Venice

by T.J. Larkey

Ty has escaped to Los Angeles. Stuck in a cycle of wandering the boardwalk in search of a dealer and attending group interviews for minimum-wage jobs, Ty soon finds himself even more broke than before. Can he get it together? Ideally, maybe. That might be a stretch, though. Told through the dry nonchalance of an American everyman, T.J. Larkey weaves a darkly funny adventure full of isolation, self destruction, and breaking bread with a mouse.

Genres: Fiction

169 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2020

Reviews

[Cavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel about relocating in search of success, in search of self, and in search of company. Meandering through a new city and being afraid. Hiding away in a room and decomposing. A novel every young adult should read. A novel everybody should read. Hilarious, dark, and eerily realistic. The main character is all of us. They are you. And me.

Welcome to Venice, baby.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bukowski with a credit card and a laptop. Could have been a really good short story.

[b · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Honest and heartfelt.

[Blake Middleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Larkey weaves together a succession of juxtaposing and masterfully crafted sentegraphs to send Ty—a maladjusted millennial on the verge of burn-out—floundering comically and detachedly through an unfortunate milieu and precarious economic situation on America’s west coast. Venice has all the characteristics of a cult classic: A severely alienated and antisocial borderline-degenerate living in squalor, ultimately friendless, but mixing occasionally almost solely with the dregs of society: drug dealers, drug addicts, the homeless, etc. What makes Ty charmingly different from so many other literary cult figures is that his arc is not one of evading responsibility, but working towards it; He moves to Venice from Arizona to try and become 'something.' But like in the best coming-of-age stories of our time the transition into adulthood and personal responsibility is half-assedly attempted, and ultimately, never happens, and the books end in a sort of prolonged adolescence, reflecting the actual reality of so many twenty-somethings today. (Think Sam Pink’s Person, Noah Cicero’s The Human War, Steve Anwyll’s Welfare.) It subverts expectations of the coming-of-age genre but also of the outsider. Ty isn’t bitter or resentful of his situation; He finds a certain joy in existence, as an observer rather than a committed participant. He’s consistently confounded by the world but finds joy at it’s overwhelmingness and incomprehensibility. He isn’t angry, he’s floundering, searching for meaning and direction in a deeply uncaring, indifferent society. There is lightness and love and absurdity in this book. And also, it's really fucking funny. One of the best debut novels I've ever read.

[T.J. Larkey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good job. Thanks.

[AutomaticSlim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a poor man's pink, but not in a bad way

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