Freeway

by Deanne Barkley

READING CREASES ON SPINE. BOOKSTORE STAMP ON FIRST PAGE.

254 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 1980

Reviews

[Jordan West · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5; pulp Altman - Nashville reimagined as a west coast grindhouse take on Little Murders, with an LA haunted by a mystery shooter randomly drive by-ing people on the freeway refracted thru a handful of disparate citizens whose lives are impacted (and increasingly connected) by the ongoing rampage. Both of its time and strongly transitional, very much a reflection of the early 70s malaise era with alienation, helplessness, and ceaseless grinding fear the order of the day, while the portrayal of latchkey kids skateboarding aimlessly across the city in desperate search of guidance or meaning feels like a dress rehearsal for the likes of River's Edge and Penelope Spheeris, not to mention prefiguring pretty perfectly the dawning of the era when the idealism and hopeful potential of the prior decade was replaced by coping/self-medication/distraction, and constant casual atrocity (gun based or otherwise), was definitively revealed to be a feature instead of a bug in our society. Other highlights include the death of a pick-up artist/would-be stalker so skin-crawlingly misogynistic his murder comes as a ray of comparative sunshine and an adulterous, heroin-addicted musician doing the 'stuck in Ojai' shuffle revealed to be one of most grounded characters in the novel.

[Cody]

Deanne Barkley did a very good job with this one. she combined the books scene of an industrial city with modern language all inevitably meeting back to the same scene that was the soul of the book. that there was a highway sniper terrorizing the streets, killing many in his path on the busy road. the book started out focused around a couple and a lone man who inevitably met his end of the road with a bullet to the head. and like the couple, the city and people in it as a whole was just as confused as the other. leading the book through a path of modern and rather uncensored language and scenarios, adding to the crazy excitement and suspense that Deanne Barkley puts upon the reader.