skips over the same passage over and over.
It took me almost a month to reach the final page of a book I expected to finish in two or three days because I felt the need to put the story aside after each chapter and read something else to clean my palate, especially after the Rocco chapters, whom I found vile and too full of his own sh_t.
>>><<<>>><<<
So, what are clockers? and what other street slang did I learn from Richard Price?
“See, people get killed around here ‘cause they can’t see two minutes in front of their nose. Somethin’ feels good now, and that’s all they want to know about.”
Clockers are young underage Black Americans who live on the street dealing cocaine in ‘bottles’. They are preyed upon by older mobsters who use their hunger and their lack of perspective to grab the lion’s share of the profits, and by ‘the Fury’ or vice squad cops, who are often corrupt and take their own share of the profits.
Our guide through this hellish landscape is Strike, who at 17 is already suffering from a perforated ulcer induced by stress.
Sneaker dealers, pipe-heads, juveniles. Stickup artists, girls, the Fury. You can’t trust nobody, so keep your back to the wall and your eyes open – 24, 7, 365.
Strike works for Rodney and tries to break free of the two-minute rule by being extra careful and saving his stash instead of blowing it on high priced footwear or heavy gold chains. But Rodney has plans for the bright young delinquent: he offers a better job if only Strike will murder the person up the food chain he is supposed to replace, a former friend who was too smart for his own good and tried to deal on his own behind Rodney’s back.
Strike hesitates, yet his target is killed by an unknown assailant – this is the backbone of the story and the event that bring the murder squad into the picture, in particular detective Rocco.
From this point forward, the narration alternates between the stories of Strike and of Rocco, in a game of cat and mouse played out in the streets of Dempsy.
The whole thing’s a trap You got a crowd on You you best got to act the part or you’re noting. It’s unfortunate but them’s the rules.
It’s called ‘street cred’ I think, a concept similar to ‘face’ in the novels of James Clavell: you must play the tough role or you would be trampled underfoot by some predator who can smell you fear, your insecurity. It’s what gives Strike the ulcer and what makes detective Rocco go on a private crusade to prove he is a law unto himself, willing to break all the rules and a few bones in order to get the result he desires.
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The air stank of burning insulation. The oily smoke, the charred metal carcasses, the ashy mounds of old rubber-stripping fires and the zombie lope of the scavengers made him feel as if he was visiting a major battle site three days after the troops had buried their dead and moved on.
As I said, I didn’t like the story, but I do think Richard Price is a very good writer. It’s a pity that I read somewhere that all his novels are similar in tone and subject to ‘Clockers’ because right now I can’t see myself trying for another one.
I do believe this would have worked better as a television series script, given the dialogue heavy narration and the focus on human interest stories from the underworld. From the fact that Spike Lee picked up the novel and adapted it to his own similar style, and that the hit series The Wire is based on the same material, I would have probably had more success if I have chosen another medium for my visit to Dempsy.
August 27, 2012
This is the first Richard Price novel I've read. I've never seen The Wire, nor have I watched the Spike Lee adaptation of this book. Many of the reviews I've read are by people who watched The Wire and were enamored with it. My opinion is as unbiased as it gets.
The book is pretty interesting and really gripping. It's a peek into the gritty and sad world of early 90s New Jersey projects. It's giving a fair view of both sides of the world Strike and Rocco live in. Rocco and Strike are on opposing sides of the law yet have finding the truth in common. Both characters have their faults and depth.
Many describe this book as great literature, compelling, or unforgettable. I don't find it to be any of the above. I've read a lot of urban fiction as a teen so the subject matter is not new. The only real difference I saw between this and other urban fiction is the view from opposing sides. This novel does a good job of showing motivations from a cops perspective and an inner-city crack dealers view, and them both being valid. For that reason alone I could not give it less than 3 stars (although I wanted to).
In my honest opinion, I was pretty bored with this most of the time. It's a pretty long book. I'm a fan of a large read but not one that is like watching paint dry. As if it isn't bad enough reading through the slang, I have to suffer through mediocre writing. This book definitely will not be in my favorites list but I would like to read more by this author. He has other books out there that are fan-favorites so I'm not giving up on Price.
The book is pretty interesting and really gripping. It's a peek into the gritty and sad world of early 90s New Jersey projects. It's giving a fair view of both sides of the world Strike and Rocco live in. Rocco and Strike are on opposing sides of the law yet have finding the truth in common. Both characters have their faults and depth.
Many describe this book as great literature, compelling, or unforgettable. I don't find it to be any of the above. I've read a lot of urban fiction as a teen so the subject matter is not new. The only real difference I saw between this and other urban fiction is the view from opposing sides. This novel does a good job of showing motivations from a cops perspective and an inner-city crack dealers view, and them both being valid. For that reason alone I could not give it less than 3 stars (although I wanted to).
In my honest opinion, I was pretty bored with this most of the time. It's a pretty long book. I'm a fan of a large read but not one that is like watching paint dry. As if it isn't bad enough reading through the slang, I have to suffer through mediocre writing. This book definitely will not be in my favorites list but I would like to read more by this author. He has other books out there that are fan-favorites so I'm not giving up on Price.
January 1, 2017
Rocco Klein, a tough New Jersey homicide detective, is on the hunt to discover who really killed a local drug dealer in a diner. The brother of a rival drug dealer admits to it, but soon cracks start to surface and Klein figures out that all is not as it seems.
This a bare bones, gritty urban story that makes you feel like you're right there watching what happens like a fly on the wall. It's definitely for fans of The Wire or Law & Order. There's not a lot of fluff or romance.
It's a dark but realistic depiction of life on the mean streets of an American city.
This a bare bones, gritty urban story that makes you feel like you're right there watching what happens like a fly on the wall. It's definitely for fans of The Wire or Law & Order. There's not a lot of fluff or romance.
It's a dark but realistic depiction of life on the mean streets of an American city.
March 1, 2009
Reading Clockers was a lot like watching The Wire, and that's a good thing. As I said in my comment when I started reading this book, I'm happy I never read this before now, and that I had never seen the movie adaptation, which I'm sure is quite good, but which would have ruined some of the book. Not having anymore episodes of The Wire reading this was a nice way for a bookish and non-street white boy to return to the world of slinging drugs in the projects, and go 'slumming' so to speak amongst a socio-economic class that he knows nothing about firsthand. I don't know if this is how things really are/were, just like I really don't know if The Wire was really true to life, both feel pretty real to me, and they seem more realistic than say getting all my street experiences from an NWA record (not that I'm going to say deny NWA any kind of street credibility, but there is a certain romanticism to it, a gritty romanticism but there is still something that glorifies the world and doesn't necessarily paint a full picture, but maybe I'm wrong, I did spend much of my formative years in a very small city where cops had nothing better to do than fuck with freaky looking kids as if they were even a minor threat to anything by hanging out bored in an empty lot with a few benches and some stairs on the main street of town. Hmmmm this is opening up a new line of thought about the absurd parallels between my own years on the 'street' hanging out and being bored, and the clockers (drug dealers) in this book, both of them and the group of kids I'd hang around with got hassled endlessly by the pigs, the fuzz, the cops, the heat, five-oh. I developed my own paranoia about cops and their bullshit, and did fear being pulled over driving for no reason other than looking different (it's nice to know that someone thinks 'punk' is a threat, even if it is bored upstate New York cops), and maybe even being smacked around after being pulled over and realizing there wasn't a fucking thing you can do about it because they have the power and you have jack shit (ok, I wasn't smacked around by a cop, but by an off duty prison guard, a screw as they say, still wearing his uniform and when I tried going to the five-oh's about getting smacked around by this guy who had no reason/right to do so, I was told there was nothing I could do so just go home)).
So anyway I was saying something about NWA before I got sidetracked. This book feels very real to me. There is the same moral ambiguity that makes shows like The Wire so good. There aren't really good and bad guys, but a bunch of people doing what they have to do to get by, and that goes for the clockers and the various types of cops that populate the book. There is no glamor in the book, it's devoid of any kind of romanticism for either the police, the people living in the projects or anyone else who comes into contact with the world created in this book.
I thought about giving this book five stars, and I'm not quite sure why I didn't. Clockers is damn near close to getting that extra star, maybe I'm just not in a generous mood this weekend for that extra star, but it's a great book no matter what my fickle star dolling out shows.
So anyway I was saying something about NWA before I got sidetracked. This book feels very real to me. There is the same moral ambiguity that makes shows like The Wire so good. There aren't really good and bad guys, but a bunch of people doing what they have to do to get by, and that goes for the clockers and the various types of cops that populate the book. There is no glamor in the book, it's devoid of any kind of romanticism for either the police, the people living in the projects or anyone else who comes into contact with the world created in this book.
I thought about giving this book five stars, and I'm not quite sure why I didn't. Clockers is damn near close to getting that extra star, maybe I'm just not in a generous mood this weekend for that extra star, but it's a great book no matter what my fickle star dolling out shows.
April 16, 2015
Sometimes I wonder why I keep reading mysteries. Most of them are formulaic and the endings are often disappointing. Either predictable or improbable. Then comes along a book that is not just a good mystery but a great book. “Clokers” is such a book.
The author Richard Price wrote for the HBO series “The Wire” – the best series of all time - and, at first, I thought that this book was very similar to the series. We have young underprivileged black men – kids really – selling drugs – the clokers - and the narcotics cop who go after them. The narcotics cops are called “The Fury” by the clockers from the car they drive, Plymouth Fury.
Then the main characters come in focus: Strike who manages the clokers on the benches and Rocco the homicide cop. The story is told from their alternate point of views. The strength of the author is that we care equally about both. By the end of the book we understand clearly the dealer’s point of view. They really believe that they have no choice in life but to deal drugs that there is not alternative. Victor’s, honest brother, proves their point. He’s holding two jobs and still can’t get his family out of the project. They are crushed by peer pressure and by their desire to get a better life. Unfortunately the trill of the easy money and notoriety moves them further from the life they aim for. In other circumstances, Strike could have gotten is MBA and make money honestly. He does show business acumen and some leadership. And, when we think about it, is their naked ambition so different for the people on Wall Street?
The cops life is better but intrinsically linked to that of the dealers can it be much better? They hardly ever see their family. What they see are these kids making all that money and some corrupted cops take a cut. Often they don’t show any respects for the clokers but some of the policemen are truly good people who still believe that what they do has value, that they are helping those kids. They have faith.
This book is all about faith. Strike has faith in Rodney, the posse boss, whom he sees as a mentor. He has faith in Tyrone, a bright kid, whom he tries to mentor with terrible consequences. Andre’s, a cop, tries ineffectively to save some kids in whom he has faith. They all have faith in a shiny better future that is forever escaping them.
Then a third in the book a murder happens. As the book progress, the mystery deepens and, in the last third, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough so eager was I to found out who really did it.
This book is so interesting on some many levels - beautifully constructed, written in vivid language that makes the characters alive – I could never do it justice. Just read it.
The author Richard Price wrote for the HBO series “The Wire” – the best series of all time - and, at first, I thought that this book was very similar to the series. We have young underprivileged black men – kids really – selling drugs – the clokers - and the narcotics cop who go after them. The narcotics cops are called “The Fury” by the clockers from the car they drive, Plymouth Fury.
Then the main characters come in focus: Strike who manages the clokers on the benches and Rocco the homicide cop. The story is told from their alternate point of views. The strength of the author is that we care equally about both. By the end of the book we understand clearly the dealer’s point of view. They really believe that they have no choice in life but to deal drugs that there is not alternative. Victor’s, honest brother, proves their point. He’s holding two jobs and still can’t get his family out of the project. They are crushed by peer pressure and by their desire to get a better life. Unfortunately the trill of the easy money and notoriety moves them further from the life they aim for. In other circumstances, Strike could have gotten is MBA and make money honestly. He does show business acumen and some leadership. And, when we think about it, is their naked ambition so different for the people on Wall Street?
The cops life is better but intrinsically linked to that of the dealers can it be much better? They hardly ever see their family. What they see are these kids making all that money and some corrupted cops take a cut. Often they don’t show any respects for the clokers but some of the policemen are truly good people who still believe that what they do has value, that they are helping those kids. They have faith.
This book is all about faith. Strike has faith in Rodney, the posse boss, whom he sees as a mentor. He has faith in Tyrone, a bright kid, whom he tries to mentor with terrible consequences. Andre’s, a cop, tries ineffectively to save some kids in whom he has faith. They all have faith in a shiny better future that is forever escaping them.
Then a third in the book a murder happens. As the book progress, the mystery deepens and, in the last third, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough so eager was I to found out who really did it.
This book is so interesting on some many levels - beautifully constructed, written in vivid language that makes the characters alive – I could never do it justice. Just read it.
August 25, 2010
One of the great novels of the late 20th century. Comparisons to Steinbeck, Dostoevsky, and Dickens are not superfluous. Is there characters you would rather jump of cliffs with than Strike and Rocco? Is there a character more corrupt, evil and utterly human than Rodney Little? Dismal human tragedy brought to high art that manages to give us an ability to discuss it with out cheapening the tragedy and making it palatable. The Wire is the real adaptation of this, skip the movie.
April 25, 2017
You know from the very first sentence that you're in the hands of a master. If you loved the great TV series "The Wire," you'll love this book. (Price also wrote several episodes of "The Wire").
September 10, 2019
Richard Price is one of my favorite crime writers, even though to my knowledge, he is not in the series "game." His books are gritty and realistic, and this one is no exception.
The two main characters are a veteran homicide detective and an African-American 19-year-old who runs a crew of drug sellers at a public housing complex. We follow both, including their thoughts and feelings as they navigate through their respective worlds.
These two main characters (Strike and Rocco) are incredibly well developed. It may be a cliche thing to say but I felt like I knew them both after just a few chapters. Price expends great effort at making you sympathetic to both characters for completely different, yet validating reasons. One clearly gets the picture that the police and drug enforcement bodies are as trapped by the inner city culture as those that live in that culture
Clockers was also informative, filled with operational detail related to the drug trade.
It should be noted that Price has also made his mark as a screenwriter for movies and television, so invariably the dialogue is crisp and true to life. His novels are modern crime drama genre, without being formulaic or confined to series with re-appearing protagonists.
My one complaint is that the roughly 600 pages are replete with unnecessary descriptions, which made the reading tedious at times. What was needed was a good editor to trim off the fat. Otherwise, a very relevant novel.
The two main characters are a veteran homicide detective and an African-American 19-year-old who runs a crew of drug sellers at a public housing complex. We follow both, including their thoughts and feelings as they navigate through their respective worlds.
These two main characters (Strike and Rocco) are incredibly well developed. It may be a cliche thing to say but I felt like I knew them both after just a few chapters. Price expends great effort at making you sympathetic to both characters for completely different, yet validating reasons. One clearly gets the picture that the police and drug enforcement bodies are as trapped by the inner city culture as those that live in that culture
Clockers was also informative, filled with operational detail related to the drug trade.
It should be noted that Price has also made his mark as a screenwriter for movies and television, so invariably the dialogue is crisp and true to life. His novels are modern crime drama genre, without being formulaic or confined to series with re-appearing protagonists.
My one complaint is that the roughly 600 pages are replete with unnecessary descriptions, which made the reading tedious at times. What was needed was a good editor to trim off the fat. Otherwise, a very relevant novel.
October 28, 2018
This is Richard Price's gritty masterpiece, an entrancing murder mystery featuring glimpses into the emotionally charged lives of a declining Rocco Klein a soon to retire hardcore New Jersey homicide detective, and Strike Dunham a naive 19 year old black boy from the projects who as a mid level street-corner cocaine dealer finds himself involved in matters way over his head.
This is not my usual reading choice given the street language and violence but by 1/4 way through, I found myself simply enthralled in these pages. Price is an award winning author and screenwriter whose ability to transport you into the character's world is truly unmatched.
Read as EP Signed Modern Classic Selection 10/18
5 stars
This is not my usual reading choice given the street language and violence but by 1/4 way through, I found myself simply enthralled in these pages. Price is an award winning author and screenwriter whose ability to transport you into the character's world is truly unmatched.
Read as EP Signed Modern Classic Selection 10/18
5 stars
June 5, 2024
While the plot wasn't the greatest, Price's writing is outstanding, so 3 stars for the plot and 5 for the writing. Price puts out total realism, from the action to the dialogue and the characters' thoughts. Nothing rings untrue. I liken this to the works of James Ellroy, and in my book that is very special.
Clockers follows several weeks in the lives of Strike, a corner coke dealer in a suburb of Newark, and Rocco, a homicide detective who gets involved in the murder of a restaurant manager who also deals. Strike's brother, who is not in the drug scene, confesses to the crime, to the amazement of all.
There are laugh-out-loud moments of sarcastic humor and plenty of smart-ass talk, especially from the cops. The writing is just top level. Chapter 4, in which a film actor cruising with the cops to prepare for a script he's writing, has his eyes opened by a tough scene in a holding pen, and in which a conversation with the cops in a restaurant dispels from him any glamorous or redeeming quality of police work, is a flat masterpiece. Rocco says:
"It's a funny job. The pager goes off, it could be a double homicide or it could be your wife reminding you to bring home bananas." I know the drill - the same type of thing in General Surgery. It could be that your ICU patient has just gone into septic shock, or it could be your office telling you you're 15 minutes late for your first patient.
Clockers shares a psychological similarity with Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, the way Strike, like Raskolnikov, feels the world closing in on him.
Clockers follows several weeks in the lives of Strike, a corner coke dealer in a suburb of Newark, and Rocco, a homicide detective who gets involved in the murder of a restaurant manager who also deals. Strike's brother, who is not in the drug scene, confesses to the crime, to the amazement of all.
There are laugh-out-loud moments of sarcastic humor and plenty of smart-ass talk, especially from the cops. The writing is just top level. Chapter 4, in which a film actor cruising with the cops to prepare for a script he's writing, has his eyes opened by a tough scene in a holding pen, and in which a conversation with the cops in a restaurant dispels from him any glamorous or redeeming quality of police work, is a flat masterpiece. Rocco says:
"It's a funny job. The pager goes off, it could be a double homicide or it could be your wife reminding you to bring home bananas." I know the drill - the same type of thing in General Surgery. It could be that your ICU patient has just gone into septic shock, or it could be your office telling you you're 15 minutes late for your first patient.
Clockers shares a psychological similarity with Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, the way Strike, like Raskolnikov, feels the world closing in on him.
August 26, 2014
So apparently Clockers, published in the early 90s, is a spiritual ancestor of The Wire. That makes sense. Reading Clockers is similar to watching that series; the reader switches from the perspective of the police to the dealers and back again. Scenes linger around the public housing courtyards and homicide investigator’s home lives. Clockers also, like The Wire, carries a Shakespearean dread to the (long) novel’s end. I read all 600 pages in a little over a week and the fact I didn’t get bored is a testament to Price’s smooth balance between detail and movement. So if you like The Wire, you’ll like Clockers. If you like Dennis Lehane, you’ll like Richard Price. That’s not to say Price is an imitator; he’s got his own thing, and based on Clockers, he’s very good at his thing.
May 29, 2025
I read this book ages ago and I still remember the rawness, grittiness and despair. This is a book populated by people trapped in a life of despair, violence and few options -- yet who still find hidden pockets of dignity and decency. The tension and stress of living in the projects is so realistically rendered that you feel that you are there ... living on the street and hustling to make a living. One detail that has remained in my mind this whole time is one character who constantly drinks Yoo-Hoo. For some reason, this detail has always stuck with me. In my mind, it was his way of treating the ulcers created by his way of life. A masterful novel that examines the American inner city during the heyday of the crack epidemic, Clockers is a riveting read and one not easily forgotten. Not for the faint of heart or those easily turned off by a way of life different from their own.
August 13, 2018
Price is a careful thinker and writer. He is really an ethnologist of the urban. The show the Wire is based on this book. Bonfire of the Vanities is not half the book that Clockers is -- style be damned.
There is a chapter on heroin addicts who live in a condemned building and who take out and sell the copper tubing in order to get their fix. This chapter is as poetic, as generous, as painful as anything I have read. It would make Charles Dickens envious.
There is a chapter on heroin addicts who live in a condemned building and who take out and sell the copper tubing in order to get their fix. This chapter is as poetic, as generous, as painful as anything I have read. It would make Charles Dickens envious.
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February 2, 2020A death in the land of the two minute clock.
February 12, 2009
If I could, I'd rate Clockers a solid 3.5 stars. I really enjoyed the Spike Lee film of the mid-nineties, and the combination of the recent hype surrounding Price's new novel, Lush Life, and his award-winning writing for The Wire, finally boosted this classic crime-drama to the top of my reading list. Clockers succeeds in vividly capturing a certain socio-political zeitgeist of the late-1980s and early 1990s, when continuously splashed across the New York City tabloids were lurid accounts of the twin epidemics of the age: the ravishment of crack and AIDS on urban communities.
Writing gritty, detailed prose that shows he clearly performed on-the-ground research in crafting his story, Price introduces us, in alternating chapters, to Strike, a young black "middle-management" crack dealer in a depressed New Jersey town just outside of New York City, and to Rocco, the white homicide cop trying to nail Strike on a murder rap while dealing with his own mid-life crisis. While not as eye-opening now, given TV shows like The Wire, Price deserves much credit for demonstrating the complicated relationships between drug dealers and the cops in charge of corralling them, which often involves a give-and-take compromise on both ends, and in which the concept of "justice" is many shades of gray. Price also succeeds in crafting a true pot-boiler, while still creating complex, empathetic characters on both sides of the drug war, whose mistakes come more from their tragically ignorant oversimplification of the lives of their adversaries than they do from any inherent malice.
Because of the time that has passed since the era in which Price is writing about, and because of shows like "The Wire" that have terrifically captured similar themes in even greater depth and detail, Clockers has lost some of the power and resonance it surely had when released. The book is also too long at 600 pages, with some underdeveloped and unnecessary side-characters, and could have been written more tightly (e.g. Strike's stomach aches -- we get it already). I'm sure I would have given Clockers 4 stars had I read it when it came out; but for a current reader, its slightly dated nature tips it a little closer to three.
Writing gritty, detailed prose that shows he clearly performed on-the-ground research in crafting his story, Price introduces us, in alternating chapters, to Strike, a young black "middle-management" crack dealer in a depressed New Jersey town just outside of New York City, and to Rocco, the white homicide cop trying to nail Strike on a murder rap while dealing with his own mid-life crisis. While not as eye-opening now, given TV shows like The Wire, Price deserves much credit for demonstrating the complicated relationships between drug dealers and the cops in charge of corralling them, which often involves a give-and-take compromise on both ends, and in which the concept of "justice" is many shades of gray. Price also succeeds in crafting a true pot-boiler, while still creating complex, empathetic characters on both sides of the drug war, whose mistakes come more from their tragically ignorant oversimplification of the lives of their adversaries than they do from any inherent malice.
Because of the time that has passed since the era in which Price is writing about, and because of shows like "The Wire" that have terrifically captured similar themes in even greater depth and detail, Clockers has lost some of the power and resonance it surely had when released. The book is also too long at 600 pages, with some underdeveloped and unnecessary side-characters, and could have been written more tightly (e.g. Strike's stomach aches -- we get it already). I'm sure I would have given Clockers 4 stars had I read it when it came out; but for a current reader, its slightly dated nature tips it a little closer to three.
December 10, 2016
I read many good reviews of this book, so I am that much more disappointed that I cannot finish it. I don't like or care about the characters after reading 140+ pages. And almost nothing happened. So make that bored and disappointed.
March 31, 2016
Clockers by Richard Price is less a police procedural than an examination of the lives of two very different men whose lives intersect through death. I enjoyed his latest novel, The Whites, more than this one but the story is complex and the novel is very well-written. The dialogue is particularly well-crafted.
Rocco is a homicide detective in Dempsy, New Jersey, contemplating retirement and Strike is a nineteen year old “clocker” who works the steps of the Dempsy housing project where his mother and brother still live. A “clocker” is near the bottom of the drug-dealing hierarchy. Just about every day, Strike runs his crew of dealers, deals with near daily searches and harassment by the housing police, and tries to unravel the lies and double-crossing of his mentor and drug boss, Rodney. Rocco is something of a sad sack detective who doesn’t seem to want to retire, but has lost his enthusiasm for the job. He’s also very uncomfortable in his roles as the father of a two year old girl and the husband to a much younger and socially well-heeled Manhattan woman. Rocco is also the name of my cat so whenever I read the name “Rocco,” I thought “meow.” I didn’t actually like either character, or any of the characters in the book, but they are interesting and I sympathize with them, particularly Strike. Despite being a drug dealer, he is a decent kid, smart, and not happy about his chosen line of work. The stress of his life actually gives him a bleeding ulcer. But this book disproves (and fights against) the trend that authors must write likeable characters in order for readers to enjoy the book. Despite our differences, I related to both of the characters, rooted for them to succeed (even though Rocco’s success wasn’t necessarily good for Strike) and, as far as Strike is concerned, gained a different perspective on how difficult it is to break from of the safe routine of your life, even if your life sucks.
Early in the book, Rocco and his partner Mazilli are shadowed by a movie star named Sean Touhey. Sean is thinking of making a cop movie and Rocco can’t believe anyone would be interested:
Strike is a smart kid who knows how to best run his street crew and has a certain code of ethics. Skewed, of course, as he does deal drugs, but he justifies it by saying that if he didn’t sell it, someone else would, and he only sells to those already looking for it. I found Strike a more sympathetic and likeable (as much as I liked any of the characters) than Rocco. He is trying to impose order on a chaotic world and isn’t as cynical as Rocco. He wants to succeed and wants to improve his lot in life:
I enjoyed this book. It’s not about who the killer is—it’s a journey into both of these characters’ worlds and an exploration of who they are. Neither of them see the truth staring them in face, but for different reasons. What stayed with me was how small Strike’s world is—he knows about violence, drugs and life on the street. But he’s innocent of both the larger world of drug dealing and the everyday, normal world outside of drugs and violence. He stays within his role as a clocker not because he likes drugs or even enjoys the money he makes—it’s just what he knows. His younger brother is a manager at a restaurant and Strike can’t conceive of that—not because he’s afraid of hard work (being a clocker is hard work plus there’s the constant threat of arrest and death) but because it’s too far outside his comfort zone. One of his drug runners finds a bunch of catalogues in the trash and they’re all transfixed at what a person can buy in these catalogues—things they’d never dreamed of. But they’d never buy any of it, not because they don’t have the money, but because the process of buying from a catalogue is outside their comfort zone:
Rocco is a homicide detective in Dempsy, New Jersey, contemplating retirement and Strike is a nineteen year old “clocker” who works the steps of the Dempsy housing project where his mother and brother still live. A “clocker” is near the bottom of the drug-dealing hierarchy. Just about every day, Strike runs his crew of dealers, deals with near daily searches and harassment by the housing police, and tries to unravel the lies and double-crossing of his mentor and drug boss, Rodney. Rocco is something of a sad sack detective who doesn’t seem to want to retire, but has lost his enthusiasm for the job. He’s also very uncomfortable in his roles as the father of a two year old girl and the husband to a much younger and socially well-heeled Manhattan woman. Rocco is also the name of my cat so whenever I read the name “Rocco,” I thought “meow.” I didn’t actually like either character, or any of the characters in the book, but they are interesting and I sympathize with them, particularly Strike. Despite being a drug dealer, he is a decent kid, smart, and not happy about his chosen line of work. The stress of his life actually gives him a bleeding ulcer. But this book disproves (and fights against) the trend that authors must write likeable characters in order for readers to enjoy the book. Despite our differences, I related to both of the characters, rooted for them to succeed (even though Rocco’s success wasn’t necessarily good for Strike) and, as far as Strike is concerned, gained a different perspective on how difficult it is to break from of the safe routine of your life, even if your life sucks.
Early in the book, Rocco and his partner Mazilli are shadowed by a movie star named Sean Touhey. Sean is thinking of making a cop movie and Rocco can’t believe anyone would be interested:
Rocco watched Touhey in the rearview mirror, amazed that sitting next to a little three-legged rat like Maldonado could be so involving to the actor, that a job that dealt with an endless parade of shitskin losers—hunting them down, befriending them in order to get their confessions, then tossing them into County—could possibly be of interest to anybody who didn’t get paid to do it. And his wife’s friends were the same way: all he had to do was clear his throat at a restaurant table and conversation trailed off, everybody waiting for him to say something terrible and gripping about his workday. Rocco recalled the office toilets with their newspapers on the floor, the evidence room with its dozens of sad-sack lives reduced to shopping bags reeking of b.o. and poverty: about as shabby and grim a gig as you could ask for (88).Despite his amazement, Rocco sees Touhey as an opportunity to do something different from solving murders and is rather desperate to impress him, to Rocco’s embarrassment and Mazilli’s amused disgust. One night, Rocco and Mazilli catch a homicide outside a restaurant in Dempsy and Rocco makes it his mission to get to the truth of what happened that night and fixes on Strike as the person who can help him.
Strike is a smart kid who knows how to best run his street crew and has a certain code of ethics. Skewed, of course, as he does deal drugs, but he justifies it by saying that if he didn’t sell it, someone else would, and he only sells to those already looking for it. I found Strike a more sympathetic and likeable (as much as I liked any of the characters) than Rocco. He is trying to impose order on a chaotic world and isn’t as cynical as Rocco. He wants to succeed and wants to improve his lot in life:
Strike dreamed his dream: no more bench, no more retail, no more Fury [the housing police]. But right behind it came a newspaper photograph of a maverick dealer who set himself up in Dempsy last year and was found by the police with the brass peephole of his apartment door embedded in his face, courtesy of a shotgun blast from the hallway. Fucking with Champ [a rival dealer]: Strike was torn between visions of paradise and survival (65).Trouble comes for Strike in the form of Rodney. In order for Strike to move up in the world and get away from selling drugs on the street, he has to kill Darryl, one of Rodney’s sellers. Darryl’s been double-dealing Rodney. If Strike kills Darryl, he inherits his gig of selling drugs from a local fast food restaurant, a safer and more lucrative job. The problem: Strike can’t do it. However, Darryl turns up dead and although Strike tells Rodney “his man” took care of it, Strike doesn’t know who did. Rocco is also searching for the killer and his search takes him to Strike.
I enjoyed this book. It’s not about who the killer is—it’s a journey into both of these characters’ worlds and an exploration of who they are. Neither of them see the truth staring them in face, but for different reasons. What stayed with me was how small Strike’s world is—he knows about violence, drugs and life on the street. But he’s innocent of both the larger world of drug dealing and the everyday, normal world outside of drugs and violence. He stays within his role as a clocker not because he likes drugs or even enjoys the money he makes—it’s just what he knows. His younger brother is a manager at a restaurant and Strike can’t conceive of that—not because he’s afraid of hard work (being a clocker is hard work plus there’s the constant threat of arrest and death) but because it’s too far outside his comfort zone. One of his drug runners finds a bunch of catalogues in the trash and they’re all transfixed at what a person can buy in these catalogues—things they’d never dreamed of. But they’d never buy any of it, not because they don’t have the money, but because the process of buying from a catalogue is outside their comfort zone:
The catalogues made him weak in the knees, fascinated him to the point of helplessness, the idea of all these things to be had, organized in a book that he could hold in one hand. Not that he would ever order anything—possessions drew attention, made you a target. None of the boys would order out of a catalogue either, not necessarily because they were paranoid like Strike, but because the ordering process—telephones, mailings, deliveries—required too much contact with the world outside the street (18).I would have to say my only complaints about this book is one, it’s longer than it has to be; Price could have cut some of it, and what he could have cut is my second complaint: Rocco talks too damn much. He has pages and pages of dialogue. Shut up, Rocco! He yammers on so much that I began skimming his paragraphs because I had the gist of what he was saying, but I didn’t need to be hammered over the head with it. I think the author loved writing Rocco’s dialogue too much. Otherwise, a good book. I’ll probably read the author’s other books and now that I’ve finished the review, I’ll allow myself to watch the movie.
November 8, 2023
Richard Price’s highly regarded crime novel, set in the projects of a fictional New Jersey city, set the stage for shows like The Wire (for which Price was brought on as a writer) with its true to life dialogue, careful research, and clever plotting. It is technically a murder mystery, but the murder happens fairly far into the book, and it’s far from a whodunnit; Clockers is about people, the choices they make, and the things they can’t escape. It’s about two brothers, one a deceptively intelligent midlevel dealer, the other a hard working, clean cut family man who confesses to a murder the detective assigned to the case (the other main character) refuses to believe he committed. It’s a long book, by crime novel standards, with a large cast, and it’s immersive; in some scenes Price veers almost into surrealism to describe how alien the world of junkies can sometimes be. If I had a concern going into the book, it was how Price, a white writer, would handle the inner-city setting; it’s a tightrope act for sure, but he mostly performs with grace. It’s clear he did a lot of research before writing this book to make sure he got it right. The ending is surprising and smart, while still remaining as character-focused as the rest of the novel. I read Price’s The Wanderers in high school, and while on the surface Clockers couldn’t be more different, it’s clear that he has a talent for writing about the disenfranchised, whoever they are, those who are imprisoned by the lot they’re born into, and he finds occasional beauty in the attempt to transcend it. A wonderful book, deserving of all its accolades.
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