La historia de Sailor y Lula

Sailor & Lula #1

by Barry Gifford, Fernando Santos Fontenla (Traductor)

Tras cumplir una condena de dos años por homicidio involuntario, Sailor sale de la cárcel en libertad condicional para reunirse con su novia Lula. Tratando de escapar de la madre de Lula, emprenden una huida que les lleve desde Carolina del Norte hasta Texas, donde un inesperado acontecimiento vendrá dar un nuevo giro a sus vidas.
A caballo entre cotidiano y desaforado, violencia y ternura, la historia de Sailor y Lula refleja un mundo que no por desmesurado resulta menos inquietante.

Genres: Fiction, Crime, Noir, Contemporary, Novels, Mystery, Romance

140 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1990

About the author

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

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

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Lula pulled Sailor over to her and kissed him soft on the mouth. ‘You move me, Sailor, you really do,’ she said. ‘You mark me the deepest.’”



Sailor Ripley has just stepped out of prison from serving time for a bullshit manslaughter charge. One of those convictions that reminds me of the royal shafting that Cameron Poe received in the movie Con Air(1997), which is an interesting association because Nicholas Cage plays Cameron Poe and he also plays Sailor Ripley in the movie version of Wild at Heart(1990).

The better the lawyer, the less likely a defendant will become a victim of the justice system, and Poe and Ripley got crappy lawyers. It shouldn’t work that way, but that is the system we have.

The minute he steps out of prison, Sailor is on his way to find Lula Pace Fortune. ”When he was on the road gang he had thought about Lula’s eyes, swum in them as if they were great cool, grey lakes with small violet islands in the middle. They kept him sane.”

He knows that, if he is ever going to get to spend time with Lula, the first thing he needs to do is get her away from her momma. Sailor reassures her. ”We’ll be alright, peanut, as long as we’ve got room to move.”

From North Carolina to Texas, we follow along with Sailor and Lula as they search for a place that will let them disappear and discover themselves. Of course, the second Sailor crossed over the North Carolina state line, he is in violation of his parole. They’ve got police, a private detective, and Lula’s momma looking for them. Is there a place where two youngsters can get a fair shake without being hauled back into reality? ”The world is really wild at heart and weird on top, Lula thought.”

They are soul mates, but are they doomed, I kept thinking to myself as money runs short and the fantasy starts to bleed into reality? Great sex will sustain a relationship for a while, but it’s all the hours of time spent verticle that usually cause the problems. The sex is more than just sex to these two, which gives me hope for a sustainable future for them. ”Oh, Sailor, you’re so aware of what goes on with me? I mean, you pay attention. And I swear, you got the sweetest cock. Sometimes it’s like it’s talkin’ to me when you’re inside? Like it’s got a voice all its own. You get right on me.”

Comparisons can be made to the great duo road trips. There is Holly and Kit from the movie Badlands. There is Bonnie and Clyde from the annals of history. We could throw Thelma and Louise in there as well. The difference is that the last thing Lulu or Sailor want to do is hurt anyone, but you would think, by the way they are searched for, that they are demented criminals. Since when did being in love become a crime?

The prose is so sparse that this is more like a sketch pad than an oil painting, but there are some scenes that are more poignant because of the stark quick strokes of Barry Gifford’s pencil. There are also a few times when I feel like just a couple of more sentences might have made a scene even better. This book inspired the cult classic movie, and sometimes combining the experience of reading the book and watching the movie makes both experiences even better. This is definitely one of those times.

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[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

It’s great how Lula states things as questions? When someone wants to tell you a story and really wants to make sure you’re engaged? It feels comfy and warm. Like the slick humidity pressing in on you in the south. In Big Tuna?

Lula and Sailor tell us stories about their families and lives in such an open and earnest way. You learn more about them by hearing about a dead uncle or a grandfather’s misadventure. It feels nice to hear their observations on life or how they feel about each other. Johnny opens up to us through his writing. It’s hard not to love Gifford’s characters.

If you’ve only seen the movie, I think you’ll find the characters a bit different in your imagination as you read.

[TK421 · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some stories that no matter how you try to spin it, it's going to be bleak. This is one of those stories. Mind you, I've never seen the film by David Lynch based on this book, so my review is based on Gifford's novel, not interpretations of the novel.

This story recounts the days Sailor and Lula spent on the road, searching for a place to begin life anew. Sailor has just recently been released from prison and is anxious to see the one woman that he not only loves, but who loves him. Lula has run away from home to be with Sailor.

As they traverse the South, trying to stay ahead of the PI that Lula's momma, Mariette, hired (one gets the sense that the PI and Mariette have a complex relationship themselves, but it is never overtly discussed) to track down Lula and bring her back home, Sailor and Lula share moments in thier lives that may or may not have contributed to making them the people they are. Some are hilarious. Others make you thankful for the life you have lived. Becausee of this narration, this novel seems more like a grouping of short vignettes slapped together and passed off as a novel. But the strange thing is, this style works for these characters. By having short, episodic moments (some left unresolved, others completed without any satisfaction) instead of a straight linear narrative, this reader felt more connected to Sailor and Lula. To be honest, I'm not sure I could have handled a straight this happened and then this happened structure.

The ending isn't what I would call happy. But it is appropiate for who these characters are, and how they have lived. There aren't a lot of answers provided for the insights and questions Gifford suggests, but isn't that what makes life life?

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

[Mariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

And I just laid there and thought about how even if you love someone it isn't always possible to have it change your life.

Somewhere all the talkity talk becomes a ghost making away with their souls. If the souls here is the point of anything. The point is feral like a dog off the chain. Man, Lula and Sailor loooove to talk. They take turns in the kinds of talking and listening. The filling their insides with words made up of scenes and flesh and everything looks the same anywhere you go, since you've been at it too long. If you look at it too long it could start to wake up and take something from you kinds. Neon beer lights follow you home. Hard faces turned to stone pacing lock the doors. So don't think about it. That's Sailor talking, the don't think about it. Sailor thinking felt more like eating in front of the television to me. I wonder what the life span on his weight is, how far does it have to fall in his gut, when something happens before he careens the vessel into the dark. Before, in prison for his two year stint on manslaughter, he'd imagine his girl's violet eyes. Like twirling umbrellas they'd hypnotize his nowhere to go. I can't imagine this escape without also going for a whole body shut down (his penis doesn't count). I don't know what Lula sees in him. He's a meat suit. Their atmosphere goes through him and out and what does it lose. He goes to get gas (and a mounds for Lula) and the old man in front of the line is taking one of those reality stops because you can't remember a time before it started long ass time. Yes, credit cards are accepted. Corn syrup was probably an ingredient in everything he bought. I was as depressed by his toothlessness as I was that the guy wasn't going to get the cat food with just the cash. Damn. Sailor imitates the man after he leaves for the benefit of the other guy in line. His surface notice of anything ever yet again and that's all you're going to get numbs by mental escape paths when the shit goes down. When Lula talks to this great love of her life it's as if she's feeling for shapes in the dark. He's the hand of society going that ache you feel like maybe you could name a loss, don't. Go further into the loss and it can still hurt to not know. Like assholes who say stupid people are lucky because they don't know any better? What if they knew there was no hope for it anyway. Sailor is the pole in the brain hemisphere that knows all of the deadening life shit that hasn't even happened yet. Some filmmaker would point a camera at actors playing a lost youth you couldn't feel close to and look there's just one of them with an almost human face. One of them is probably her boyfriend and he eats her. Wild at Heart was made into movies. The David Lynch film is much more well known than this out of print book. I haven't seen the Spanish version. I saw the Lynch version when I was in elementary school. At the time I loved it, but I should probably admit that at the time I also believed Nicolas Cage to the best actor on the planet. The book reminds me more of a Harmony Korine smarminess of "society", anyway. Yeah, I know that when their car and money run out in Big Tuna, Texas it was already inevitable that this jeans and a tank top was going to do what so many others have done. He was going to get stupid and he was going to prison again, this time for longer than their grasp of life had in them to listen to. Lula waits, and Sailor. I don't care about Sailor at all. I never did and it wasn't anything to let him go ten years later. What did Lula see in him? I kinda feel like it was her shitty decision to make and there wasn't any tragedy in her spinelessness. I don't know, it was the pinned under the nowhere of the talking to Sailor. Bobby Peru is a walking hard on for pitch black meanness. But he's not any more of their world trap than what they talked themselves into. Sailor was already going to be bad without him. Her starts to talk about something else, to ease the monstrous feeling of stupidity to something better is not fast enough. I don't feel any better off trying to overcome my own by listening to Sailor so I resented Wild at Heart in the end.

Lula was a grown ass girl of twenty. Her mother always knew Sailor was a loser. Not her baby girl. Marietta's best gal pal knows her too well to let her get away with that. Girl talks and remember how your man dropped the hammer in the sack. He was better than the moon made out of cheese. No, I was never like that. I just want her home blah blah blah. It was as sympathetic as one of those mothers who just knows that no girl will ever be good enough for her precious son. No one else sees what they see. I guess she knew Lula as other kinds of girl. Maybe she held onto her hand really tight when she was a baby. Or smiled openly and it was bittersweet before she knew it. But really, who cares? Lula is old enough to pick her own losers. Widowed Mama sends one of her shady husband's contacts after them. I cared for these parts of the book not at all. Johnnie's hit-man cum bounty hunter has a gleam in his little eye to write for pulp fiction serials. Something like Amazing Stories. I saw an episode of that show in the '90s where this roach-man who really wanted to be John Malkovich (if he had a ponytail) romances this woman who oozes desperate will I ever meet the right fella? She's too easy to wine and dine, and of course he drugs her ("It'll wear off in a day. Or so," he says creepily) with his natural roach sedatives so she can ooze lots and lots of roach babies. That would be one of the worst things to happen to a person. I don't think his car phone (how high tech!) time travel story is good enough to beat out fare like that roach baby story I saw that time. Too bad, Johnnie. Marietta doesn't want to date you, either.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another derailment on life's railway to heaven.

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I'm a little gone on Sailor & Luna and their doomed love affair.

I didn't see it coming, cruising through the cartoonish, hyper-bold dialogue a little bemused and at times underwhelmed. But here I am closing the book 100% charmed and missing them both.

I enjoyed the verve and humor, the Tarantino-esque dialogue, the small chapter format, the soul soundtrack, but most of all I love Luna and Sailor's big beating hearts, rat-a-tat-tating in harmony.

Good stuff, looking forward to more B. Gifford.

[Haniya Halana · Rating 4 out of 5]

My interest was piqued when this novel is describe as a weird Kafka-esque crime-noir, romance novel.

The basic premise of Wild at Heart is that a 23 year old, Sailor Ripley just got out of jail for killing a man in self-defence and reunited with his 20 year old lover- Lula despite her mother's protest. Lula and Sailor runs away on a road trip and so troubles bound to follow the young couple.

There are three main character in the novel, those being Sailor, Lula and Lula's mother, Marietta. Marietta is the frantic mother who inadvertently kickoff the plot of the novel. She is nervous regarding her daughter's and her relationship with Sailor while the two and their relationship juxtapose to her and her late husband's relationship. Lula is weirdly tragic and there's a sadness within her but the tragic that befell her characters are believable and some of it are reasonable enough for her mother would be nervous about her wellbeing. The only thing Marietta is arguably wrong about is Sailor and his relationship with her daughter. Sailor on the other hand is the typical outlaw character, down on the dirt with the bastards but well-intentioned, almost as if he was plucked out from a hardboiled novel but when written around Lula, he is instead this Romeo archetype that there is something tender about Sailor and Lula's relationship.

The story seemed simple. There's a setup which lead to the middle part to be an on the road adventure and where we see the dive into Sailor and Lula's relationship, then there's a crime that occurred. Within such simple setup, Barry Gifford creates a wonder, albeit trippy and weird crime story. In lesser hands, the weird and generally trippy Kafka-esque elements would be trying too hard to be quirky to the point that it can get annoying but Gifford just manage to toe the line between the weirdness be surrealistic but plausible. The middle section of the novel shows how believable the relationship Lula and Sailor were and Gilford did a great job showing it.

As for the writing, the cinematography of the novel, Gifford does have a way with how easy his prose were at making a weird, mishmash of crime and romance wrapped up with a Kafka-esque filter felt so natural and easy to read. He is also great at writing his sentence to sentence, which were beautiful to read but they're not purple or lyrical at all.

Wild at Heart is an enjoyable crime novel that packs more substance that what most would expected and it was all the better for it. It has excellent prose that creates moods and built up scenes so effortlessly.

[Ademption · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree with Brian G (though he was discussing Wild at Heart's sequel/side-quel). This is the dick-lit version of Weetzie Bat: a road-trip catalogue of stuff men (are supposed to) like, featuring two young, dumb kids in love. I remember liking Weetzie Bat better, because at least it attempted to be something more than "Aren't tacos and cold beer and jazz the best? Aren't other combos of stuff like menthol cigarettes and gum and tattoos and car magazines SO GOOD? Isn't tough white trash and amorally-treated-but-factually-correct racism in the deep South used as an accent to all the hipness going on in this book SO EDGY?" Wild at Heart is marketing for cigarettes, cars, and cheesecake pin-ups presented as fiction. Watch the David Lynch-Gifford film instead, if not solely for the hybrid Elvis-Brando, noir, and Wizard of Oz references. The film adequately covers the material of, and manages to seem more interesting than this flimsy book of big type and 3-page chapters. The film also succeeds in being the twisted adult cartoon that the novella aspires to be.

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barry Gifford writes in a pulp style -- spare, dialogue-driven, nearly descriptionless besides a few sketched-in details of the endless dust-swept south. And yet, it's an almost actionless pulp, existential pulp constructed around the bright flames of two characters whose voices fill the story. (Actually, quote a lot action is contained within their own voices, stories. But only at that remove of those stories.) David Lynch, improving upon this template in the film version, says he was compelled by these two characters, Sailor and Lula, who he knew he could put through hell, and they'd come out okay, as long as they had eachother. Which is actually an incredibly romantic notion. But that's what this story is really about, these two characters who love eachother so much that the utterly desolate world around them almost doesn't matter. And so they pull us through along with them through the howling void, if that's where they must go, and it seems that they must.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sailor and Lula, just a couple of kids in love, setting out on a road trip to experience life together. It's something that seemed to be inevitable; from the moment they were born their life experiences formed them in to the people they are, much more so than just a bunch of traits created by an author. It's social realism American noir style. A true love affair that shares as many similarities with Daniel Woodrell as somebody like Nell Dunn. If in American Gods Neil Gaiman took an epic sprawling road trip to the soul of America then Barry Gifford achieved the same thing with a handful of vignettes in cars, bars, motel rooms and restaurants alongside Lula and Sailor and made it an equally as compelling experience.

[Jorge Fernández · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me he pasado el fin de semana de viaje en un Bonneville descapotable blanco de 1975. Me lo he pasado en grande. Un realismo sucio y cruel, demasiado fragmentario en su narración, aunque hace que la lectura sea muy ágil. Leído en la versión que acaba de publicar Dirty Works (que aún no tiene ficha en Goodreads), en esa arriesgada aventura que se han metido de publicar únicamente todas las novelas de la saga hasta el próximo verano. Está cuidada y muy manejable, aunque quizá tenga un precio alto. Eso no quita que prefiera pagar 19€ por este libro que 25 por uno de Planeta o Penguin, mal traducido, sin revisar y con la portada hecha por una IA. Suerte Dirty Works.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just loved the idea! Love on the run story of Sailor, a kooky teenager just released from prison, and his not too smart girlfriend, Lulu. The couple’s oddball conversations are presented in vignettes as their pursuer gets ever closer. Great idea, but the writing doesn’t really do that idea justice and leaves the reader to do the heavy lifting. Lynch saw the comic in it. I preferred to feel a warmth for the couple. Read it and see what you take from it.

[Radiantflux · Rating 4 out of 5]

16th book for 2019.

In this short novella, Barry Gifford tells the first in a continuing series of stories of the love affair of Sailor and Lula.

The book was immortalized in film of the same name by David Lynch (Gifford also has a writing credit in Lynch's surreal Lost Highway), and while many of the best lines in the film are taken verbatim from the book, there is still much to enjoy in reading the original source material.

This is noir pulp elevated to the level of Southern beat poetry.

4-stars.

[Ben Loory · Rating 3 out of 5]

light & harmless fun with a lot of good dialogue. not as good as the movie, but no movie without it.

also pretty much worth it just for the following:

"Okay, Spark, here it is," Buddy said, putting his pen down on the counter. "My all-time top ten, in no particular order. 'Lucille' by Little Richard, 'Lonely Nights' by The Hearts, 'He's So Fine' by The Chiffons, 'Be My Baby' by The Ronettes, 'Sea of Love' by Phil Phillips, 'High Blood Pressure' by Huey 'Piano' Smith and The Clowns, 'It's Rainin'' by Irma Thomas, 'You're No Good' by Betty Everett, 'I'd Rather Go Blind' by Etta James, and 'Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay' by Otis Redding. What do you think?"

"I've always been partial to 'Sea of Love' myself," said Sparky. "But where's 'My Pretty Quadroon" by Jerry Lee Lewis? Just kiddin'. But how about 'Breathless,' at least? Where's Sam Cooke? Elvis? Chuck Berry? 'Just One Look' by Doris Troy? 'Stay' by Maurice Williams? 'I'm a King Bee" by Slim Harpo? Or 'Little Darlin'' by The Gladiolas? 'If You Lose Me, You'll Lose a Good Thing" by Barbara Lynn? Marvin Gaye? Little Miss Cornshucks? Sugar Pie DeSanto? The Beatles? The Stones?"

"Can't all be in the top ten. Those are the ones I'd take. Not meant to please anyone but myself. Besides, makin' lists helps pass the time."

[Brent Legault · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for the first time while working at a bookstore on Decatur Street in New Orleans. There was a scene where a character (the sleazy private eye played by Harry Dean Stanton in the film), after eating a half-dozen at Acme Oyster bar on Iberville Street, walked right by my window. That is, he walked north(ish) on Decatur Street from Iberville. In the book, not outside of it. It's of no importance to anyone and personally I detest regionalism in literature. However, it made an impression on an impressionable mind (fifteen years ago) and so Wild At Heart will always have a place in mine.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ate this up like candy. Better than the movie, which was pretty damn good already. Gifford is a poet with a musician's ear for dialogue. Phenomenal.

[Dani Morell · Rating 5 out of 5]

La primera entrega de la saga Sailor & Lula és un autèntic goig. Fidel al seu estil, l'autor aprofita la trama principal per inserir desenes de microhistòries autònomes i personatges peculiars de breu aparició. Gifford atorga moltíssima importància a la geografia i la cultura del Sud Profund dels EUA, una cosa que em fascina gairebé tant com el retrat que fa de la marginalitat. La pel·lícula de Lynch és sensacional, però ben diferent de la novel·la!

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book solely because I love the movie and wanted to see where a director like David Lynch finds his inspiration. The movie itself is, most people would say, dated and strange to say the least. But I find the right kind of hilarity in Nicolas Cage's performance as Sailor that makes it fun to watch. Pair that with Laura Dern's weirdly sexy role as Lula and you've got one of Lynch's best works. However, his extensions of the characters and scene additions really add to the atmospheric quality I loved about it - bizarre, gritty, and often ugly - that the book simply couldn't get across at times.

But this isn't a movie review, so... the dialogue is fun to read, but the rising quality of Lula's speech signaled by the use of question marks at the end of her every statement can get tiresome (that is, if you read in a character's voice in your head like I do). I found that I liked Johnny Farragut's character much more in the book. Although I am a fan of Harry Dean Stanton (the actor who played Johnny in the film), Gifford's take on Johnny assigned him more depth and independent thought, along with a kind of apathy to the situation in general that I appreciated in the book.

The heart of the novel pares down to the story of Lula and Sailor's young, all-consuming and reckless love for each other. If you've ever made choices in a relationship to please anyone but yourselves, then Lula and Sailor could stir an envy in you of their ability to be entirely selfish. They are irresponsible and make terrible, irreversible life choices. But because certain people in their lives want to see them fail so badly, you find yourself rooting for them. It's the kind of story that makes you understand the sensation of Bonnie and Clyde, minus the killing spree.

[Jessie Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. Barry Gifford’s style of writing was perfect. Highly recommend. Doesn’t take away anything from the movie.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taking nothing away from the novel, which was good, I just think Lynch's film is superior.
If you like the movie, then I say still read the source material here. You can easily see why Lynch was attracted to it.

[Lukáš Palán · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tato kniha by se správně měla jmenovat "Dva lidi jedou autem a do toho si povídají historky, které se netýkají děje a tudíž přeskočte na konec." Bohužel se tak kniha nejmenuje, takže jsem ji celou přečetl.

Zpětně toho nelituji, protože číst jakoukoliv knihu je přeci jen pořád lepší než mít třeba rakovinu, tarif od O2 nebo průjem, ale podruhé bych asi raději volil ten průjem. Ale zpět ke knize. Ta je jen směsicí historek a blábolů, které vyplňují místo a "jaksi taksi" dávají nahlédnout do motivace postav, ale ve skutečnosti jsou v knize potřebné asi jako popelník na motorce. Všechno by se to dalo odpustit, kdyby byly historky aspoň trochu extra, jenže jsou naprosto o ničem a ani jako samostatné útvary neobstojí.

Takže po 150 stránkách budování motivace a charakteru postav z ničeho tu máme konec, kdy se něco děje, ale vše je popsáno na 10 stránkách a než se člověk naděje, náhle je po knize. V doslovu jsem očekával alespoň 100 stránkový esej o Stanislavského metodě v provedení Nicolase Cage, ale ten tam nebyl, tudíž za mě mírné zklamání.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure if I'm glad I saw the movie before reading the book. If I remember correctly, the movie came out in 1990, as did this book. David Lynch is even credited with some design concept in the inside jacket copy. The novel is so slim compared to the movie, I have to wonder if there is more to this than a short novel being made into a movie by a director taking a lot of liberties with the story.

That being said, I loved the movie. It's possible I'd rate this novel three stars had I never seen Lynch's interpretation. The story is quick, simple and subtle. Nothing is overdone or overstated. The plot is sparse, but this story is more character-driven to begin with. However, even that side of things leaves a lot open for the reader.

[Michael Sellars · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary novel. As someone who thinks of themselves as a writer, I'm in awe of Gifford's gifts. Somehow in a novel which is mostly dialogue and digressions Gifford manages to maintain a forward momentum that even the most experienced thriller writer would struggle to match. Characters come and go, things happen (or don't), places are passed through and events don't so much unfold as manifest with supernatural spontaneity. There's a sweetness here that is entirely free of mawkishness and a frankness that is never crude. The ending is heartbreaking and right.

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lula is soooo Laura Dern... 3-stars because this is pulp. But it is pulp with an existential edge, and a fun read.

[A girl called Johnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long live Lula and Sailor!

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason I read this when I did was because it was advertised in the Vintage Contemporaries mail order form in back of my copy of American Psycho, so I was disappointed Bret Ellis wasn't advertised at all here. The reason I purchased this novel was because it is the source material for my least-favorite David Lynch film, and I guess I wanted to read it for a similar reason as to why I read Dune: I felt reading the book could help me enjoy the movie more. It did end up working for Dune (despite Lynch disowning the movie), so we'll see if I can better appreciate the film adaptation of Wild at Heart.

I don't want to waste too much time comparing the novel against the film. So it's a good thing I don't remember the film very well at all. I basically just remember Willem Dafoe as Bobby Peru, something like a spiritual successor to Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth and a predecessor to Robert Loggia's Mr. Eddy. And there's also the snakeskin jacket and Marietta covering her face in lipstick, neither of which turned out to be in this book at all. Nor any Wizard of Oz references. Nor many Elvis references (though there are at least a couple). So, honestly, it's really just the character names, their relationships, and the basic road-trip plot (with Johnnie tracking the kids down) that are adapted as Lynch's movie. Otherwise, he did this own thang.

This novel is therefore kinda-sorta uninteresting, in the sense that it's just pretty "normal." I mean, the accented dialogue and some graphic sexual content set it apart from the kind of basic-bitch garbage you'd find in an airport newsstand. There's enough here that it feels reasonable it would be published by the same company behind certain Ellis, Beattie, Leyner, Yates, or McCarthy novels. Like, those people are all pretty stylistically disparate, but there's a feeling of Legitimate Artistic Merit to them, and I feel Gifford isn't out of place here, even if maybe I don't like him as much, having read only one of his books.

I guess the thing is the book feels "too short," which is funny because my main complaint when I read Lolita ages ago was that the "road-trip" element felt like it dragged on too long. So there's a happy medium somewhere between that and this.

I don't know. I have an interest in reading the other Sailor and Lula books, and will likely purchase the volume that compiles them all. So that has to count for something.

[Austin Gaines · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished Wild at Heart yesterday. It had that outstanding dim witted southern dialogue that I dig. I don't remember much about the David Lynch movie. But it looks like they changed it up a bit. And there is no Wizard of Oz witch and no hitmen. I guess Lynch got this dude to write Lost Highway but I don't remember much about that either. The author wrote 4 or so sequels to this and I actually wouldn't mind giving at least one of them a chance. I got kind of interested in the characters. It was a really good read and basically a rambling southern road story. The dude writes some interesting lines. And it honestly doesn't detract from it if you imagine the main character as Nicholas Cage.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here we are introduced to Sailor and Lula- a pair of young free spirits hitting the road and heading west. I thought it would be a more violent and action orientated tale but it was a mostly an easy-going journey, until Sailor, an ex-con, decides to break the law again. I saw the film Wild at Heart many years ago. I am a big David Lynch fan but that one didn’t work for me. That said, once I discovered that the film was based on a series of books, I thought I might want to give one a try. I am glad I did, plus they are novella size, so you can get through them quickly.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been on a Willem Dafoe kick recently so I wanted to watch Wild at Heart but I figured I could read the book first to see how it is. So I did.

Anyway I like that it’s short and the chapters are bite-sized, made reading it very pleasant. Also, as someone from the American south, it was nice to read some very southern dialogue.

[Leo Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a novel seemingly about fast-paced lives filled with action, it’s surprisingly immobile.

I love dialogue, but even I was thinking they should get out of their damn hotel rooms, stop telling each other stories about stuff that once happened and make something happen themselves. Almost all the action happens between the pages. Ten years pass in a chapter break.

I found this and a collection of its sequels in a phone box in town, but I’m stopping here and putting them back.

[alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know it’s really, really, REALLY not this book’s fault that I was thinking about how good the David Lynch movie was the entire time, but unfortunately I was still thinking about how good the David Lynch movie was the entire time.