Corner Boy

by Herbert Simmons

This 1957 novel relates the violent rise and fall of 18-years-old Jake Adams, whose Buick Dynaflow, custom-made suits, and attractiveness to women are all the fuits of his job pushing dope for the Organization.

Genres: Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

Reviews

[Cody]

End-of-Year 'Loose Ends Bother Me' Microreview in Three Sentences or Less:

Corner Boy should be a case study used to counter every protest that a book must grab its reader within x pages, or suffer the ignominy of relegation to the dread “DNF” or “TL;DR” shitpiles that litter this rathole. With one of the best slow-burn starts I’ve read (in that I was bored fucking witless for 30 pages—yep, guilty as charged), Simmons shifts gears and loosens the book from a tight character study into a wide-lensed, poly-threaded sprawl, introducing a growing cast of POVs and flooding the pages with a sulfuric stench that clings to everything human. A not-very-minor masterpiece, as fated to Doom as anything Bobby Liebling ever put his name to.

[Caroline]

2.5 , j'aurais aimé avoir quelque chose de plus abouti.