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Are Snakes Necessary?
"It's like having a new Brian De Palma picture." - Martin Scorsese, Academy Award-winning director
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SCARFACE AND DRESSED TO KILL … A FEMALE REVENGE STORY
When the beautiful young videographer offered to join his campaign, Senator Lee Rogers should’ve known better. But saying no would have taken a stronger man than Rogers, with his ailing wife and his robust libido. Enter Barton Brock, the senator’s fixer. He’s already gotten rid of one troublesome young woman -- how hard could this new one turn out to be?
Pursued from Washington D.C. to the streets of Paris, 18-year-old Fanny Cours knows her reputation and budding career are on the line. But what she doesn’t realize is that her life might be as well…
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SCARFACE AND DRESSED TO KILL … A FEMALE REVENGE STORY
When the beautiful young videographer offered to join his campaign, Senator Lee Rogers should’ve known better. But saying no would have taken a stronger man than Rogers, with his ailing wife and his robust libido. Enter Barton Brock, the senator’s fixer. He’s already gotten rid of one troublesome young woman -- how hard could this new one turn out to be?
Pursued from Washington D.C. to the streets of Paris, 18-year-old Fanny Cours knows her reputation and budding career are on the line. But what she doesn’t realize is that her life might be as well…
240 pages, Paperback
First published March 17, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 142 reviews
March 18, 2020
In a tribute to the paperback pulps of yesteryear, Director Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman have produced for us Hard Case Crime’s latest work. It is a quick-reading book with a great pace. Written with a movie creator’s eye, the story takes us into the politics, sex, violence, lies, and manipulation. At the heart of the story is a hunky politician with a roving eye (and roving hands), his loyal hatchet-man political operative dedicated to covering up these “bimbo eruptions,” a photographer, a videographer, a stewardess, a congressional intern, and a headturning climber with her own agenda. There’s subtle humor here as private lives and public lives coalesce.
March 20, 2020
I’m a fan of Hard Case Crime but this one is a real turd. A movie that couldn’t get made turned into a book that is about as exciting as the Bed Bath and Beyond catalog. To call this a Crime story is a real stretch. Such a disappointment.
March 7, 2020
I applaud Hard Case's recent influx of big-name, Hollywood authored entries. For those that are not typical readers, I'm sure it does a lot to have some name recognition in an admittedly niche genre. What I don't understand, however, is why they seem to be consistently phoned-in.
It's hard to tell how much of this or which parts were written by De Palma himself or by Lehman, there's little in terms of obvious style. At no point did I think, "Hey, that was just like he did in Body Double!" nor did I get any Scarface or even Mission: Impossible vibes. I agree that this definitely comes off as a repurposed screenplay (one that perhaps should have stayed on the back burner a little longer), as it's written in a very direct manner with sparse details of its settings. Characters go from point A to B with little motivation other than to satisfy some arbitrary plot line. The ties between each character also comes off as being unnecessarily shoe-horned in. As a TV series, or mini series, or even serialized novellas, these relationships could be played up and fleshed out. In a book that only clocks in at ~230 pages, their interactions feel rushed and what should be big revelations either fall flat or can be seen from a mile away.
It's hard to tell how much of this or which parts were written by De Palma himself or by Lehman, there's little in terms of obvious style. At no point did I think, "Hey, that was just like he did in Body Double!" nor did I get any Scarface or even Mission: Impossible vibes. I agree that this definitely comes off as a repurposed screenplay (one that perhaps should have stayed on the back burner a little longer), as it's written in a very direct manner with sparse details of its settings. Characters go from point A to B with little motivation other than to satisfy some arbitrary plot line. The ties between each character also comes off as being unnecessarily shoe-horned in. As a TV series, or mini series, or even serialized novellas, these relationships could be played up and fleshed out. In a book that only clocks in at ~230 pages, their interactions feel rushed and what should be big revelations either fall flat or can be seen from a mile away.
April 20, 2020
ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? defies easy classification, and that is a good thing. It begins as a political thriller, then morphs into a noir caper before changing lanes and merging into the breakdown lane. It is full of surprises with a couple of predictable elements thrown in just to keep the reader comfortable before a twist or two throws everything upside down. In other words, I loved every page of it.
You already know who Brian De Palma is. Susan Lehman is a former newspaper editor and a critically acclaimed author of several magazine feature stories and articles. ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? is the first book for both of them and is a surprisingly smooth collaboration, presenting a cinematic flow and rapid-fire narration. It is also wonderfully odd, given that it takes place very much in the now (or the recent now), yet would not seem out of place on one of those drugstore paperback revolving wire racks, as you would expect from a book bearing the Hard Case Crime imprint.
Things jump off quickly here with the introduction of Barton Brock, a cheerfully ruthless political fixer, and a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth deCarlo, who is underemployed as a McDonald’s counter girl. It isn’t long at all before Barton takes Elizabeth away from all of that. A double-cross ensues, and then another. When the dust settles and the smoke clears, Barton is working for the re-election campaign of Lee Rogers, a U.S. Senator with a seriously ill wife and a libido that he tries to control, though not too strenuously. The Senator is at an airport when he happens to run into Jenny Cours, an old flame from a couple of decades before, and her daughter Fanny, a quietly fetching 18-year-old with the lofty twin goals of becoming a videographer and working as an intern for Rogers. She achieves both, notwithstanding Barton’s misgivings, which he expresses frequently and forcefully but to no avail.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth has moved up in the world from taking orders at McDonald’s to marrying a Las Vegas casino tycoon. But she gets bored easily, and in short order becomes involved with a photographer who has good ideas that don’t translate into a great product. Things get a bit hairy, and then Elizabeth disappears.
Back in Washington, D.C., there are revelations, an accidental death, a murder, and all sorts of things leading up to a grand climax or two in yet another locale before everything ends in a finale that reminded me of the conclusion of the film Chinatown in spirit, though certainly not in form.
ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? is controlled chaos. It’s fun, startling, funny in spots and not so funny in others. It's not surprising that one can easily see what occurs on the printed page as a movie, moving frame by frame across the reader’s mind. And the title? You will wonder where it came from as you read the book, but all is eventually made clear. This is a quick, smart read that will leave you wanting more from this collaborative writing team.
Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
You already know who Brian De Palma is. Susan Lehman is a former newspaper editor and a critically acclaimed author of several magazine feature stories and articles. ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? is the first book for both of them and is a surprisingly smooth collaboration, presenting a cinematic flow and rapid-fire narration. It is also wonderfully odd, given that it takes place very much in the now (or the recent now), yet would not seem out of place on one of those drugstore paperback revolving wire racks, as you would expect from a book bearing the Hard Case Crime imprint.
Things jump off quickly here with the introduction of Barton Brock, a cheerfully ruthless political fixer, and a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth deCarlo, who is underemployed as a McDonald’s counter girl. It isn’t long at all before Barton takes Elizabeth away from all of that. A double-cross ensues, and then another. When the dust settles and the smoke clears, Barton is working for the re-election campaign of Lee Rogers, a U.S. Senator with a seriously ill wife and a libido that he tries to control, though not too strenuously. The Senator is at an airport when he happens to run into Jenny Cours, an old flame from a couple of decades before, and her daughter Fanny, a quietly fetching 18-year-old with the lofty twin goals of becoming a videographer and working as an intern for Rogers. She achieves both, notwithstanding Barton’s misgivings, which he expresses frequently and forcefully but to no avail.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth has moved up in the world from taking orders at McDonald’s to marrying a Las Vegas casino tycoon. But she gets bored easily, and in short order becomes involved with a photographer who has good ideas that don’t translate into a great product. Things get a bit hairy, and then Elizabeth disappears.
Back in Washington, D.C., there are revelations, an accidental death, a murder, and all sorts of things leading up to a grand climax or two in yet another locale before everything ends in a finale that reminded me of the conclusion of the film Chinatown in spirit, though certainly not in form.
ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? is controlled chaos. It’s fun, startling, funny in spots and not so funny in others. It's not surprising that one can easily see what occurs on the printed page as a movie, moving frame by frame across the reader’s mind. And the title? You will wonder where it came from as you read the book, but all is eventually made clear. This is a quick, smart read that will leave you wanting more from this collaborative writing team.
Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
June 15, 2021
This phone sucks so my review must be brief. A sprawling ensemble narrative more Altmanesque than DePalmaesque, building to a climax of astonishing narrative bullet-train power.
March 24, 2020
Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman have thought up a real humdinger with this one. Elmore Leonard would be proud of the two's ability to leave out the boring stuff and cut to the chase. The story is better than the writing, but both come together to create an entertaining, memorable book.
September 30, 2023
Maybe the best way to sum this up is that one central character's major traits are that a) he is a photographer and b) he wears a "crisp white shirt." Literally every time he appears, said shirt is referenced. Feels like a metatextual acknowledgement of the essential pointlessness of the enterprise. Did someone say, "hey, Brian, I bet you can't co-write a cliched noir pastiche where all the women are incredibly hot, all the men spew idiotic pickup lines that the women nonetheless find irresistible, and characters' entirely notional back stories get ignored when the plot demands it"? Well, he showed them.
It's possible that ace cinematography could have made this look better, but wow, is it dead on the page.
It's possible that ace cinematography could have made this look better, but wow, is it dead on the page.
June 23, 2020
Are snakes necessary, is the question asked in the title of Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman’s twisted crime book debut. And the answer is yes, of course snakes are necessary. Our ecosystem depends on snakes. Without these legless reptiles rats would quickly overtake the Earth, spawning immense liters of hungry rodents bent on world domination with an insatiable hunger for cheese. Their numbers would become overwhelming and they would eventually enslave all mankind, forcing us to kneel to a cruel and unjust Rat King. And let’s not forget the birds of prey that would go hungry without a tasty snake meal to take home to their nests of young ones. What will these birds do without snakes to eat? Oh, I’ll tell you: they’ll be swooping down and carrying off toddlers, the elderly, and adults like me who are unnaturally weak and unable to escape their talons of death. But perhaps the snakes that are even more necessary are the snakes that populate crime books. These snakes are the dirty rotten scoundrels that walk on two legs, the villains whose shenanigans make the reader keep turning pages well into the night.
In Are Snakes Necessary, multiple stories interact. Philandering Senator Rogers is on the prowl for the sweet lovin’ of his intern, the daughter of a past conquest. His political fixer, Brock is prepared to do anything at his disposal to ensure the Senator keeps his seat in Congress and stays in power. Even murder. Photographer, Nick is shacking up with the wife of a Vegas Casino magnet. The wife, Elizabeth is bored and tired of being pushed around. These characters are snakes willing to plot, sneak, conspire, scheme, or hatch underhanded plans to get their way. The results are lurid and salacious and with more than one dead body making an appearance. This being published on the Hard Case Crime imprint, the story is suitably hardboiled and pulpy. The action is very cinematic and the story flies by quickly. Despite this being a debut, De Palma writes like a man with a much shorter beard. Maybe even just a mustache. He seems to really be enjoying himself in this novel and not just trying to make Scorsese and Spielberg jealous.
In Are Snakes Necessary, multiple stories interact. Philandering Senator Rogers is on the prowl for the sweet lovin’ of his intern, the daughter of a past conquest. His political fixer, Brock is prepared to do anything at his disposal to ensure the Senator keeps his seat in Congress and stays in power. Even murder. Photographer, Nick is shacking up with the wife of a Vegas Casino magnet. The wife, Elizabeth is bored and tired of being pushed around. These characters are snakes willing to plot, sneak, conspire, scheme, or hatch underhanded plans to get their way. The results are lurid and salacious and with more than one dead body making an appearance. This being published on the Hard Case Crime imprint, the story is suitably hardboiled and pulpy. The action is very cinematic and the story flies by quickly. Despite this being a debut, De Palma writes like a man with a much shorter beard. Maybe even just a mustache. He seems to really be enjoying himself in this novel and not just trying to make Scorsese and Spielberg jealous.
March 24, 2020
Wise beauties scaffolded by fate, and daggers thrust at snakes encroaching at the fragile place. The vipers bite freedom at its face, the others call out in shouts and yelps its yearning for sweat and dirt sprays violently for all whose skin is in the game.
Is your skin in the game? Contend with falling prey to exhaustion, desperation, silence, and the exercise of fragility. Fall down and pray that creation contends with love and relationships mend only when fate obeys, there is nothing left to do when faced with the macabre face of fate. Is it necessary to measure mighty female strength? Are we not all poor in our relations? We rest on their lapels, in pains. De Palma's poetry is in the pudding, his game is in what remains.
Lets raise a glass, and take a hit, balance grass and drink. The moon's ebbing makes me think, why does eyeing gravely sex make my pathology sink and quiver like a ship sinking in the river? Forgetting that technology exists takes a great and mighty mind that folds to the man who antes in.
"Who disappears? Makes no sense."
Of course. Of course all plots thicken, but de Palma and Lehman use an agent that blends unnoticed, like a wordsmith using 'like' to make one man listen and another leave. Is taste necessary in a society with so much output? Is it essential? Still it's raised like rain. Remember Raising Cain? The snakes were there too, inside the brain.
Thus de Palma mocks up the charade. Broken glass, suffocation, knives out, procrastination. This is the story of what goes on behind the Behind the Scenes, that extra-reality where nothing is as it seems. And nothing quite makes sense. Who has a motive to commit the perfect murder? An imperfect lover? Who has the motive to cover up a hot story? Everyone involved. The story can only end when everyone has rolled the dice, a pair of Snake Eyes.
But Are Snakes Necessary? God willing, they drive a hard bargain. They have a je ne sais quoi, a something or other that can't be pinned down, a certain something, they have it, that electric twist, that plot that gives, they squirm and they resist, but after all, its all for show, I insist. My favorite part of this whole tryst, is how my eyes screw up at every gnarly de Palma twist.
Is your skin in the game? Contend with falling prey to exhaustion, desperation, silence, and the exercise of fragility. Fall down and pray that creation contends with love and relationships mend only when fate obeys, there is nothing left to do when faced with the macabre face of fate. Is it necessary to measure mighty female strength? Are we not all poor in our relations? We rest on their lapels, in pains. De Palma's poetry is in the pudding, his game is in what remains.
Lets raise a glass, and take a hit, balance grass and drink. The moon's ebbing makes me think, why does eyeing gravely sex make my pathology sink and quiver like a ship sinking in the river? Forgetting that technology exists takes a great and mighty mind that folds to the man who antes in.
"Who disappears? Makes no sense."
Of course. Of course all plots thicken, but de Palma and Lehman use an agent that blends unnoticed, like a wordsmith using 'like' to make one man listen and another leave. Is taste necessary in a society with so much output? Is it essential? Still it's raised like rain. Remember Raising Cain? The snakes were there too, inside the brain.
Thus de Palma mocks up the charade. Broken glass, suffocation, knives out, procrastination. This is the story of what goes on behind the Behind the Scenes, that extra-reality where nothing is as it seems. And nothing quite makes sense. Who has a motive to commit the perfect murder? An imperfect lover? Who has the motive to cover up a hot story? Everyone involved. The story can only end when everyone has rolled the dice, a pair of Snake Eyes.
But Are Snakes Necessary? God willing, they drive a hard bargain. They have a je ne sais quoi, a something or other that can't be pinned down, a certain something, they have it, that electric twist, that plot that gives, they squirm and they resist, but after all, its all for show, I insist. My favorite part of this whole tryst, is how my eyes screw up at every gnarly de Palma twist.
October 16, 2023
French remains completely beyond Fanny.
"Cafe au lait",she says in perfect English.
I've seen a lot of Brian De Palma movies, but I didn't know he wrote books as well. This was a very fast, entertaining read and I was in awe of his imagination, and the descriptions of the political mind.
There were lots of surprises. I hope he writes more books.
And speaking of research and descriptions, I will never eat another hotdog.
"Cafe au lait",she says in perfect English.
I've seen a lot of Brian De Palma movies, but I didn't know he wrote books as well. This was a very fast, entertaining read and I was in awe of his imagination, and the descriptions of the political mind.
There were lots of surprises. I hope he writes more books.
And speaking of research and descriptions, I will never eat another hotdog.
August 17, 2022
A razor sharp and witty story of a woman scorned complimented by clever plotting and entertaining characters. Loved every minute of this!
March 23, 2020
Are Snakes Necessary? by Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman is a thriller filled with interesting characters but forgot the thrills. This novel spends too much time establishing the characters when they finally meet stuff starts to finally happen, but too little too late. I love Brian De Palma and his films, Scarface, Carrie, Carlito's Way, Blow Out, Sisters, The Phantom of Paradise, Dressed to Kill, and The Untouchables, and he can tell a good story on the screen. I think I would have appreciated this story a lot more on screen it oozes in sex, lies, and seduction, but on the page it is just too slow. The character are interesting but I really don't care about them. The story follows about 8-9 characters at at the end connects them, the climax works but the lead up is very slow. This is my third book I read in the Hard Case Crime Series, I hated The Colorado Kid but enjoyed Joyland both by Stephen King. Are Snakes Necessary? falls in the middle as a missed opportunity.
The Plot: Is Lee Rodgers is a scandalous man at first he was governor and now he is running for Senate, and he can just not keep it out of his pants. His Chief of staff Brock learned of his indiscretions and tried to exploit Rodgers, but he turned the tables, but hired Brock because of the way he thought. Brock's first job is making the woman he tried to blackmail Rodgers go away, and creating an enemy in Elizabeth. Brock's new task his keeping the new affair down, but when the woman decides to hideout and appears missing messes all that up, Brock needs to eliminate the woman before she can be a liability.
What I Liked: The character's are fun and there some moments of great dialogue. The climax works well with some of the characters evolving. There is one twist that got to me and it was such a Brian De Palma twist. The sex scenes are plenty and written like a De Palma directed scene.
What I Disliked: The story gave thoughts from too many minor characters and was a bit distracting. The plot moved slow and it take too long for the characters to start connecting, I wondered if I was ever going to get the pay off from the set up. The Elizabeth character I had a hard time believing she would be discovered in a Mc. Donald's and then get a Dear Abby like column, Dear Dottie, Sitting next to some one on a bus that wants to give it up the column and talks to her for ten minutes while declaring she is the one, felt laughable.
Recommendations: Being a really big fan of De Palma's work I found moments hat I personally enjoyed, but there wasn't enough for be to recommend. Do your self a favor and check out one of this man's films they're incredible, but pass on this book, which kills me to say. I rated Are Snakes Necessary by Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman 2 out of 5 stars. I'm a big enough fan to give him one more chance but I won't rush out to buy it like I did this one.
The Plot: Is Lee Rodgers is a scandalous man at first he was governor and now he is running for Senate, and he can just not keep it out of his pants. His Chief of staff Brock learned of his indiscretions and tried to exploit Rodgers, but he turned the tables, but hired Brock because of the way he thought. Brock's first job is making the woman he tried to blackmail Rodgers go away, and creating an enemy in Elizabeth. Brock's new task his keeping the new affair down, but when the woman decides to hideout and appears missing messes all that up, Brock needs to eliminate the woman before she can be a liability.
What I Liked: The character's are fun and there some moments of great dialogue. The climax works well with some of the characters evolving. There is one twist that got to me and it was such a Brian De Palma twist. The sex scenes are plenty and written like a De Palma directed scene.
What I Disliked: The story gave thoughts from too many minor characters and was a bit distracting. The plot moved slow and it take too long for the characters to start connecting, I wondered if I was ever going to get the pay off from the set up. The Elizabeth character I had a hard time believing she would be discovered in a Mc. Donald's and then get a Dear Abby like column, Dear Dottie, Sitting next to some one on a bus that wants to give it up the column and talks to her for ten minutes while declaring she is the one, felt laughable.
Recommendations: Being a really big fan of De Palma's work I found moments hat I personally enjoyed, but there wasn't enough for be to recommend. Do your self a favor and check out one of this man's films they're incredible, but pass on this book, which kills me to say. I rated Are Snakes Necessary by Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman 2 out of 5 stars. I'm a big enough fan to give him one more chance but I won't rush out to buy it like I did this one.
July 2, 2020
still thinking about how goofy this is like u def gotta have a taste for de palmaian nonsense which i obviously do but i was so worried it was going to be heaving bosoms horny nonsense (men are idiots after all) but it's just like a million deranged twists. cant hate it!!!!!!! de palma 4 ever!!!!!!!!
April 2, 2020
There's a twist in the middle of Are Snakes Necessary? that I was so unprepared for and so shocked by, this book immediately shot to the top of my favorites list. The only problem is that it didn't really change anything in terms of plot or character. Everyone involved in the twist ends up either dead or deluded, so it's almost as if it exists outside the rest of the book.
And it's not like the book isn't good. It's really good. Are De Palma and Lehman swapping off chapters? There are these subtle tonal and authorial shifts that seem to me to be the work of two authors' styles occasionally jarring when usually they gel - but even the jarring is fun. This book is mostly fun. I mean, it's tragic and sad and a little tiny bit hopeless, but De Palma finds a way to work Hitchcock in, so it's fun. You can imagine his cross-cutting and dual-screening in the double denouement.
I read this book exceedingly swiftly, and the short chapters were like M&Ms: I gobbled one, and then thought another couldn't hurt. Before too long, I'd eaten half the bag and wondered where the time had gone.
The cleverness. The way the big cast of characters weave in and out of each others' lives. The unputdownable speed at which the story progresses. All this is to the good. To the almost-great. But that big twist (tell me it wasn't obvious. Don't tell me everyone else saw it coming and I was too blinded by the excellent writing to see it.) had boatloads of potential and to see it sort of squandered like it was ... I couldn't help but knock it down a star or two. But if either writer has a new book in the future, you can bet I'll be picking it up.There's a twist in the middle of Are Snakes Necessary that I was so unprepared for and so shocked by, this book immediately shot to the top of my favorites list. The only problem is that it didn't really change anything in terms of plot or character. Everyone involved in the twist ends up either dead or deluded, so it's almost as if it exists outside the rest of the book.
And it's not like the book isn't good. It's really good. Are De Palma and Lehman swapping off chapters? There are these subtle tonal and authorial shifts that seem to me to be the work of two authors' styles occasionally jarring when usually they gel - but even the jarring is fun. This book is mostly fun. I mean, it's tragic and sad and a little tiny bit hopeless, but De Palma finds a way to work Hitchcock in, so it's fun. You can imagine his cross-cutting and dual-screening in the double denouement.
I read this book exceedingly swiftly, and the short chapters were like M&Ms: I gobbled one, and then thought another couldn't hurt. Before too long, I'd eaten half the bag and wondered where the time had gone.
The cleverness. The way the big cast of characters weave in and out of each others' lives. The unputdownable speed at which the story progresses. All this is to the good. To the almost-great. But that big twist (tell me it wasn't obvious. Don't tell me everyone else saw it coming and I was too blinded by the excellent writing to see it.) had boatloads of potential and to see it sort of squandered like it was ... I couldn't help but knock it down a star or two. But if either writer has a new book in the future, you can bet I'll be picking it up.
And it's not like the book isn't good. It's really good. Are De Palma and Lehman swapping off chapters? There are these subtle tonal and authorial shifts that seem to me to be the work of two authors' styles occasionally jarring when usually they gel - but even the jarring is fun. This book is mostly fun. I mean, it's tragic and sad and a little tiny bit hopeless, but De Palma finds a way to work Hitchcock in, so it's fun. You can imagine his cross-cutting and dual-screening in the double denouement.
I read this book exceedingly swiftly, and the short chapters were like M&Ms: I gobbled one, and then thought another couldn't hurt. Before too long, I'd eaten half the bag and wondered where the time had gone.
The cleverness. The way the big cast of characters weave in and out of each others' lives. The unputdownable speed at which the story progresses. All this is to the good. To the almost-great. But that big twist (tell me it wasn't obvious. Don't tell me everyone else saw it coming and I was too blinded by the excellent writing to see it.) had boatloads of potential and to see it sort of squandered like it was ... I couldn't help but knock it down a star or two. But if either writer has a new book in the future, you can bet I'll be picking it up.There's a twist in the middle of Are Snakes Necessary that I was so unprepared for and so shocked by, this book immediately shot to the top of my favorites list. The only problem is that it didn't really change anything in terms of plot or character. Everyone involved in the twist ends up either dead or deluded, so it's almost as if it exists outside the rest of the book.
And it's not like the book isn't good. It's really good. Are De Palma and Lehman swapping off chapters? There are these subtle tonal and authorial shifts that seem to me to be the work of two authors' styles occasionally jarring when usually they gel - but even the jarring is fun. This book is mostly fun. I mean, it's tragic and sad and a little tiny bit hopeless, but De Palma finds a way to work Hitchcock in, so it's fun. You can imagine his cross-cutting and dual-screening in the double denouement.
I read this book exceedingly swiftly, and the short chapters were like M&Ms: I gobbled one, and then thought another couldn't hurt. Before too long, I'd eaten half the bag and wondered where the time had gone.
The cleverness. The way the big cast of characters weave in and out of each others' lives. The unputdownable speed at which the story progresses. All this is to the good. To the almost-great. But that big twist (tell me it wasn't obvious. Don't tell me everyone else saw it coming and I was too blinded by the excellent writing to see it.) had boatloads of potential and to see it sort of squandered like it was ... I couldn't help but knock it down a star or two. But if either writer has a new book in the future, you can bet I'll be picking it up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 6, 2020
Bottom line, this is if Brian DePalma wrote an Elmore Leonard novel. And believe me, as much as reviews talk about how cinematic it is, there’s no way he would get away with the twist ending- and it is huge- if he were making this story as a movie. And so, if you ever watched Sisters, Blow Out or Dressed to Kill and thought “I wonder what DePalma would be like if he wrote a crime novel...” this is the answer to that question.
I loved it.
I loved it.
April 21, 2020
This De Palma fella has a certain cinematic flair that makes this a breezily entertaining read despite its many absurd coincidences. (Or maybe because of them?)
August 2, 2022
Among the things I didn't expect to read in 2022, Brian De Palma writing down "and monkeys may fly out of my butt" is... pretty high up there on the list.
"What's going on?" Rogers asks.
"Filming," the second AD replies.
"Oh? What's the title?"
"Vertigo"
"Didn't Hitchcock?"
"Yes," the AD is impatient. "This is the original French version," he says gruffly.
Tou-fucking-che, Brian.
I also like and want to share this bit:
"And standing there, she felt they were triumphant over time, together. This, thought Connie, as she stood with the wind whipping past them, as she stood with Lee in the Paris air, this is what marriage is: a history that binds, that offers itself, despite the boredom, loneliness and even the despair that plagues us all, as a reservoir of strength and hope, a bulwark against the world." Good stuff!
As much as De Palma - and Susan Lehman, who I suspect was probably more of the writer here than the filmmaker (though who knows, a prior book credit for her on a biography of a Brooklyn DA who must've met De Palma during the Bonfire filming days is probably the connection), and maybe it was a script before and got retrofitted to a book, wouldn't surprise me - may cheekily quote Vertigo, and 'you don't say' is on your lips, this is also to me a kind of Redux/paraphrased remake of (my favorite BD) Blow Out with a bit of the setting Femme Fatale, with a more ensemble point of view and this time if the politician and the Vexxed Woman on the Run respectively were main characters.
It's a twist and bendy story, and it may (or just does) have one too many coincidences to feel organic, not least of which what happens in the Penultimate chapter, which maybe is one of the ultimate De Palma twists in his entire oeuvre, and I definitely can nitpick or outright criticize how De Palma and Lehman write a republican politician in this time of the 21st century (mild spoiler, I think they took inspiration from dem John Edward's with his cheating and with a sick wife more than any one other politician) since there isn't much meat there as far as what kind of politician or what he believes in. But then again maybe De Palma and Lehman mean to say in between the lines, who cares, he's a plastic phoney of a man, who gives a shit, carry on.
Ultimately though for all the faults of the narrative, and how long it takes for Elizabeth, who gets kind of the B plot line with her "Dear Dottie" persona, I liked Are Snakes Necessary quite a bit as a cynical, blunt instrument of a B modern Neo noir, ideal for a vacation/beach read, and it has a darkly funny sense of humor on just how the writers convey a tone, and even address the reader in a semi 4th wall breaking sort of way. I like the characters as far as them being self conscious types, with Nick as a paraphrase of both Jack from Blow Out and Banderas from Fatale only a little more naive (with those white pressed shirts). I also like how the women are a good variety and mix, which was not always the case in his past films. Maybe in his late 70s hes... matured? Maybe that's not the damn word. He just likes having fun writing these dames and their range of being jilted and or not realizing it.
Good, pulpy fun, nothing more or less. Go into it expecting a view of humanity that is fairly tawdry and more than a little bleak about how humanity will turn out (but that revenge, however twisty, can be so satisfying), and it works. Also, Barton Brock, only a shame it's not a movie from the 80s or 90s so John Lithgow could have had one more notch on his villain belt.
"What's going on?" Rogers asks.
"Filming," the second AD replies.
"Oh? What's the title?"
"Vertigo"
"Didn't Hitchcock?"
"Yes," the AD is impatient. "This is the original French version," he says gruffly.
Tou-fucking-che, Brian.
I also like and want to share this bit:
"And standing there, she felt they were triumphant over time, together. This, thought Connie, as she stood with the wind whipping past them, as she stood with Lee in the Paris air, this is what marriage is: a history that binds, that offers itself, despite the boredom, loneliness and even the despair that plagues us all, as a reservoir of strength and hope, a bulwark against the world." Good stuff!
As much as De Palma - and Susan Lehman, who I suspect was probably more of the writer here than the filmmaker (though who knows, a prior book credit for her on a biography of a Brooklyn DA who must've met De Palma during the Bonfire filming days is probably the connection), and maybe it was a script before and got retrofitted to a book, wouldn't surprise me - may cheekily quote Vertigo, and 'you don't say' is on your lips, this is also to me a kind of Redux/paraphrased remake of (my favorite BD) Blow Out with a bit of the setting Femme Fatale, with a more ensemble point of view and this time if the politician and the Vexxed Woman on the Run respectively were main characters.
It's a twist and bendy story, and it may (or just does) have one too many coincidences to feel organic, not least of which what happens in the Penultimate chapter, which maybe is one of the ultimate De Palma twists in his entire oeuvre, and I definitely can nitpick or outright criticize how De Palma and Lehman write a republican politician in this time of the 21st century (mild spoiler, I think they took inspiration from dem John Edward's with his cheating and with a sick wife more than any one other politician) since there isn't much meat there as far as what kind of politician or what he believes in. But then again maybe De Palma and Lehman mean to say in between the lines, who cares, he's a plastic phoney of a man, who gives a shit, carry on.
Ultimately though for all the faults of the narrative, and how long it takes for Elizabeth, who gets kind of the B plot line with her "Dear Dottie" persona, I liked Are Snakes Necessary quite a bit as a cynical, blunt instrument of a B modern Neo noir, ideal for a vacation/beach read, and it has a darkly funny sense of humor on just how the writers convey a tone, and even address the reader in a semi 4th wall breaking sort of way. I like the characters as far as them being self conscious types, with Nick as a paraphrase of both Jack from Blow Out and Banderas from Fatale only a little more naive (with those white pressed shirts). I also like how the women are a good variety and mix, which was not always the case in his past films. Maybe in his late 70s hes... matured? Maybe that's not the damn word. He just likes having fun writing these dames and their range of being jilted and or not realizing it.
Good, pulpy fun, nothing more or less. Go into it expecting a view of humanity that is fairly tawdry and more than a little bleak about how humanity will turn out (but that revenge, however twisty, can be so satisfying), and it works. Also, Barton Brock, only a shame it's not a movie from the 80s or 90s so John Lithgow could have had one more notch on his villain belt.
July 5, 2020
Recently I've been reading both the new Hard Case Crime novel releases along with the back catalog. I used to read them regularly, but the switch to Titan books, larger format, and higher cost was a put-off.
With the exception of "Killing Quarry" the recent batch seem to have focused on non-traditional crime novels, particularly in the sense of style. While Oates' "Triumph of the Spider Monkey" and Kraus' "Blood Sugar" are perhaps artistic and noteworthy at the edge of the pulp crime genre, I didn't exactly find them entertaining or enjoyable as I'd expect from HCC. Even Westlake's "Double Feature" pair of novellas were forgettable.
"Are Snakes Necessary?" finally felt again like the HCC I'd expect while still having some non-standard elements. For its majority, the novel is a political thriller more than crime-related, and its more character driven than propelled by any action you might expect from a thriller. The pace remains quick even without large amounts of action through short chapters (over 50 in the short page count) and present-tense voice that does make the novel feel much like a De Palma movie.
The characters are fascinating, most particularly in how they lie and delude themselves, the steps they end up taking to maintain both their selfish natures and their ability to live with themselves amid the destruction that ends up occurring. For the length and pace of the novel there are probably too many characters, however, as some minor ones get point-of-view appearances but you don't get the chance to explore the depths of them far enough. Nonetheless an entertaining, quick read.
With the exception of "Killing Quarry" the recent batch seem to have focused on non-traditional crime novels, particularly in the sense of style. While Oates' "Triumph of the Spider Monkey" and Kraus' "Blood Sugar" are perhaps artistic and noteworthy at the edge of the pulp crime genre, I didn't exactly find them entertaining or enjoyable as I'd expect from HCC. Even Westlake's "Double Feature" pair of novellas were forgettable.
"Are Snakes Necessary?" finally felt again like the HCC I'd expect while still having some non-standard elements. For its majority, the novel is a political thriller more than crime-related, and its more character driven than propelled by any action you might expect from a thriller. The pace remains quick even without large amounts of action through short chapters (over 50 in the short page count) and present-tense voice that does make the novel feel much like a De Palma movie.
The characters are fascinating, most particularly in how they lie and delude themselves, the steps they end up taking to maintain both their selfish natures and their ability to live with themselves amid the destruction that ends up occurring. For the length and pace of the novel there are probably too many characters, however, as some minor ones get point-of-view appearances but you don't get the chance to explore the depths of them far enough. Nonetheless an entertaining, quick read.
August 21, 2021
Have folks...really truly never watched a Brian De Palma movie? What did they expect when they picked it up? No less than Martin Scorsese blurbed the book by saying: "It's like having another Brian De Palma picture!" He's right! That's exactly what it is.
I've never had an affair but from most people who have written about it, they talk about how the moments of coital bliss are special because of the sneakiness of the engagement, with the postcoital guilt being crushing because of the world they have to return to. De Palma's stories are basically that erotic thrill/sorrow in words. This was a fun, breezy read, basically as if De Palma had dragged out an unpublished script from 1985, handed it to Susan Lehman and said "Here ya go. Try to make a few bucks off of this." I was happy to give him my money.
I love the Hard Case Crime label but too often, it's just reprinting stuff from the same authors over and over again. More of this, please. I enjoyed the hell out of it.
I've never had an affair but from most people who have written about it, they talk about how the moments of coital bliss are special because of the sneakiness of the engagement, with the postcoital guilt being crushing because of the world they have to return to. De Palma's stories are basically that erotic thrill/sorrow in words. This was a fun, breezy read, basically as if De Palma had dragged out an unpublished script from 1985, handed it to Susan Lehman and said "Here ya go. Try to make a few bucks off of this." I was happy to give him my money.
I love the Hard Case Crime label but too often, it's just reprinting stuff from the same authors over and over again. More of this, please. I enjoyed the hell out of it.
June 11, 2021
Wish I could give half star ratings because this is certainly more of a 3 1/2 star as opposed to a 4. But I’m feeling generous. Genuine page turner as I started and finished this book in 4ish hours. De Palma is a cinematic master but also knows how to create a compelling story. Not much substance here beyond being extremely entertaining but there’s nothing wrong with that. Wish it leaned into the neo-giallo style that the opening/book cover made me think it was going for. But if you’re looking for a easy read twisted crime novel, I recommend it.
October 25, 2020
When I stumbled upon this, I did a double take. Brian De Palma? Yup. A director I idolize co-wrote this book and I only found out by chance. In some ways, there is a lot of him all over this and in others it feels like a departure. I don’t know Susan Lehman so I’ll credit her with the rich inner lives these characters have. This was lot of fun and a real page turner but I kinda wish it was maybe a little longer. There’s one story thread separate from the others that feels like a different book albeit a good one. The resolution of this thread is fun but implausible and rushed. But this is a lot of fun, more so than any De Palma movie in the last 25 years. Refreshingly fun.
August 21, 2020
This book took me only 2 hours to read, and I loved every minute and page of this thriller, chock-full of sleazy characters and backstabbing. It has all of the hallmarks of a Brian De Palma film, who is one of my favorite directors.
August 24, 2023
I'm not a film buff at all, but I do like the movies of De Palma. "Dressed To Kill" and "Body Double" being my favorites. Hell, I even liked "Wise Guys" with Danny Devito and Joe Piscopo. But this; this was just fodder to fuel the store shelves.
A very boring and average, for De Palma any way, story. Nothing really happens that you can't already see on any daytime soap opera. No tension. No thrills. No likable characters. This just falls into the generic rehash twenty first century grinder.
There is one question I would like to ask Mr. De Palma and Hard Case Crime, though. "Are co-authors necessary?"
A very boring and average, for De Palma any way, story. Nothing really happens that you can't already see on any daytime soap opera. No tension. No thrills. No likable characters. This just falls into the generic rehash twenty first century grinder.
There is one question I would like to ask Mr. De Palma and Hard Case Crime, though. "Are co-authors necessary?"
May 8, 2020
Vítané guilty pleasure pro De Palmovy fandy, které má nejblíž asi k Výstřelu (Blow Out) a dalším peckám přelomu 70. a 80. let. Rozhodně nejde o žádnou velkou literaturu a nejspíš se jedná o novelizaci nerealizovaného scénáře. Divák, který má nakoukáno, si De Palmův režijní styl (který je nejsilnější stránkou jeho snímků) musí v hlavě představit sám. Dočkáme se samozřejmě i odkazů na Hitchcocka, finální zpomalovačky a neuvěřitelných náhod. Bavilo mě to hodně, nezaujatý čtenář bude ale asi kroutit hlavou nad extrémní strohostí charakterizace postav a vyprávění vůbec. 70%
October 19, 2020
Meandering, badly composed, and pointless. Rumor is this might have been a proposed idea for a script to a Brian DePalma movie. Maybe so. It has that sordid sleazy voyeuristic feel. I'm not demeaning DePalma as a filmmaker, but it only proves that if the words are junk the visual may have enhanced it with his operatic camera moving style. Still, this story would make a terrible film no matter the verve he might have utilized. The objectifying of women is amazingly over the top and this was co-written with a woman author. What a waste of eye time.
March 18, 2020
Hard Case Crime HQ was kind enough to send me a copy of their newest release a few weeks back. On the condition that I keep schtum unless some leg breakers come and pay me a visit.
I have a full review hitting Rogues Portal as part of my Hard Case Crime Files column, but short version is, this is pretty fun!
It’s proper lurid and it moves VERY quickly (almost too quickly sometimes) and has a few genuine shocks in it. There is a slight tonal clash with the language and the extemporaneous style De Palma and Lehman employ but all and all, I thought it was a pretty fun read.
Fits right at home alongside the other HCC hardbacks.
I have a full review hitting Rogues Portal as part of my Hard Case Crime Files column, but short version is, this is pretty fun!
It’s proper lurid and it moves VERY quickly (almost too quickly sometimes) and has a few genuine shocks in it. There is a slight tonal clash with the language and the extemporaneous style De Palma and Lehman employ but all and all, I thought it was a pretty fun read.
Fits right at home alongside the other HCC hardbacks.
June 12, 2020
Brian De Palma is of course a legendary American filmmaker, doubtlessly known primarily for his technical virtuosity and somewhat smirking way around salacious subject matter. He has at one time or another been the foremost American filmmaker in the opinion of the likes of Pauline Kael and Quentin Tarantino, both of whom are embarrassing morons, though each has also repeatedly been responsible for work I cannot help but admire. Certainly there are others I have less difficulty respecting who profess to be equally fond of De Palma, and I myself like the guy’s films very much, even if I have routinely had reservations. If you take a quick look at De Palma’s IMDb filmography, you will note that he is accredited forty-three titles as director and twenty as writer. Take a closer look at those writing credits. I am sure you will agree that these films more or less constitute the cream of the crop. From the underseen and already hilariously perverse/voyeuristic MURDER À LA MOD to the early break-out counterculture ensemble comedies GREETINGS and HI MOM!, the transitional SISTERS, then onto PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and the beloved decadent/virtuosic/pervy Hitchcock pastiches (the strongest being DRESSED TO KILL, BLOW OUT, and BODY DOUBLE), and up to supremely individual late period oddities like FEMME FATALE and PASSION, the De Palmas I like best tend to be films on which he has a writing, co-writing, or story credit. Although here I must confess that my disclosure is not exactly total. Though I was blown away by a couple sequences (primarily vis-à-vis their nuts-and-bolts execution), and understood that very competent critics had hailed it a masterpiece, I thought FEMME FATALE was utterly idiotic when it first came out. PASSION I liked but in a lukewarm way, though it has stayed with me and subsequently I've often reflected that I need to revisit the film. Having now read ARE SNAKES NECESSARY?, the 2016 crime novel De Palma co-authored with former NEW YORK TIMES editor Susan Lehman, it is clear to me that I absolutely need to revisit both FEMME FATALE and PASSION, the two films I believe most obviously consonant with the spirit and general mode of this smart, lubricious, and extremely ironic novel. Though I might once have believed the thing too bloody preposterous to live, FEMME FATALE does upon reflection seem like De Palma unrestrained, the film with the most id in the mix, and it is notably one of films on which the man has sole screenwriting credit. He has the principal writing credit on PASSION as well, Natalie Carter officially acknowledged merely for “additional dialogue,” but that film happens to be a remake of a French film that preceded it by a mere two years. Still, both FEMME FATALE and PASSION are of a piece. They are ruthless in their schematics, extremely ironic, affably misanthropic. Their environments are so stylized and controlled as to suggest a constantly hovering background compulsivity. You could also say that both films alternate—in what I recall being a scrupulously controlled manner—between subtlety and bombast, De Palma being a director equally at home with scalpel as with shotgun and paint canister. With ARE SNAKES NECESSARY?, De Palma and Lehman have crafted a tight and kinetic piece of jaunty postmodern pulp fiction. Surely most readers have a basic handle on forerunners within the general idiom. Fans of such stuff will most likely be especially liable to make connections to Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy (whose BLACK DAHLIA De Palma adapted ever so ostentatiously), and Walter Mosley. Of course, American crime novels led to a parallel renaissance in postwar France, where they came to be called romans noir, a whole subset of Hollywood films of the 1940s coming to themselves fall under a new banner retroactively. Paris, it turns out, will play a major role in ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? Not surprisingly, this will involve a remake of Hitchcock’s VERTIGO, so predictable a move on De Palma’s part as to practically constitute jest in its own right. As the novel begins, we join up with Barton Brock, who is having a bad day. He’s just had a vasectomy considerably more painful than the doctor had indicated it would be, and things are not looking good for decorated Iraq war veteran Jason Crump, the candidate Brock is attempting to help shepherd to victory over the “fancy-pants” incumbent, Lee Rogers, in Pennsylvania’s Republican Primary, which is a mere four weeks away. Brock, nominally a campaign manager and strategist, is 42. He plays dirty, prides himself on it, fancies himself the heavy. The fixer is in a fix. The upcoming primary. He’s having trouble shaking loose a serviceable plan of attack. Enter Elizabeth deCarlo, buxom blonde tending the counter at McDonald’s. “Greasy french fries, dirty tricks, it all sounds pretty much the same to Elizabeth. She doesn’t need to get involved in political smearing. Big Macs are oily enough.” But get involved she will, greasy or no. Money has its way of talking, making a strong case. There will be a double cross two chapters into this book consisting of fifty-seven. There will be immediate reprisals, conniving, backsliding, positions and alliances adjusted in short order and without much in the way of quibble. Barton Brock is now in the opposing camp, that of sleaze-ball senator and inveterate winner Lee Rogers, Elizabeth sprung from the clink and given a bus ticket to Las Vegas where we are to discover another puffed-up peacock of a stone cold bastard awaits her, Brock having tacitly handed her to him. Chapter Three we meet Jenny Cours. We meet her along with Lee Rogers and his new fixer, Barton Brock. Well, we and Barton Brock meet Jenny Cours. It is, strictly speaking, a matter of Lee Rogers bumping into an old flame out of the blue. Jenny is a stewardess with Loft Air. “She is dark haired and slim and may, in truth, be one of very few people on earth who actually looks good in air hostess garb. Better than good, really. Jenny Cours looks really good, very good, for her age.” She’s 47, and a literally parenthetical aside notes that this is a fact that requires “for her age” to insinuate itself as a “dark coda added to all complimentary remarks.” Surely this gives you a decent sense of the goofy pulp mien of the prose-smithery on display. Jenny’s eighteen-year-old daughter Fanny shows up to collect her deplaning mother. Fanny is described as being “in the full flush of carnality,” a fact hardly likely to be lost on Lee Rogers. Fanny is of course in America a euphemism for the posterior, in England for the frontmost and more directly reproductively-oriented female sex organ. Jenny and Fanny are drawn into the Rogers-Brock constellation of sin, stupidity, and lies. Jenny wants nothing to do with Lee Rogers, she’s been around the block and knows better, but Fanny is an eager teen politics junkie with an eye on internship. Jenny pleads with her daughter not to get involved with Rogers, but she stops short of sharing some pertinent intel, which the reader only finds out later and which is one of the many things I am going to abstain from spoiling. The last of our male principals is Nick Sculley. We meet Nick at LaGuardia. And he meets Elizabeth deCarlo. It’s Chapter Six now. Elizabeth deCarlo has been a trophy wife in Vegas for an unspecified amount of time and is now Elizabeth Diamond. “The reinvented Elizabeth is a willowy blonde in a flowing skirt and high leather boots. She rolls a Louis Vuitton bag behind her as she heads towards the departure gate.” Elizabeth is going to prove consistently ultra capable when it comes to reinventing herself. For the time being, she is going to fall in love or at least lust with Nick Skulley, a handsome kid from Missouri who happened to catch the shot of a lifetime in Ferguson during the post-Michael Brown civic meltdown of summer 2014, then failed to make a go of it as a hotshot New York freelance photographer. He proves easy to seduce. “Nick can’t place Elizabeth’s accent. Bedroom maybe.” As regards Nick himself: “sounds every bit like the Brown Rhetoric Department grad he is.” Now we are in another narrative constellation. “And so begins a season of dreamy illicit afternoons in the Diamond-owned Desert Paradise apartment complex, where Nick makes himself at home as soon as flight 271 from LaGuardia lands in Las Vegas in the dog days of summer.” The problem here, or the primary one, is that Elizabeth is currently the fifth wife of Vegas big shot Bruce Diamond, the previously alluded to stone cold bastard. He’s jealous to boot. You know, jealous in such a way that a young man out of his league might well find himself coming to considerable harm. The novel moves expeditiously, the prose quick and often staccato in that patented James Ellroy manner. The authors routinely transition from one narrative constellation to another with stealth and verve. In cinema you'd call it frenetic cross-cutting. Back in the world of politics and sleaze, we have Lee Rogers’ grievously ill wife Connie. Stricken with Parkinson’s, she’s put-upon but devout, eager to swallow whatever codswallop hubby serves in the covering of his tracks. We suspect that her credulity can only be stretched so far. Appearances matter very much to Connie, as well we might imagine they would. She’s already proved dexterous in keeping her and Lee’s son Deron's opioid problem and brief stay in treatment out of the tabloids et al. Opening sentence of Chapter 19: “Connie Rogers had always cared about her hair.” As established, Elizabeth will once again remake herself, spending some time in Maine eating lobster salad and tinkering at a lackadaisical gig as wildly irresponsible advice columnist. Nick will find himself Elizabethless though only mildly heartsick in Paris, performing set photography duties on Bernard Pascal’s French remake of VERTIGO featuring Nick’s onetime-college-sweetheart Hildy. The initials of Mr. Pascal do more than a little to connect him to to De Palma, famed director of films and sequences redolent of Hitch’s obsessive universe. Only one of the novel’s climaxes occurs in Paris, glomming on as this climax does to the iconography of VERTIGO and the chronotope of the tower familiar to viewer’s of that immortal classic. Elizabeth is nowhere near Paris. She gets a separate climax, though it to will unite tragectories in a manner intended both to provoke and surprise, celebrating above all else as it does womanly vengeance in a world governed by pigs. You will note that De Palma is currently at work on a film inspired by the hideous predations of Harvey Weinstein. Both of the climaxes in ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? distinguish themselves for their layering of irony. As far as concerns the overall nature of the irony everywhere operative in the novel, some attention ought to be paid to the style of not-exactly-omniscient third-person narration, itself a source of much jocularity and absurdism. De Palma and Lehman seem to be amused by phallic panic, part of the general jujitsu the novel and its women perform against its vile men. Note an early example, capturing Brock’s internal reaction to being laughed at by another man: “Having someone laugh at you brings back memories of early childhood and some of its worst horrors.” Often the playfulness is far more direct. When we meet Nick Sculley at LaGuardia, we espy his inwardness thusly: “oh, who knows what preoccupies lanky, intense 32-year-old men?” On separate occasions we are treated to the absurd conceit of Nick imagining moments at which he would take a drag if he were a smoker, which he is not. We have Fanny, drying her eyes on a towel and looking at herself in the mirror: “Hello, cliché.” We are told that Brock “wouldn’t know a cerebral embolism from a barrel of horseshoes.” Connie is said to be someone with whom you could imagine discussing the latest Alice Munro novel, which is totally ridiculous, because Alice Munro is perhaps the most celebrated short story writer our era and though I could have sworn she wrote one novel widely determined to have been a failure, this novel would appear to have been banished from the historical record, if, that is, such a novel ever existed (?). The narration of ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? is itself framed from a distance, enframed by a constitutive irony that wants us to be aware of its being aware of its own keen self-conscious awareness. We might also reflect on the nature of dramatic irony and what it might mean in terms of a densely-plotted, happily absurdist yarn. Part of what crime novels and suspense novels are about is their own reverse-engineering and the parcelling out of predetermined revelations. Characters may be in the dark to varying degrees, not knowing things we know or that certain other characters know, or knowing them only partially, provisionally. ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? is formidable in these terms, its intricacies of plotting conjoined with an extremely complex schematics of epistemological incongruity. Much of this business owes to principles first explored at length by the Russian formalists of the early 20th century. Our concepts of story (fabula) and plot (syuzhet) were exhaustively anatomized by the Russian formalists. What we call a “plot twist” is usually the judiciously delayed revelation of business already germane to the story that is only revealed within the plotting at a crucial vector. I previously addressed De Palma's being a technically virtuosic director. We might say that this virtuosity extends to the technical mastery of syuzhet and fabula, the extremely cerebral command of which is offset by the absurd disreputable-by-design malarkey of much of the window dressing. But the technical, and explicitly the filmic-technical, are recessed within the novel as well. We have Nick, set phtographer on Bernard Pascal’s VERTIGO remake, also a would be documenteur. The novel’s first climax echoes not only Hitchock’s VERTIGO, but also Chris Marker’s LA JETÉE and its cosmic murder-suicide committed by viewfinder. This cannot help but trace back to BLOW OUT, a film in which De Palma appropriates the photography angle from Antonioni’s BLOW-UP and reframes it in terms of audiology and cinematographic sound recording. De Palma was himself a science fair stalwart and tech geek as a kid, a fact he appears to relish; he and his collaborators often joke about his voyeuristic streak. We might aver that the ultimate director surrogate is Keith Gordon’s character in DRESSED TO KILL, the slightly creepy kid who rigs up the snooping tech. Bernard Pascal’s initials aside, young Nick is probably the more salient De Palma analog in ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? The kind of despoliation Nick is involved in is clinical, distant, obsequious, buffered. Men destroy women as a direct expression of the order of things. Women kill vengefully and with heat. I ask: has Susan Lehman perhaps co-authored with her collaborator something hinting at auto-erotic castration fantasy?
April 3, 2025
This is a fictional story on politics but I find politics boring and a huge waste of time unless it's about a certain subject I'm interested in.
March 17, 2020
So, there's this new De Palma & its loaded with sex & action & twists galore. Sounds great. When does it open u say? It doesn't. What do u mean it doesn't. It's a BOOK.
Yes, in the great tradition of director's turned authors ( Messrs. Stone & Fuller - & coming soon - Tarantino, himself), comes a tome to get excited about.
It has all the intricate plot of vintage De Palma. Plus it has de rigueur plot twists. Plus a topical plot mixing politics & ME 2.
Martin Scorsese says it's like having a new De Palma flick - it is - all u add is popcorn. I luved it!!!
Yes, in the great tradition of director's turned authors ( Messrs. Stone & Fuller - & coming soon - Tarantino, himself), comes a tome to get excited about.
It has all the intricate plot of vintage De Palma. Plus it has de rigueur plot twists. Plus a topical plot mixing politics & ME 2.
Martin Scorsese says it's like having a new De Palma flick - it is - all u add is popcorn. I luved it!!!
April 30, 2020
I was genuinely excited to receive a copy of ‘Are Snakes Necessary?’, particularly with a recommendation from Martin Scorsese on the cover (lots of Scorsese fans in my house). We’re a film watching household, and my daughter is studying film for A’Level, so there’s lots of talk of directors, and in particular auteurs. This made a new Hard Case Crime read co-written by Brian De Palma something to look forward to.
Firstly, I read a lot, so I had to adjust myself to the narrative style of this book – it’s very tell and not show. This inevitably leads to surface level characterisations, or types. It that sense, I often felt the book was a little like a ‘pitch’ at times. The characters are introduced, justified and then pulled along as plot devices, rather than being developed. They have ‘through-lines’ but they all seems subservient to the action and plot structure. But with the style of this book, it seems to work.
I found it generally fun, and like the sub-plots feeding the main narrative; the link to Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ (and other film references) was great, and really was full on towards the end. It absolutely reads like a film, I did find it a little unbalanced at times, and much preferred the last 40% of the story – but it is really readable.
It’s a thriller; a dark comedy; a cynicism of human nature, with an intense murder plot orchestrated by a cast of Film Noir-fed caricatures. I think it’s a fitting addition to the Hard Case Crime collection.
Firstly, I read a lot, so I had to adjust myself to the narrative style of this book – it’s very tell and not show. This inevitably leads to surface level characterisations, or types. It that sense, I often felt the book was a little like a ‘pitch’ at times. The characters are introduced, justified and then pulled along as plot devices, rather than being developed. They have ‘through-lines’ but they all seems subservient to the action and plot structure. But with the style of this book, it seems to work.
I found it generally fun, and like the sub-plots feeding the main narrative; the link to Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ (and other film references) was great, and really was full on towards the end. It absolutely reads like a film, I did find it a little unbalanced at times, and much preferred the last 40% of the story – but it is really readable.
It’s a thriller; a dark comedy; a cynicism of human nature, with an intense murder plot orchestrated by a cast of Film Noir-fed caricatures. I think it’s a fitting addition to the Hard Case Crime collection.
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