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Galveston
Recalling the moody violence of the early novels of Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson, a dark and visceral debut set along the seedy wastelands of Galveston by a young writer with a hard edge to his potent literary style On the same day that Roy Cady is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he senses that his boss, a dangerous loan-sharking bar-owner, wants him dead. Known “without affection” to members of the boss’s crew as “Big Country” on account of his long hair, beard, and cowboy boots, Roy is alert to the possibility that a routine assignment could be a deathtrap. Which it is. Yet what the would-be killers do to Roy Cady is not the same as what he does to them, which is to say that after a smoking spasm of violence, they are mostly dead and he is mostly alive. Before Roy makes his getaway, he realizes there are two women in the apartment, one of them still breathing, and he sees something in her frightened, defiant eyes that causes a fateful decision. He takes her with him as he goes on the run from New Orleans to Galveston, Texas—an action as ill-advised as it is inescapable. The girl’s name is Rocky, and she is too young, too tough, too sexy—and far too much trouble. Roy, Rocky, and her sister hide in the battered seascape of Galveston’s country-western bars and fleabag hotels, a world of treacherous drifters, pickup trucks, and ashed-out hopes. Any chance that they will find safety there is soon lost. Rocky is a girl with quite a story to tell, one that will pursue and damage Roy for a very long time to come in this powerful and atmospheric thriller, impossible to put down. Constructed with maximum tension and haunting aftereffect, written in darkly beautiful prose, Galveston announces the arrival of a major new literary talent.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published May 20, 2010
515 people are currently reading
11942 people want to read
About the author
Nic Pizzolatto
12 books820 followersNic Pizzolatto is an American novelist, screenwriter, and producer. Pizzolatto was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was educated at the University of Arkansas and Louisiana State University. The author of two books, he taught fiction and literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Chicago, and DePauw University before leaving academia in 2010.
His first novel, Galveston, was published by Scribner's in June, 2010. It was translated and published in France by Editions Belfond, Hong Kong, Germany, and in Italy by Mondadori, as part of their Strade Blu line.
In 2012, he created an original television series called True Detective, which was sold to HBO and completed shooting in June 2013, with Pizzolatto as executive producer, sole writer, and showrunner.
His first novel, Galveston, was published by Scribner's in June, 2010. It was translated and published in France by Editions Belfond, Hong Kong, Germany, and in Italy by Mondadori, as part of their Strade Blu line.
In 2012, he created an original television series called True Detective, which was sold to HBO and completed shooting in June 2013, with Pizzolatto as executive producer, sole writer, and showrunner.
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September 1, 2024
TRUE DETECTIVE
”True Detective” la serie tv ideata e scritta da Nic Pizzolatto giunta alla sua terza stagione, che ripete i fasti della prima (e non solo quelli, nel senso che alla prima è debitrice in maniera diretta e palese). Qui le tre trasformazioni del portagonsita Mahershala Ali, già con due Oscar all’attivo (entrambi come miglior attore non protagonista).
La questione non è se questo romanzo è all’altezza di True Detective, la magnifica serie tv ideata da Nic Pizzolatto.
[Come non lo è stabilire se la seconda stagione di True Detective sia all’altezza della prima, perché non si possono confrontare.]
La questione è stabilire se questo romanzo funziona e vale [e, caso mai, se anche True Detective 2 funziona e vale].
La risposta è semplice: sì [per la prima domanda, e no, per la seconda], ed è un piacere leggerlo nonostante la fastidiosa traduzione.
True Detective, la prima stagione della serie HBO, 2014.
Siamo nel 1987.
Roy Cady, un quarantenne dedito all’alcol, ha appena appreso che ha un cancro ai polmoni allo stadio terminale.
Roy recupera crediti e occasionalmente uccide gente per Stan, un boss della mafia polacca di New Orleans.
Ma Stan si è messo da poco con la ragazza di Roy, e Roy è improvvisamente diventato una presenza ingombrante.
Così, Stan lo spedisce in una missione trappola dove però chi doveva essere ucciso finisce con l’uccidere. Sopravvivono solo Roy e Raquel-Rocky, una prostituta adolescente.
Louisiana.
Scappano insieme sul furgone di Roy, via dalla Louisiana diretti sulla costa del Texas.
Molto presto i due diventano tre, Tiffany viene aggregata: Tiffany è una bimba di tre anni e mezzo, è probabilmente la sorellina di Raquel-Rocky che vive col patrigno e Raquel-Rocky la rapisce brandendo una pistola.
Oltre non posso raccontare, oltre bisogna leggere.
Dal sito ufficiale della città di Galveston, Texas.
Sei qui perché un posto vale l’altro. I cani ansimano per le strade. La birra non rimane fredda a lungo. L’ultima canzone nuova che ti è piaciuta è uscita tanto tempo fa, e la radio ormai non la trasmette più.
Sono personaggi che scappano dal o verso il destino, ma la ricerca del passato e di una casa è più un desiderio che un ricordo.
Sono personaggi orfani o abbandonati, da qualcuno o dal cielo implacabile del Texas.
Sono persone che meritano qualcosa di meglio della verità.
Roy ha la possibilità, per quanto fugace e disperata, di far riaffiorare la capacità di bene che ancora possiede, e così il romanzo diventa un’occasione di recupero della sua anima, se non addirittura di redenzione.
Il film omonimo diretto dall'attrice francese Melanie Laurent nel 2018.
Se esiste una regola che ogni lettore di noir conosce alla perfezione è, le cose non finiranno bene.
E infatti in ‘Galveston’ non finiscono affatto bene: ma questo non significa che qui e là non spuntino momenti di grazia e conforto.
Che di solito ruotano attorno alla bambina, Tiffany, ‘adottata’ dalla sgangherata comunità del motel dove approdano i tre fuggitivi.
Pizzolatto conosce e rispetta le regole del genere, come ho detto, ma evita una serie di cliché, primo fra tutti quello che riguarda il rapporto tra i due protagonisti, Roy e Rocky, l’uomo e la donna, la cui storia insieme è tutto meno che scontata.
I protagonisti sono Ben Foster ed Elle Fanning.
Sarebbe sbagliato affermare che non ci sia nulla che richiama True Detective.
Per esempio, Roy si trastulla quando è a casa ritagliando un esercito di figurine a forma umana ricavandole dalle lattine della birra che tracanna, proprio come fa Rusty-McConaughey quando è interrogato.
Anche in Galveston si parla di una catapecchia con la zanzariera strappata sulla porta e Roy dice che si tratta della tipica casupola locale in cui i motociclisti producono metanfetamina.
Quando leggevo mi ritrovavo coinvolto dalle parole e da ciò che significavano, e così non misuravo il passare del tempo nelle solite maniere. Fui sorpreso di scoprire che c’era questa libertà, fatta unicamente di parole. E allora mi sentii come se non fossi riuscito a capire qualcosa di cruciale, tanto tempo prima.
Parlando di sgangherate comunità, nel bel film di Percy Adlon “Out of Rosenheim–Bagdad Cafè” (1987) ce n’era una niente male.
”True Detective” la serie tv ideata e scritta da Nic Pizzolatto giunta alla sua terza stagione, che ripete i fasti della prima (e non solo quelli, nel senso che alla prima è debitrice in maniera diretta e palese). Qui le tre trasformazioni del portagonsita Mahershala Ali, già con due Oscar all’attivo (entrambi come miglior attore non protagonista).
La questione non è se questo romanzo è all’altezza di True Detective, la magnifica serie tv ideata da Nic Pizzolatto.
[Come non lo è stabilire se la seconda stagione di True Detective sia all’altezza della prima, perché non si possono confrontare.]
La questione è stabilire se questo romanzo funziona e vale [e, caso mai, se anche True Detective 2 funziona e vale].
La risposta è semplice: sì [per la prima domanda, e no, per la seconda], ed è un piacere leggerlo nonostante la fastidiosa traduzione.
True Detective, la prima stagione della serie HBO, 2014.
Siamo nel 1987.
Roy Cady, un quarantenne dedito all’alcol, ha appena appreso che ha un cancro ai polmoni allo stadio terminale.
Roy recupera crediti e occasionalmente uccide gente per Stan, un boss della mafia polacca di New Orleans.
Ma Stan si è messo da poco con la ragazza di Roy, e Roy è improvvisamente diventato una presenza ingombrante.
Così, Stan lo spedisce in una missione trappola dove però chi doveva essere ucciso finisce con l’uccidere. Sopravvivono solo Roy e Raquel-Rocky, una prostituta adolescente.
Louisiana.
Scappano insieme sul furgone di Roy, via dalla Louisiana diretti sulla costa del Texas.
Molto presto i due diventano tre, Tiffany viene aggregata: Tiffany è una bimba di tre anni e mezzo, è probabilmente la sorellina di Raquel-Rocky che vive col patrigno e Raquel-Rocky la rapisce brandendo una pistola.
Oltre non posso raccontare, oltre bisogna leggere.
Dal sito ufficiale della città di Galveston, Texas.
Sei qui perché un posto vale l’altro. I cani ansimano per le strade. La birra non rimane fredda a lungo. L’ultima canzone nuova che ti è piaciuta è uscita tanto tempo fa, e la radio ormai non la trasmette più.
Sono personaggi che scappano dal o verso il destino, ma la ricerca del passato e di una casa è più un desiderio che un ricordo.
Sono personaggi orfani o abbandonati, da qualcuno o dal cielo implacabile del Texas.
Sono persone che meritano qualcosa di meglio della verità.
Roy ha la possibilità, per quanto fugace e disperata, di far riaffiorare la capacità di bene che ancora possiede, e così il romanzo diventa un’occasione di recupero della sua anima, se non addirittura di redenzione.
Il film omonimo diretto dall'attrice francese Melanie Laurent nel 2018.
Se esiste una regola che ogni lettore di noir conosce alla perfezione è, le cose non finiranno bene.
E infatti in ‘Galveston’ non finiscono affatto bene: ma questo non significa che qui e là non spuntino momenti di grazia e conforto.
Che di solito ruotano attorno alla bambina, Tiffany, ‘adottata’ dalla sgangherata comunità del motel dove approdano i tre fuggitivi.
Pizzolatto conosce e rispetta le regole del genere, come ho detto, ma evita una serie di cliché, primo fra tutti quello che riguarda il rapporto tra i due protagonisti, Roy e Rocky, l’uomo e la donna, la cui storia insieme è tutto meno che scontata.
I protagonisti sono Ben Foster ed Elle Fanning.
Sarebbe sbagliato affermare che non ci sia nulla che richiama True Detective.
Per esempio, Roy si trastulla quando è a casa ritagliando un esercito di figurine a forma umana ricavandole dalle lattine della birra che tracanna, proprio come fa Rusty-McConaughey quando è interrogato.
Anche in Galveston si parla di una catapecchia con la zanzariera strappata sulla porta e Roy dice che si tratta della tipica casupola locale in cui i motociclisti producono metanfetamina.
Quando leggevo mi ritrovavo coinvolto dalle parole e da ciò che significavano, e così non misuravo il passare del tempo nelle solite maniere. Fui sorpreso di scoprire che c’era questa libertà, fatta unicamente di parole. E allora mi sentii come se non fossi riuscito a capire qualcosa di cruciale, tanto tempo prima.
Parlando di sgangherate comunità, nel bel film di Percy Adlon “Out of Rosenheim–Bagdad Cafè” (1987) ce n’era una niente male.
October 6, 2018
although i bought this book long before true detective existed, i never got around to reading it because i am the worst at reading. thank goodness for andrea, who gave me the kick in the pants when i actually had a tiny little gap of time to read books of my choosing, because this is both right in my wheelhouse and also a nice departure from many similar stories in that noir/grit lit genre.
there are similarities between this book and true detective - it's a story told in both the "now" and the "then," with teenaged prostitutes and a million cigarettes, moral ambiguity and fatalism, new orleans and plenty of drinking, drugs, and death centered on a good man with bad habits. also, beer cans as art.
but it's much more grounded than true detective. the metaphysical doesn't really enter into this story, except in the most oblique way, and might only be clocked by someone looking for it with true detective goggles. there's some ruminating on death and the like, but not nearly to the extent that rust cohle rambles about in those lincoln ads.
ultimately, it's noir, but a more modern version of it, with characters instead of caricatures. they definitely have some of the stock qualities - there's a version of the femme fatale, a version of the quiet conflicted hero, a version of the criminal underbelly that will employ you and betray you in the same breath.
but there's more nuance here.
roy cady is a man living on borrowed time, after a medical diagnosis leaves him with little hope for any kind of future. on top of that, he barely escapes with his shortened life after a set-up disguised as a routine (for him) job goes bad, and he has to kill his way out of it. the reason for the set-up is, naturally, a woman, but after the dust has settled, roy finds himself responsible for a different woman - a young prostitute named rocky, whom he will rescue and befriend. with rocky and her five-year-old sister tiffany, they set out on a road trip to galveston, texas with some incriminating documents and a whole lot of folks pissed off in their wake.
roy cady is very much an antihero, with his criminal associations and his less-than-noble but understandable ogling of young rocky. he's very gentlemanly about it on the outside but there is a LOT of time spent admiring her butt and legs in some sort of icky blason. but he's oddly sensitive, haunted by the memories of a love long-gone, and in one of the most emotionally uncomfortable scenes on the book, he meets up with her again and we all squirm for him and his misguided overtures. he's also not just a common thug. although his terminal diagnosis paves the way for some nihilism, he isn't reckless, and he doesn't go out on a revenge-fueled killing spree, which would be the norm for this kind of book. here, it's actually kind of the opposite.
I felt the cold metal of the gun in my hand and the idea of using it seemed suddenly impossible, the thought paralyzing. My body was sort of transfixed by this panic.
I had no idea I'd become so meek.
I just didn't want anybody to hurt me again.
So at some point I'd become a coward. Or I'd always been one, and only just realized it, and now, like everything else about me, my insides were on the surface, plain as day.
it's a great book in terms of structure and pacing, and in the slow but certain closing of that damn flat circle of time as we learn what happened in the "then" to turn the tough roy into the broken roy of the "now." it's also a strong character study of a man that diverges from genre-conventions to give the reader some genuinely surprising twists and scenes with unexpected emotional impact. oh, also a shit-ton of violence. seriously, wow.
apropos of absolutely nothing, reading this made me remember reading something roger ebert wrote about the characteristics of noir that really stuck with me, because it was both accurate and uncharacteristically poetic. two of his notes were that noir involves
Relationships in which love is only the final flop card in the poker game of death.
and that it was
The most American film genre, because no society could have created a world so filled with doom, fate, fear and betrayal, unless it were essentially naive and optimistic.
chew on that, pals!
come to my blog!
there are similarities between this book and true detective - it's a story told in both the "now" and the "then," with teenaged prostitutes and a million cigarettes, moral ambiguity and fatalism, new orleans and plenty of drinking, drugs, and death centered on a good man with bad habits. also, beer cans as art.
but it's much more grounded than true detective. the metaphysical doesn't really enter into this story, except in the most oblique way, and might only be clocked by someone looking for it with true detective goggles. there's some ruminating on death and the like, but not nearly to the extent that rust cohle rambles about in those lincoln ads.
ultimately, it's noir, but a more modern version of it, with characters instead of caricatures. they definitely have some of the stock qualities - there's a version of the femme fatale, a version of the quiet conflicted hero, a version of the criminal underbelly that will employ you and betray you in the same breath.
but there's more nuance here.
roy cady is a man living on borrowed time, after a medical diagnosis leaves him with little hope for any kind of future. on top of that, he barely escapes with his shortened life after a set-up disguised as a routine (for him) job goes bad, and he has to kill his way out of it. the reason for the set-up is, naturally, a woman, but after the dust has settled, roy finds himself responsible for a different woman - a young prostitute named rocky, whom he will rescue and befriend. with rocky and her five-year-old sister tiffany, they set out on a road trip to galveston, texas with some incriminating documents and a whole lot of folks pissed off in their wake.
roy cady is very much an antihero, with his criminal associations and his less-than-noble but understandable ogling of young rocky. he's very gentlemanly about it on the outside but there is a LOT of time spent admiring her butt and legs in some sort of icky blason. but he's oddly sensitive, haunted by the memories of a love long-gone, and in one of the most emotionally uncomfortable scenes on the book, he meets up with her again and we all squirm for him and his misguided overtures. he's also not just a common thug. although his terminal diagnosis paves the way for some nihilism, he isn't reckless, and he doesn't go out on a revenge-fueled killing spree, which would be the norm for this kind of book. here, it's actually kind of the opposite.
I felt the cold metal of the gun in my hand and the idea of using it seemed suddenly impossible, the thought paralyzing. My body was sort of transfixed by this panic.
I had no idea I'd become so meek.
I just didn't want anybody to hurt me again.
So at some point I'd become a coward. Or I'd always been one, and only just realized it, and now, like everything else about me, my insides were on the surface, plain as day.
it's a great book in terms of structure and pacing, and in the slow but certain closing of that damn flat circle of time as we learn what happened in the "then" to turn the tough roy into the broken roy of the "now." it's also a strong character study of a man that diverges from genre-conventions to give the reader some genuinely surprising twists and scenes with unexpected emotional impact. oh, also a shit-ton of violence. seriously, wow.
apropos of absolutely nothing, reading this made me remember reading something roger ebert wrote about the characteristics of noir that really stuck with me, because it was both accurate and uncharacteristically poetic. two of his notes were that noir involves
Relationships in which love is only the final flop card in the poker game of death.
and that it was
The most American film genre, because no society could have created a world so filled with doom, fate, fear and betrayal, unless it were essentially naive and optimistic.
chew on that, pals!
come to my blog!
November 25, 2020
This is a great novel one that should have a lot more recognition. I wish this author would write more novels. I think he's busy writing television. If you like great noir crime fiction give this one a go. It open by setting a great conflict with x-ray.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
March 7, 2014
When terminally ill mob thug Roy Cady is instructed to do a job without taking bringing a gun, he gets suspicious. The situation goes south and soon Roy is on the run with a packet of important papers and an 18 year old sex kitten named Rocky. What will kill Roy first? The cancer or the mob?
Like everyone reading Galveston these days, I love HBO's True Detective, the best thing since sliced Breaking Bad. I'd planned to wait until the series wrapped before reading it but I finally said piss on it. Why kill time reading something else when I've got Galveston at my fingertips?
Fans of True Detective won't be disappointed. Galveston is a noir detective tale but it's also a story about getting older and looking death in the face. As he runs with Rocky and her sister TIffany in tow, Roy is forced to think back on all the mistakes he's made. Not to say it's still not a crime book. It very much is, from the job at the beginning to Roy protecting his charges to some stomach churning brutality near the end.
There are a few things Galveston has in common with True Detective and it's clear Pizzolatto had his masterpiece in mind even while he was working on Galveston, the scoundrel. Cady has an army of soldiers on his coffee table made from spent Miller High Life cans on his coffee table. He also ponders the nature of stories, time, and death a fair amount. There's also another element that they have in common but I'm not going to spoil that one.
Roy is something of a beer can philosopher akin to Pizzolatto's later creation, Rustin Cohle. He has quite a few quotable lines, most of which deal with getting older. "The last new song you liked came out a long, long time ago, and the radio never plays it anymore."
Roy's relationship with Rocky and Tiffany does a lot to show what a nuanced character he is, with his conflicted feelings about Rocky and love for her sister (or is it daughter) Tiffany. All the lead characters are completely different people by the end of the novel. The ending almost squeezed a few man tears out of me but I manned up and powered through it.
True Detective fans, have no fear. Galveston will be the methadone to your True Detective heroin. Five out of five stars.
Like everyone reading Galveston these days, I love HBO's True Detective, the best thing since sliced Breaking Bad. I'd planned to wait until the series wrapped before reading it but I finally said piss on it. Why kill time reading something else when I've got Galveston at my fingertips?
Fans of True Detective won't be disappointed. Galveston is a noir detective tale but it's also a story about getting older and looking death in the face. As he runs with Rocky and her sister TIffany in tow, Roy is forced to think back on all the mistakes he's made. Not to say it's still not a crime book. It very much is, from the job at the beginning to Roy protecting his charges to some stomach churning brutality near the end.
There are a few things Galveston has in common with True Detective and it's clear Pizzolatto had his masterpiece in mind even while he was working on Galveston, the scoundrel. Cady has an army of soldiers on his coffee table made from spent Miller High Life cans on his coffee table. He also ponders the nature of stories, time, and death a fair amount. There's also another element that they have in common but I'm not going to spoil that one.
Roy is something of a beer can philosopher akin to Pizzolatto's later creation, Rustin Cohle. He has quite a few quotable lines, most of which deal with getting older. "The last new song you liked came out a long, long time ago, and the radio never plays it anymore."
Roy's relationship with Rocky and Tiffany does a lot to show what a nuanced character he is, with his conflicted feelings about Rocky and love for her sister (or is it daughter) Tiffany. All the lead characters are completely different people by the end of the novel. The ending almost squeezed a few man tears out of me but I manned up and powered through it.
True Detective fans, have no fear. Galveston will be the methadone to your True Detective heroin. Five out of five stars.
March 21, 2014
Hey authors! Want to sell more copies of your book? Just follow Nic Pizzolatto’s simple example and create a hit TV series for HBO that captivates the public. Then sit back and watch the sales increase. (It’ll help if you get Matthew McConaughey on board in the midst of an astounding career turnaround.)
Roy Cady is having a very bad day. First, he finds out that he’s dying, and then his criminal boss tries to accelerate the process by setting him up to be murdered. Roy manages to escape New Orleans but picks up a stray teenage hooker named Rocky along the way. Although his plan is to simply run and find a place to die in peace, he finds himself reluctantly bonding with the girl, and she accompanies him as he holes up in Galveston, Texas.
I was prepared to work hard at trying to separate this from my True Detective expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t such a chore after all. From its violent opening to Roy’s drunken brooding later in the book as he contemplates his own mortality and what life will hold for Rocky unless he can help set her on a different path, this turned out to be remarkably good noir. The grunginess of the settings as well as the crap hands that both Roy and Rocky were dealt in life make this feel like a story about small time losers, and asks if it’s possible to ever break that pattern.
There are some things that will jump out at True Detective fans. Roy cuts up beer cans and folds them into the shapes of people, and part of it is told from a future perspective and filling in the gaps between the two is part of the structure.
Perhaps the biggest TD element is in the way this ends.
So while you won’t get a nihilistic detective talking about how time is a flat circle, you will get a very good crime story with a protagonist who has his own kind of darkness.
Roy Cady is having a very bad day. First, he finds out that he’s dying, and then his criminal boss tries to accelerate the process by setting him up to be murdered. Roy manages to escape New Orleans but picks up a stray teenage hooker named Rocky along the way. Although his plan is to simply run and find a place to die in peace, he finds himself reluctantly bonding with the girl, and she accompanies him as he holes up in Galveston, Texas.
I was prepared to work hard at trying to separate this from my True Detective expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t such a chore after all. From its violent opening to Roy’s drunken brooding later in the book as he contemplates his own mortality and what life will hold for Rocky unless he can help set her on a different path, this turned out to be remarkably good noir. The grunginess of the settings as well as the crap hands that both Roy and Rocky were dealt in life make this feel like a story about small time losers, and asks if it’s possible to ever break that pattern.
There are some things that will jump out at True Detective fans. Roy cuts up beer cans and folds them into the shapes of people, and part of it is told from a future perspective and filling in the gaps between the two is part of the structure.
Perhaps the biggest TD element is in the way this ends.
So while you won’t get a nihilistic detective talking about how time is a flat circle, you will get a very good crime story with a protagonist who has his own kind of darkness.
November 11, 2016
. . . I sat on a stool and ordered a beer. Then I remembered I was dying and changed the order to a Johnnie Walker Blue.
Damn straight!
What a strange reading experience this was . . .
The premise seemed so compelling - a terminally ill mob hitman becomes the target of his employers, and yet, I found the characters to be lifeless and dull; the book was impossibly easy to put down. Then, at slightly over the halfway point, the main character goes to visit an old flame. Yowza! What a fantastic scene this was! He is full of longing, choked with emotion as he remembers their great times together. (Well, okay, he's mostly remembering the great sex they had together, but still . . . )
His lady-love, however, only seems to recall the bad stuff:
She said, "You remember what you want. I remember you coming home with your shirt bloody. Asking me to hide a gun. You'd sober up a week and start talking about being different. Then you were drunk again for three weeks straight. You made it so I couldn't be around you without being shit-faced. The things you said to me. You threw me around a little. do you remember? Do you remember the fights at all? You were jealous of everything, Roy. You were resentful. You resented other people being happy. I remember thinking, This is the most frightened man I ever met. And so what, really? I've known worse men. I was a little relieved, though. When you went to prison."
Suddenly, Roy was humanized. I felt sorry for him. I cared about him. And I couldn't stop turning the pages. Toss in an extremely good ending, and this one almost makes five stars.
This is our November read in the Pulp Fiction group - https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
It's still early in the month, so there's plenty of time if you'd like to join us.
Damn straight!
What a strange reading experience this was . . .
The premise seemed so compelling - a terminally ill mob hitman becomes the target of his employers, and yet, I found the characters to be lifeless and dull; the book was impossibly easy to put down. Then, at slightly over the halfway point, the main character goes to visit an old flame. Yowza! What a fantastic scene this was! He is full of longing, choked with emotion as he remembers their great times together. (Well, okay, he's mostly remembering the great sex they had together, but still . . . )
His lady-love, however, only seems to recall the bad stuff:
She said, "You remember what you want. I remember you coming home with your shirt bloody. Asking me to hide a gun. You'd sober up a week and start talking about being different. Then you were drunk again for three weeks straight. You made it so I couldn't be around you without being shit-faced. The things you said to me. You threw me around a little. do you remember? Do you remember the fights at all? You were jealous of everything, Roy. You were resentful. You resented other people being happy. I remember thinking, This is the most frightened man I ever met. And so what, really? I've known worse men. I was a little relieved, though. When you went to prison."
Suddenly, Roy was humanized. I felt sorry for him. I cared about him. And I couldn't stop turning the pages. Toss in an extremely good ending, and this one almost makes five stars.
This is our November read in the Pulp Fiction group - https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
It's still early in the month, so there's plenty of time if you'd like to join us.
March 19, 2019
Weltschmerz. It's not a word that anyone in this book would use, but they sure did feel it. The world weariness applied universally. Nobody’s fools. If you’ve come to know Nic Pizzolatto from True Detective, the stellar* HBO series that he created and wrote, you’d expect that.
This is neo-noir at its finest. Underbelly settings, violence you can’t escape, sex, drugs, and cancer if not manslaughter—it’s all there, presented with more poetry than you might expect. Roy Cady, a debt collector for a New Orleans mobster, discovers in quick succession that his boss has it in for him and that his doctor has bad news about his lungs. He escapes to Texas in the company of a hard luck teenage hooker named Rocky.
It’s easy to see how a plot could move propulsively from there. And it does. Along the way, we get large dollops of that Weltschmerz I mentioned.
But can a 4.5 star book leave it at just that? Somewhere along the way Pizzolatto discovered that a noir sentiment could be made more poignant by leapfrogging the pure nihilism and infusing it with something else. But what? Well now, you’ll just need to read it to find out. And remember, hearts can vary widely: Hallmark-like at one extreme and hard as Hell at the other. Great writers know how to calibrate to suit the story they tell.
*Well, seasons 1 and 3, at least.
This is neo-noir at its finest. Underbelly settings, violence you can’t escape, sex, drugs, and cancer if not manslaughter—it’s all there, presented with more poetry than you might expect. Roy Cady, a debt collector for a New Orleans mobster, discovers in quick succession that his boss has it in for him and that his doctor has bad news about his lungs. He escapes to Texas in the company of a hard luck teenage hooker named Rocky.
A lot of people her age expected to live forever and saw life as a kind of birthright to endless good times. I never did see things that way, and I knew that she hadn't either.
It’s easy to see how a plot could move propulsively from there. And it does. Along the way, we get large dollops of that Weltschmerz I mentioned.
I've found that all weak people share a basic obsession--they fixate on the idea of satisfaction. Anywhere you go men and women are like crows drawn by shiny objects. For some folks, the shiny objects are other people, and you'd be better off developing a drug habit.
But can a 4.5 star book leave it at just that? Somewhere along the way Pizzolatto discovered that a noir sentiment could be made more poignant by leapfrogging the pure nihilism and infusing it with something else. But what? Well now, you’ll just need to read it to find out. And remember, hearts can vary widely: Hallmark-like at one extreme and hard as Hell at the other. Great writers know how to calibrate to suit the story they tell.
*Well, seasons 1 and 3, at least.
July 31, 2022
If you're in the mood for a thriller you could definitely do worse than this one, which although a modern novel is written in the Noir style. The story is in two parts, opening in 1987 in New Orleans where the lead character, 40 year-old Roy Cady, is a debt collector/enforcer for a crime boss. Cady has just had a diagnosis of cancer. He doesn't mention it to anyone and in the same evening is sent on a "job", the set up of which sounds suspicious to him. He's right to be suspicious and ends up fleeing the scene in the company of an 18-year-old hooker who calls herself Rocky, and who was a witness to some unsavoury events.
As I understand them, Noir thrillers are supposed to feature morally ambivalent lead characters. You could probably say that Cady is 80% bad guy, but his cancer diagnosis has put him in the mood to consider what he has done with his life, and seems to have triggered a sort of paternalistic feeling in him towards Rocky. He sets out, in clumsy fashion, to try and persuade her that she has other choices she can make. In his attempts to "save" Rocky, it may be that Roy sees a chance of redemption for himself. In another novel this could veer into sentimentality, but the author doesn't let that happen.
As part of his "looking back" mood, Cady heads for Galveston, which is a place of nostalgic memory for him. I won't describe any more of the story, except to say that there's a section set in 2008. I thought the ending was really excellent.
The novel contains quite a bit of violence, which I imagine most would expect from a Noir-style thriller. The pace is good, with plenty of excitement, and the author creates what, to me anyway, seemed an atmospheric description of the underbelly of a place like Galveston.
My only issue with this book was that, every time I picked it up, the Glen Campbell song came into my head!
As I understand them, Noir thrillers are supposed to feature morally ambivalent lead characters. You could probably say that Cady is 80% bad guy, but his cancer diagnosis has put him in the mood to consider what he has done with his life, and seems to have triggered a sort of paternalistic feeling in him towards Rocky. He sets out, in clumsy fashion, to try and persuade her that she has other choices she can make. In his attempts to "save" Rocky, it may be that Roy sees a chance of redemption for himself. In another novel this could veer into sentimentality, but the author doesn't let that happen.
As part of his "looking back" mood, Cady heads for Galveston, which is a place of nostalgic memory for him. I won't describe any more of the story, except to say that there's a section set in 2008. I thought the ending was really excellent.
The novel contains quite a bit of violence, which I imagine most would expect from a Noir-style thriller. The pace is good, with plenty of excitement, and the author creates what, to me anyway, seemed an atmospheric description of the underbelly of a place like Galveston.
My only issue with this book was that, every time I picked it up, the Glen Campbell song came into my head!
July 4, 2022
3.5/5 Estrellas
Desde Galveston, Texas, la ciudad que lleva el nombre de Bernardo de Gálvez, ese padre de la patria estadounidense que casi nadie conoce y que era español, nos llega una historia de redención, una historia de perdición, de vidas perdidas y sin esperanza desde casi el momento mismo de su nacimiento.
Una historia deprimente, que transcurre en un entorno gris, sucio y opresivo de los estados sureños de Louisiana y Texas. Una historia muchas veces contada, esa historia "clint eatswoodiana" del matón, con sus arranques de ética personal, que se convierte en protector de los pobres y desamparados sin dejar por ello, de matar a diestro y siniestro. Una historia que no cambia el destino de los protagonistas, marcado por sus infancias rotas, sus vidas desestructuradas y por la venganza....
En definitiva un libro bien escrito, el autor es un guionista reconocido de series como "True Detective" (que no he visto). La ambientación oscura y opresiva está muy bien conseguida, tan bien que acaba deprimiendo al propio lector, que acaba con ganas de salir de las vidas de tan desgraciados personajes.
Al final redondeo a tres estrellas, porque no me ha parecido demasiado original y por el poso de pesimismo que me ha dejado. Pero oigan, está muy bien escrita.
Desde Galveston, Texas, la ciudad que lleva el nombre de Bernardo de Gálvez, ese padre de la patria estadounidense que casi nadie conoce y que era español, nos llega una historia de redención, una historia de perdición, de vidas perdidas y sin esperanza desde casi el momento mismo de su nacimiento.
Una historia deprimente, que transcurre en un entorno gris, sucio y opresivo de los estados sureños de Louisiana y Texas. Una historia muchas veces contada, esa historia "clint eatswoodiana" del matón, con sus arranques de ética personal, que se convierte en protector de los pobres y desamparados sin dejar por ello, de matar a diestro y siniestro. Una historia que no cambia el destino de los protagonistas, marcado por sus infancias rotas, sus vidas desestructuradas y por la venganza....
En definitiva un libro bien escrito, el autor es un guionista reconocido de series como "True Detective" (que no he visto). La ambientación oscura y opresiva está muy bien conseguida, tan bien que acaba deprimiendo al propio lector, que acaba con ganas de salir de las vidas de tan desgraciados personajes.
Al final redondeo a tres estrellas, porque no me ha parecido demasiado original y por el poso de pesimismo que me ha dejado. Pero oigan, está muy bien escrita.
December 4, 2016
“This has really been one hell of a day for you, huh, man?”
“The hellest.”
Roy Cady is a big, tough guy doing an ugly, tough job: debt collector for a New Orleans gangster. And his world is just about to come crashing down over his tough head. In the morning, his doctor tells him he has lung cancer and only a few month left to live. Then his trashy girlfriend starts sleeping with his boss, and his evening collection job ends up in a bloodbath. Roy finishes the day on the run towards his childhood haunts in East Texas in the company of another runaway – teenage prostitute and drug addict Raquel, also known as Rocky. They both end up in a rundown motel in Galveston, Roy trying to find out where his life went off the tracks and attempting to care for somebody else than himself, like Rocky and the little girl child that they picked along the way.
“Galveston” is a terrific neo-noir gem that doesn’t read like a debut novel but like a modern classic. It does have its flaws and minor inconsistencies , but they are easy to ignore as the reader is pulled in by the doomed, flawed criminal and by the brooding atmosphere. Parts of the story are set in the hours before the landfall of a devastating hurricane on Galveston in 2007, mirroring the turbulent interior landscape of Roy Cady.
The way my back and neck hunch you wouldn’t believe I once stood six-three, and the patch on my left eye lends me a superficial resemblance to the pirates who once ruled this coast. My shadow ahead is twisted enough to be some spindly, crustaceous thing that crawled from the tide.
also,
The clunk of my boots on asphalt sounded like a clock’s hand. A smoke-gray cat kept pace with me on the opposite sidewalk for a while. On a bus bench an old bearded guy was drinking from a paper bag and weeping. He told me he was happy. He’d gotten out of prison that day.
I’m keeping the details of the case vague because the true strength of the story for me is in the characterization and in the sense of place that Nic Pizzolatto achieves here. I was already familiar with his skills and his style from the first season of TV series “True Detective”, which may have made me more lenient towards this debut novel. I see similarities between the two works in the pervasive decay of both the buildings and the moral fiber of the people, in the fascination for the darkest places of the psyche and in the self-destructive streaks that are probably lurking in each of us.
Things can’t hold up here. The salt gets into everything, stripping paint, rusting fenders, corroding walls. I could smell the room thick with it, and in the water stains on the ceiling I saw cities and fields of erosion.
Roy made his bed and now he has to lie down in it, and any sympathy for his troubled childhood or late gestures of atonement has to be balanced by the blood he has spilled and by the deadly mistakes that led him to confront the coming hurricane all alone in a deserted city, his whole life concentrated into a faded, crumpled photo of what might have been.
The picture is old, bent and faded. It shows the ocean, a beach. Three people stand out in the waves. The man is tall, broad and tan, and the girls are blond, lithe, their details lost in the white light of the Gulf.
>><<>><<>><<>><<
Nic Pizzolatto goes on my to watch and to buy list for any future noir story he cares to write.
July 8, 2019
'Galveston' is a good noir novel. The author, Nic Pizzolatto, is the creator of the HBO series, "True Detective" and seems to be using his talents in the lucrative TV business. As other reviewers have noted, the literary world is a lesser place with Pizzolatto's absence. He has the potential to be among the top noir writers of the past and the present. I believe this is Pizzolatto's first and only novel. He has published a couple of collections of short stories, also.
His story is about Roy Cady, a "bagman" and all-around-bad guy who works for a New Orleans crime boss collecting debts and messing people up if they have wronged his boss. Apparently Stan, his employer, doesn't take much to feel wronged. Stan is now romantically involved with Carmen, a girl who used to be involved with Roy and, prior to that, Angelo, both underling thugs in Stan's crime organization. Stan sends Roy and Angelo on a mission to rough up a suspected snitch. Stan advises that the men bring no guns, which Roy finds strange, and Roy begins to suspect a set-up and decides to bring his gun anyway and also hides a spring-loaded stiletto on his forearm. Roy and Angelo arrive at the snitch's place and, sure enough, the set up occurs, as three thugs attack them. In what can only be described as miraculous or preposterous, Roy emerges from his imminent execution as the last man standing. He hears a female whimper and passes by one room where he sees a dead girl to the room of another girl who goes by "Rocky." Both girls were there to service the snitch so it'd be easier for the three thugs to whack him. Some human part of Roy feels pity for the girl and against his criminal training and instincts he decides to take her along as he goes on the lam hiding from Stan, whom he rightly figures will be pissed when he finds his three hit men dead. To add to Roy's worries, earlier that day he had a doctor's appointment and his chest x-ray reveals he has lung cancer and is dying. The thought of impending death either by the cancer or by Stan's henchmen give him a lot to ponder as heads out on the highway escaping the Big Easy.
Thus begins a drive to Galveston with a stopover in Rocky's small Texas hometown where Roy waits outside, hears a gunshot and Rocky comes walking out with an adorable four-year-old girl. She says the girl is her sister but we later learn the little one is actually Rocky's child, courtesy of a rape by her stepfather, the man she shot and killed while rescuing her daughter. She doesn't tell Roy about the killing, but he later reads in the papers he scours daily looking for news about the shit that went down in New Orleans.
The couple, with little sister in tow, proceed to Galveston for no apparent reason. They stay in a seedy motel and Roy shaves his beard and shaves off his long hair to change his appearance. Roy gets Rocky and her sister/daughter a separate room and passes as the girls' uncle. The couple drink a lot, neglect the child, leaving her in the hands of a friendly pair of old ladies who are conveniently also renting a room. Roy reads about Rocky murdering her stepfather in one of the papers he scours and his criminal instincts kick in and he takes off alone in his 1984 F-150 truck and gets to Amarillo before deciding to go back. Roy waxes nostalgic and stops by Dallas to visit an old girlfriend who he's not seen in 11-12 years. There's no clear reason why he would do this and the ex is now married to a rich guy and lives in the sort of neighborhood where you're pulled for vagrancy if you're driving a car worth less than $80,000. They chat a bit and Roy tries to relive old times but the lady's not biting and tells him the past is not real, only the present.
When he gets back he finds, amazingly, that Rocky has returned to the world's oldest profession to make money. She has left the girl with the old ladies and the hotel owner, a crusty woman who knows the score and threatens to call social service and have the girl put in state custody unless Roy gets things under control. Rocky has been gone a few days and Roy goes on a detective mission to find her. Roy eventually catches up to her, chides her and life returns to some semblance of normality--for them, that is. Days are spent playing with the girl on the beach as Roy drinks and ponders. He also performs a routine (for him) murder of another motel resident, a junkie who is trying to interest Roy in a criminal scheme of stealing drugs from a shady physician. When the junkie reads the paper and connects Rocky to her stepfather's murder and tries to blackmail Roy, Roy has no choice but to kill him.
Roy then tries to blackmail his old boss because while surviving the hit the boss put on him, he has snatched up papers implicating the boss in corruption with the stevedore union. He demands that $75,000 be put in a bank account he has opened under his false ID. Roy has made a few mistakes during his escape. A call he made back to the doctor who diagnosed his lung cancer was traced to Galveston and Stan's henchman arrive and take him and Rocky away. Roy is given a severe beating that costs him his teeth, some of his skull bone and permanent damage to his hand. He is waiting for Stan to come and finish the job when, miracle of miracles, he is freed by Carmen, the woman blamed for this whole mess in the first place. He passes by Rocky, also presumably awaiting execution, and decides, this time, not to intervene with fate. He flees and attempts to get a passing car to stop and help him. He has no luck but does succeed in carjacking a man after stabbing him and manages to drive a short distance before crashing and ending up in the hospital.
He is tried on various counts and is patched up with metal and screws and then sentenced to 12 years in Louisiana's infamous Angola Penitentiary. He does the 12 years without incident, having had prior prison experience to help him through this latest sojourn. He takes up book-reading in prison, and probably would have been a useful contributor on Goodreads.
As he does in "True Detective," Pizzolatto shifts back and forth in time, mostly in the book's latter chapters. Roy is back living in Galveston, having fled Louisiana after his prison stretch. Twenty years pass in Galveston and Roy leads a quiet life working part-time as a handyman in exchange for pocket money and housing. He attends AA meetings on occasion, as he has given up drinking long ago, and reads books. The lung spots on his ancient x-ray were not full-blown cancer, so he has lived with this strange medical condition a long time.
The denouement involves a man in an inconspicuous Jaguar making inquiries about him at his residence and waiting outside some of his hangouts. Roy figures this is another of Stan's henchmen coming to take him out but the man turns out to be a detective that the little girl, now a grown woman, has hired to track Roy down and decipher her missing past. A giant storm is headed directly toward Galveston but, in another miraculous occurrence, Tiffany, Rocky's long-lost daughter, makes her way to Roy's residence, seeming unaware that a storm that will destroy the city looms close by. Roy tells her the truth about everything and she leaves, taking his dog she has promised to keep. We hear nothing of her emotional reaction to all he tells her but we do learn she is a successful professional who was adopted by a "good" family and raised in Tyler, now living in Austin. She leaves as Roy awaits the storm that will take him out of this life. The end. Some reviewers have seen this as Roy's "redemption." I'm not sure I'd agree.
The Good:
The novel's strongest point is its writing, which is clear and to-the-point, most of the time. I had read in some magazine that Pizzolatto was heavily influenced by Faulkner. This may be; but the novel contained no four-page sentences or meandering impediments to the actual story, for which I am thankful. He is also good at portraying how a criminal thug like Roy thinks and behaves. It is not by accident that Roy has a credible but fake ID which he uses after going on the lam. It is also not a coincidence that he keeps his hair long and has a shaggy beard, so that if he is being tracked by police or thugs he can dramatically alter his appearance. His killing of the junkie attempting to blackmail him is also believable. Roy is a dangerous man, and is paid to be a menacing guy inured to using brute force without compunction.
Pizzolatto also captures the chaos of those living on the seedy underside of life. His characters are not people who get up in the morning, eat breakfast and go to an office job. They hurt other people, like Roy, or maybe stop by the house they grew up in to shoot their stepfather to death. It's clear that Pizzolatto knows something about the seamy side of life and how many criminals think.
The not-so-good:
Pizzolatto's thug anti-hero, Roy, is a man given to self-reflection. From my past work, I've had occasion to encounter a great many guys like Roy--big guys with long, shaggy hair and hard looks known to do bad things. I'm not saying that all of these men can be stereotyped as lacking the ability or propensity to engage in reflection about their actions, life, etc. I am saying, though, that I've never seen a man similar to Roy who did so much reflecting and did so using words like "blowsy," or using phrases like, "I deemed the weather offensive, the way the air lay on me like a giant tongue, clammy and warm and gritty as embers." Most of these men were men of action, and tended to curse a lot, which Roy rarely does. Pizzolatto is great when Roy speaks in clear, simple English and when Roy muses in fancier ways, the writing remains top-notch--it just makes Roy appear as if he's an ex-MFA student whose life went awry a ways back but still retains vestiges of his former self via his studious ruminations.
While I acknowledge that there are all sorts of crime bosses, some given to behavior that is self-defeating, it is hard (for me) to believe that a gangster running a successful criminal enterprise in a major city would conspire to kill two of his employees just because they had previous liaisons with his current girlfriend. It's not my story, of course, and I suppose anything's possible, but I'd love to meet Pizzolatto and ask him the reason he used the woman as the unwitting femme fatale. Crime bosses generally attract lots of women, as do even low-level criminals. It is not for nothing that in my town we have a saying:
"If you want to see the prettiest women in town, visit the jail on Thursday afternoons." (visiting day)
All-in-all, though, Pizzolatto has given me fits trying to spell his name and has crafted a fine first novel that shows a lot of promise should he decide to leave the big money of HBO behind and return to writing books.
His story is about Roy Cady, a "bagman" and all-around-bad guy who works for a New Orleans crime boss collecting debts and messing people up if they have wronged his boss. Apparently Stan, his employer, doesn't take much to feel wronged. Stan is now romantically involved with Carmen, a girl who used to be involved with Roy and, prior to that, Angelo, both underling thugs in Stan's crime organization. Stan sends Roy and Angelo on a mission to rough up a suspected snitch. Stan advises that the men bring no guns, which Roy finds strange, and Roy begins to suspect a set-up and decides to bring his gun anyway and also hides a spring-loaded stiletto on his forearm. Roy and Angelo arrive at the snitch's place and, sure enough, the set up occurs, as three thugs attack them. In what can only be described as miraculous or preposterous, Roy emerges from his imminent execution as the last man standing. He hears a female whimper and passes by one room where he sees a dead girl to the room of another girl who goes by "Rocky." Both girls were there to service the snitch so it'd be easier for the three thugs to whack him. Some human part of Roy feels pity for the girl and against his criminal training and instincts he decides to take her along as he goes on the lam hiding from Stan, whom he rightly figures will be pissed when he finds his three hit men dead. To add to Roy's worries, earlier that day he had a doctor's appointment and his chest x-ray reveals he has lung cancer and is dying. The thought of impending death either by the cancer or by Stan's henchmen give him a lot to ponder as heads out on the highway escaping the Big Easy.
Thus begins a drive to Galveston with a stopover in Rocky's small Texas hometown where Roy waits outside, hears a gunshot and Rocky comes walking out with an adorable four-year-old girl. She says the girl is her sister but we later learn the little one is actually Rocky's child, courtesy of a rape by her stepfather, the man she shot and killed while rescuing her daughter. She doesn't tell Roy about the killing, but he later reads in the papers he scours daily looking for news about the shit that went down in New Orleans.
The couple, with little sister in tow, proceed to Galveston for no apparent reason. They stay in a seedy motel and Roy shaves his beard and shaves off his long hair to change his appearance. Roy gets Rocky and her sister/daughter a separate room and passes as the girls' uncle. The couple drink a lot, neglect the child, leaving her in the hands of a friendly pair of old ladies who are conveniently also renting a room. Roy reads about Rocky murdering her stepfather in one of the papers he scours and his criminal instincts kick in and he takes off alone in his 1984 F-150 truck and gets to Amarillo before deciding to go back. Roy waxes nostalgic and stops by Dallas to visit an old girlfriend who he's not seen in 11-12 years. There's no clear reason why he would do this and the ex is now married to a rich guy and lives in the sort of neighborhood where you're pulled for vagrancy if you're driving a car worth less than $80,000. They chat a bit and Roy tries to relive old times but the lady's not biting and tells him the past is not real, only the present.
When he gets back he finds, amazingly, that Rocky has returned to the world's oldest profession to make money. She has left the girl with the old ladies and the hotel owner, a crusty woman who knows the score and threatens to call social service and have the girl put in state custody unless Roy gets things under control. Rocky has been gone a few days and Roy goes on a detective mission to find her. Roy eventually catches up to her, chides her and life returns to some semblance of normality--for them, that is. Days are spent playing with the girl on the beach as Roy drinks and ponders. He also performs a routine (for him) murder of another motel resident, a junkie who is trying to interest Roy in a criminal scheme of stealing drugs from a shady physician. When the junkie reads the paper and connects Rocky to her stepfather's murder and tries to blackmail Roy, Roy has no choice but to kill him.
Roy then tries to blackmail his old boss because while surviving the hit the boss put on him, he has snatched up papers implicating the boss in corruption with the stevedore union. He demands that $75,000 be put in a bank account he has opened under his false ID. Roy has made a few mistakes during his escape. A call he made back to the doctor who diagnosed his lung cancer was traced to Galveston and Stan's henchman arrive and take him and Rocky away. Roy is given a severe beating that costs him his teeth, some of his skull bone and permanent damage to his hand. He is waiting for Stan to come and finish the job when, miracle of miracles, he is freed by Carmen, the woman blamed for this whole mess in the first place. He passes by Rocky, also presumably awaiting execution, and decides, this time, not to intervene with fate. He flees and attempts to get a passing car to stop and help him. He has no luck but does succeed in carjacking a man after stabbing him and manages to drive a short distance before crashing and ending up in the hospital.
He is tried on various counts and is patched up with metal and screws and then sentenced to 12 years in Louisiana's infamous Angola Penitentiary. He does the 12 years without incident, having had prior prison experience to help him through this latest sojourn. He takes up book-reading in prison, and probably would have been a useful contributor on Goodreads.
As he does in "True Detective," Pizzolatto shifts back and forth in time, mostly in the book's latter chapters. Roy is back living in Galveston, having fled Louisiana after his prison stretch. Twenty years pass in Galveston and Roy leads a quiet life working part-time as a handyman in exchange for pocket money and housing. He attends AA meetings on occasion, as he has given up drinking long ago, and reads books. The lung spots on his ancient x-ray were not full-blown cancer, so he has lived with this strange medical condition a long time.
The denouement involves a man in an inconspicuous Jaguar making inquiries about him at his residence and waiting outside some of his hangouts. Roy figures this is another of Stan's henchmen coming to take him out but the man turns out to be a detective that the little girl, now a grown woman, has hired to track Roy down and decipher her missing past. A giant storm is headed directly toward Galveston but, in another miraculous occurrence, Tiffany, Rocky's long-lost daughter, makes her way to Roy's residence, seeming unaware that a storm that will destroy the city looms close by. Roy tells her the truth about everything and she leaves, taking his dog she has promised to keep. We hear nothing of her emotional reaction to all he tells her but we do learn she is a successful professional who was adopted by a "good" family and raised in Tyler, now living in Austin. She leaves as Roy awaits the storm that will take him out of this life. The end. Some reviewers have seen this as Roy's "redemption." I'm not sure I'd agree.
The Good:
The novel's strongest point is its writing, which is clear and to-the-point, most of the time. I had read in some magazine that Pizzolatto was heavily influenced by Faulkner. This may be; but the novel contained no four-page sentences or meandering impediments to the actual story, for which I am thankful. He is also good at portraying how a criminal thug like Roy thinks and behaves. It is not by accident that Roy has a credible but fake ID which he uses after going on the lam. It is also not a coincidence that he keeps his hair long and has a shaggy beard, so that if he is being tracked by police or thugs he can dramatically alter his appearance. His killing of the junkie attempting to blackmail him is also believable. Roy is a dangerous man, and is paid to be a menacing guy inured to using brute force without compunction.
Pizzolatto also captures the chaos of those living on the seedy underside of life. His characters are not people who get up in the morning, eat breakfast and go to an office job. They hurt other people, like Roy, or maybe stop by the house they grew up in to shoot their stepfather to death. It's clear that Pizzolatto knows something about the seamy side of life and how many criminals think.
The not-so-good:
Pizzolatto's thug anti-hero, Roy, is a man given to self-reflection. From my past work, I've had occasion to encounter a great many guys like Roy--big guys with long, shaggy hair and hard looks known to do bad things. I'm not saying that all of these men can be stereotyped as lacking the ability or propensity to engage in reflection about their actions, life, etc. I am saying, though, that I've never seen a man similar to Roy who did so much reflecting and did so using words like "blowsy," or using phrases like, "I deemed the weather offensive, the way the air lay on me like a giant tongue, clammy and warm and gritty as embers." Most of these men were men of action, and tended to curse a lot, which Roy rarely does. Pizzolatto is great when Roy speaks in clear, simple English and when Roy muses in fancier ways, the writing remains top-notch--it just makes Roy appear as if he's an ex-MFA student whose life went awry a ways back but still retains vestiges of his former self via his studious ruminations.
While I acknowledge that there are all sorts of crime bosses, some given to behavior that is self-defeating, it is hard (for me) to believe that a gangster running a successful criminal enterprise in a major city would conspire to kill two of his employees just because they had previous liaisons with his current girlfriend. It's not my story, of course, and I suppose anything's possible, but I'd love to meet Pizzolatto and ask him the reason he used the woman as the unwitting femme fatale. Crime bosses generally attract lots of women, as do even low-level criminals. It is not for nothing that in my town we have a saying:
"If you want to see the prettiest women in town, visit the jail on Thursday afternoons." (visiting day)
All-in-all, though, Pizzolatto has given me fits trying to spell his name and has crafted a fine first novel that shows a lot of promise should he decide to leave the big money of HBO behind and return to writing books.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 6, 2018
This short, moody novel opens with mob muscle/strongarm guy Roy Cady finding out that he's diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. While accepting his imminent death, he fatefully crosses paths with a young prostitute named Rocky who ends up on the run with him. It's a gorgeously written debut novel with sequences that took my breath away. There's a scene where Roy visits an old girlfriend where you can feel his yearning for the past oozing out of the words, even while she remembers that past very differently. There are also tender scenes between Roy and Rocky where they open up to each other and you can truly feel the connection in the pages.
I wanted to shout, but it dawned on me that all my objections involved the future, and I didn’t really have one.The atmosphere in this one hypnotized me. Pizzolatto's prose shines here; his writing is equal parts lyrical and woeful, at times filled with both beauty and brutality as he tells this story of two broken souls who first find each other at their most hopeless, but end up providing one another with a light in all the darkness.
You’re here because it’s somewhere. Dogs pant in the streets. Beer won’t stay cold. The last new song you liked came out a long, long time ago, and the radio never plays it anymore.
May 30, 2021
"Sabía que el pasado no existía. Era sólo un concepto, y lo que había querido palpar, acariciar, aquel sentimiento al que no lograba poner nombre… simplemente no existía. También era sólo un concepto.
Supongo que hay que andarse con mucho cuidado cuando invocas tus recuerdos"
"Había una promesa rota en las frías paredes de la habitación. Las esperanzas pretéritas aullaban como perros fantasma en mi cabeza, convertidas en viejas frustraciones, viejos resentimientos"
"Aquel mundo de hiedra, árboles escuálidos y aguas negruzcas parecía tener algún significado para ella, igual que para mí, y miraba por la ventanilla con ojos rendidos. La gravedad de aquel paisaje tiraba de ambos hacia atrás en el tiempo y nos obligaba a recordar las personas que habíamos sido"
3.75*
Una historia que retrata el bajo mundo. La escoria, el crimen, el exceso, los infiernos personales y "fantasmas atemporales"que persiguen sin tregua.
No diría tanto que es una historia de redención. Mas bien es una historia que admite ciertas"zonas grises" por los que puee transitar una persona ... Donde coexisten actos que pueden ir de lo mas deplorable a lo empático o incluso bondadoso. Con complejidades, circunstancias y atenuantes De por medio.
Aunque Es verdad que la novela tiene sus "peros", en definitiva es una solida historia, bien narrada. Logra una buena construcción que te mantiene a la expectativa durante todo el recorrido y personajes que funcionan muy bien .
Posee ciertas incomodidades, algunos saltos en el tiempo, idas y venidas. Pero en general son en pro de la historia.
Supongo que hay que andarse con mucho cuidado cuando invocas tus recuerdos"
"Había una promesa rota en las frías paredes de la habitación. Las esperanzas pretéritas aullaban como perros fantasma en mi cabeza, convertidas en viejas frustraciones, viejos resentimientos"
"Aquel mundo de hiedra, árboles escuálidos y aguas negruzcas parecía tener algún significado para ella, igual que para mí, y miraba por la ventanilla con ojos rendidos. La gravedad de aquel paisaje tiraba de ambos hacia atrás en el tiempo y nos obligaba a recordar las personas que habíamos sido"
3.75*
Una historia que retrata el bajo mundo. La escoria, el crimen, el exceso, los infiernos personales y "fantasmas atemporales"que persiguen sin tregua.
No diría tanto que es una historia de redención. Mas bien es una historia que admite ciertas"zonas grises" por los que puee transitar una persona ... Donde coexisten actos que pueden ir de lo mas deplorable a lo empático o incluso bondadoso. Con complejidades, circunstancias y atenuantes De por medio.
Aunque Es verdad que la novela tiene sus "peros", en definitiva es una solida historia, bien narrada. Logra una buena construcción que te mantiene a la expectativa durante todo el recorrido y personajes que funcionan muy bien .
Posee ciertas incomodidades, algunos saltos en el tiempo, idas y venidas. Pero en general son en pro de la historia.
March 24, 2014
Timing is everything.
Don't let anyone fool you into thinkin it ain't. Cos the very day I decided to reengage in the Goodreads community just so happened to be the very day that Miss Paquita Maria Sanchez wrote a knock out little review of this here novel. And what Miss Paquita Maria Sanchez couldn't have known was that I had spent the past two months obsessing over a little television show written by a guy I had never heard of, Nic Pizzolatto. And that ever since it ended, I had a 'True Detective' shaped hole in my heart that nothing could fill. Pizzolatto had become my drug of choice before I even knew who Pizzolatto was.
This book was so good, it brought me out of my GR hermitage and made me want to write a review. But wanting to do something and actually doing it are two different things. How 'bout I just say get thee to a bookstore, library, etc. Get yourself a copy of this here excellent piece of writing, pour yourself a beverage, sit down, settle in and enjoy.
February 22, 2020
Gloomy book. Not a happy book. But a good book.
I believe people call it 'gritty' here at goodreads. I knew it was good when I found it.
I believe people call it 'gritty' here at goodreads. I knew it was good when I found it.
October 26, 2018
Roy, a bagman for the mob, gets a hit put on his head the same day he’s diagnosed with cancerous lungs. Escaping the gangsters on his trail, he picks up a young prostitute called Rocky along the way and her kid sister Tiffany, and they hide out in Galveston, Texas. The small group seems bereft of a future – where do they go from here?
Like most people I only picked this novel up because I’m a fan of Nic Pizzolatto’s TV show True Detective (the first season anyway!). I thought Galveston was a pretty decent read but not without its problems.
The book gets off to a cracking start and then basically stops dead once the characters reach Galveston. And that’s the novel’s major flaw: it’s barely got a story. They hide out in some seedy motel, talk, drink, and basically tread water for the largest chunk of the book, and I’d have liked a bit more direction and drive.
There’s also a helluva lot of contrivance at key moments. The reason why Roy’s boss decides to off him is laughably flimsy as is why Roy decides to pick up Rocky and stay with her for most of the book. There’s more, particularly in the final act, but I won’t go into spoilers here.
The characters were compelling though, who’re the real focus anyway in lieu of a plot. Roy and Rocky’s back-and-forths always held my attention despite Roy being your average stoic hard man (think Marv from Frank Miller’s Sin City). Rocky was definitely the best and most complex character though I wasn’t sure what the point was in making her life so damned tragic? As you might expect from the creator of True Detective, the tone is very grim and gritty, almost comically so, but it felt gratuitous to wallow in such over-the-top darkness. It’s possibly an aesthetic choice related to genre – Galveston sounds like a crime novel but it’s really not though it definitely has that hard-boiled noir flavour – or it’s to underline a nihilistic/simplistic message of “Life Is Shit” or something along those lines, but either way it wasn’t impressive.
That said, Pizzolatto’s dialogue is totally convincing. Roy says lines like “Just don’t try to play me, girl. Down that road is nothing good for you” which might sound silly and melodramatic in the hands of a lesser writer but plays perfectly persuasively in the context of Pizzolatto’s story.
The ending is a little rushed but I loved the visual Pizzolatto left us with. As in much of the book, Roy’s actions are absurdly macho but it’s an undeniably memorable closing scene.
The story had its moments here and there but ultimately wasn’t substantive or gripping enough for me. Nic Pizzolatto’s fascination with doomed characters and their morbid plights though was bleakly hypnotic and effortlessly ensnared me, and the writing throughout is high quality. I don’t expect this would appeal to readers outside the writer’s fanbase but it might be worth a look for those fans as we wait for the next season of True Detective!
Like most people I only picked this novel up because I’m a fan of Nic Pizzolatto’s TV show True Detective (the first season anyway!). I thought Galveston was a pretty decent read but not without its problems.
The book gets off to a cracking start and then basically stops dead once the characters reach Galveston. And that’s the novel’s major flaw: it’s barely got a story. They hide out in some seedy motel, talk, drink, and basically tread water for the largest chunk of the book, and I’d have liked a bit more direction and drive.
There’s also a helluva lot of contrivance at key moments. The reason why Roy’s boss decides to off him is laughably flimsy as is why Roy decides to pick up Rocky and stay with her for most of the book. There’s more, particularly in the final act, but I won’t go into spoilers here.
The characters were compelling though, who’re the real focus anyway in lieu of a plot. Roy and Rocky’s back-and-forths always held my attention despite Roy being your average stoic hard man (think Marv from Frank Miller’s Sin City). Rocky was definitely the best and most complex character though I wasn’t sure what the point was in making her life so damned tragic? As you might expect from the creator of True Detective, the tone is very grim and gritty, almost comically so, but it felt gratuitous to wallow in such over-the-top darkness. It’s possibly an aesthetic choice related to genre – Galveston sounds like a crime novel but it’s really not though it definitely has that hard-boiled noir flavour – or it’s to underline a nihilistic/simplistic message of “Life Is Shit” or something along those lines, but either way it wasn’t impressive.
That said, Pizzolatto’s dialogue is totally convincing. Roy says lines like “Just don’t try to play me, girl. Down that road is nothing good for you” which might sound silly and melodramatic in the hands of a lesser writer but plays perfectly persuasively in the context of Pizzolatto’s story.
The ending is a little rushed but I loved the visual Pizzolatto left us with. As in much of the book, Roy’s actions are absurdly macho but it’s an undeniably memorable closing scene.
The story had its moments here and there but ultimately wasn’t substantive or gripping enough for me. Nic Pizzolatto’s fascination with doomed characters and their morbid plights though was bleakly hypnotic and effortlessly ensnared me, and the writing throughout is high quality. I don’t expect this would appeal to readers outside the writer’s fanbase but it might be worth a look for those fans as we wait for the next season of True Detective!
November 12, 2011
Roy Cady is having what can only be described as an especially bad day. In the afternoon, he discovers that he is terminally ill. Later that evening, he realizes that his boss, a New Orleans loan shark, is almost certainly setting him up to be killed. Roy manages to turn the tables on his would-be assassins and winds up on the run with a sexy young girl and her infant sister.
The trio makes its way to Galveston and holes up in a fleabag motel. There, Roy's larger story unfolds along with that of Rocky, the older of the two girls that Roy is attempting to rescue. Roy and Rocky face insurmountable odds, and Roy debates throughout the wiser course of action: Should he remain with the girls or abandon them and head out on his own? The headstrong Rocky does not make matters any easier and before long, Roy finds himself drawn inexorably into a world of emotional and physical turmoil.
This is a very well-written, carefully constructed novel with some unique characters. The settings are particularly memorable and, probably needless to say, this is not Jimmy Webb or Glen Campbell's "Galveston." Fans of noir-ish crime fiction should enjoy it a great deal.
The trio makes its way to Galveston and holes up in a fleabag motel. There, Roy's larger story unfolds along with that of Rocky, the older of the two girls that Roy is attempting to rescue. Roy and Rocky face insurmountable odds, and Roy debates throughout the wiser course of action: Should he remain with the girls or abandon them and head out on his own? The headstrong Rocky does not make matters any easier and before long, Roy finds himself drawn inexorably into a world of emotional and physical turmoil.
This is a very well-written, carefully constructed novel with some unique characters. The settings are particularly memorable and, probably needless to say, this is not Jimmy Webb or Glen Campbell's "Galveston." Fans of noir-ish crime fiction should enjoy it a great deal.
April 16, 2014
"I knew the past wasn’t real. It was only an idea, and the thing I’d wanted to touch, to brush against, the feeling I couldn’t name—it just didn’t exist. It was only an idea, too."
Roy Cady is diagnosed with a terminal illness and if that ain’t bad enough, his boss wants to put him in the ground as soon as possible. When he’s sent on a routine assignment and told not to pack heat, Cady senses that his end may be near. He’s ambushed and while he stands his ground, barely making it out alive, he grabs a bundle of papers and a shocked, terrified young woman. They both hit the road bound for Galveston. The only question that lingers between them: How far will they need to go to ditch the mob?
What is that you say? The guy that created True Detective wrote a novel? What a relief! I guess I can stop stockpiling this army of Pepsi can soldiers.
Nic Pizzolatto wrote one hell of a tremendous first novel. Galveston is violent, poetic and above all else, memorable. Just like his signature character from True Detective Rust Cohle, Roy Cady spends a great deal of time theorizing about the present, the past, and just what the hell is so great about life anyway.
"I've found that all weak people share a basic obsession— they fixate on the idea of satisfaction. Anywhere you go men and women are like crows drawn by shiny objects. For some folks, the shiny objects are other people, and you’d be better off developing a drug habit.”
“Certain experiences you can’t survive, and afterward you don’t fully exist , even if you failed to die."
The best way to describe Roy is Rust Cohle lite. While Cady’s not as bleak, he’s certainly not walking around carrying a bouquet of daisies. While he’s still equipped with one hell of a bullshit detector, at times he comes across as a little more forgiving, more accepting of others.
The acquisition of a terminal illness will certainly make you question your life up to that point. Have I wasted it? Why didn’t I do more with what I had? Cady’s journey from diagnosis to anger to feeling nostalgic for days gone by is a heartbreaking one. An ill advised meetup Roy has with an old flame will crack the most hardened emotional shell of any reader.
Galveston is a great read and an early front runner for my favorite novel read this year. Based on the success of True Detective, I’d be surprised if Nic ever threw his hat back into the novel game. As much as I’d love to read a sophomore effort, more True Detective is an apt trade.
Also posted @ Every Read Thing
Roy Cady is diagnosed with a terminal illness and if that ain’t bad enough, his boss wants to put him in the ground as soon as possible. When he’s sent on a routine assignment and told not to pack heat, Cady senses that his end may be near. He’s ambushed and while he stands his ground, barely making it out alive, he grabs a bundle of papers and a shocked, terrified young woman. They both hit the road bound for Galveston. The only question that lingers between them: How far will they need to go to ditch the mob?
What is that you say? The guy that created True Detective wrote a novel? What a relief! I guess I can stop stockpiling this army of Pepsi can soldiers.
Nic Pizzolatto wrote one hell of a tremendous first novel. Galveston is violent, poetic and above all else, memorable. Just like his signature character from True Detective Rust Cohle, Roy Cady spends a great deal of time theorizing about the present, the past, and just what the hell is so great about life anyway.
"I've found that all weak people share a basic obsession— they fixate on the idea of satisfaction. Anywhere you go men and women are like crows drawn by shiny objects. For some folks, the shiny objects are other people, and you’d be better off developing a drug habit.”
“Certain experiences you can’t survive, and afterward you don’t fully exist , even if you failed to die."
The best way to describe Roy is Rust Cohle lite. While Cady’s not as bleak, he’s certainly not walking around carrying a bouquet of daisies. While he’s still equipped with one hell of a bullshit detector, at times he comes across as a little more forgiving, more accepting of others.
The acquisition of a terminal illness will certainly make you question your life up to that point. Have I wasted it? Why didn’t I do more with what I had? Cady’s journey from diagnosis to anger to feeling nostalgic for days gone by is a heartbreaking one. An ill advised meetup Roy has with an old flame will crack the most hardened emotional shell of any reader.
Galveston is a great read and an early front runner for my favorite novel read this year. Based on the success of True Detective, I’d be surprised if Nic ever threw his hat back into the novel game. As much as I’d love to read a sophomore effort, more True Detective is an apt trade.
Also posted @ Every Read Thing
July 22, 2014
I've met people who I don't want to understand because to understand them would mean I was close enough to comprehend their brand of crazy. And I don't want live in proximity to crazy or, even worse, gruesome sadness or depression. But I know it's out there. It's why, junior year, I started studying for tests. I didn't want to land in a shitty apartment near the edge of Chicago's west side, riding the bus to my soul-draining factory job. And I had a decent middle class start, mind you, that pointed me in the vicinity of a college education. The characters in Nic Pizzolatto's Galveston might as well in a parallel universe of trailers, group homes, and endless cheap alcohol and cigarettes. If where you finish depends in large on where you start, these people aren't even on the track. They breathe, eat., sleep, etc., in places no one in their right mind wants to visit. Pizaoloatto accomplishes what lesser writers would turn to hack-pulp or gin-soaked romanticism; he inhabits the down-and-out world without excusing or dramatizing it or, and this is key, beating the shit out of the reader with its horrors.
Galveston's main character, Roy, is a hard-luck enforcer for a shitstain Louisiana gangster. His point of view flips from twenty years into the future, when he's living in a small Texas apartment with his dog, and the events that led him from low-rent muscle to prison and beyond. He tells the story of meeting a teenage girl and her younger sister and, against all reason, but scraping together his humanity, taking them with him out of harm's way. For a while. Roy's redemption is neither easy nor complete. Pizzolatto's clear prose (I think he took an oath against adverbs) and eye for both emotional and physical detail left me with mesmerizing, must-see-what-happens dread. The ending hits hard. Galveston reminded me of Daniel Woodrell's work. The authors' characters could live near each others' trailers. If Bukowski's characters were more dangerous, less baroque and dramatic, and more fucking scary they'd land in the same bars. That said, Pizzolatto's creates his own space. I'm keeping an eye on him. He's good. Galveston is the real deal.
Galveston's main character, Roy, is a hard-luck enforcer for a shitstain Louisiana gangster. His point of view flips from twenty years into the future, when he's living in a small Texas apartment with his dog, and the events that led him from low-rent muscle to prison and beyond. He tells the story of meeting a teenage girl and her younger sister and, against all reason, but scraping together his humanity, taking them with him out of harm's way. For a while. Roy's redemption is neither easy nor complete. Pizzolatto's clear prose (I think he took an oath against adverbs) and eye for both emotional and physical detail left me with mesmerizing, must-see-what-happens dread. The ending hits hard. Galveston reminded me of Daniel Woodrell's work. The authors' characters could live near each others' trailers. If Bukowski's characters were more dangerous, less baroque and dramatic, and more fucking scary they'd land in the same bars. That said, Pizzolatto's creates his own space. I'm keeping an eye on him. He's good. Galveston is the real deal.
September 29, 2021
This really reminded me so much of a Charles Williams or Peter Rabe original paperback.
Maybe more Rabe than Williams.
Very much a page-turner. If I hadn't other things to attend to I probably could have knocked this out in one day.
It's action packed yet it's brooding.
I only know Nic Pizzolatto from his "True Detective" (HBO) series. I knew he was a gifted writer but I don't think I was prepared for the kind of superb character development to be found in this novel.
Some passages were real stand-outs for me:
Maybe more Rabe than Williams.
Very much a page-turner. If I hadn't other things to attend to I probably could have knocked this out in one day.
It's action packed yet it's brooding.
I only know Nic Pizzolatto from his "True Detective" (HBO) series. I knew he was a gifted writer but I don't think I was prepared for the kind of superb character development to be found in this novel.
Some passages were real stand-outs for me:
You're here because it's somewhere. Dogs pant in the streets. Beer won't stay cold. The last new song you liked came out a long, long time ago, and the radio never plays it anymore.
'You know who you remind me of, man?' he said.
I raised my eyebrow and twisted off a fresh cap.
'Guy from the movies. What's that guy? He was in the movie about the cockfighter. And the other. Ole boy driving around with a head in the car.'
I thought for a second. 'That guy looks like a horse.'
'But not in a bad way, really.'
You're born and forty years later you hobble out a bar, startled by your own aches. Nobody knows you. You steer down lightless highways, and you invent a destination because movement is key. So you head for the last thing you have left to lose, with no real idea what you're going to do with it.
August 25, 2017
When I read this back in 2010, the gritty but tender protagonist stole my heart. Because the story travels the Gulf coast from New Orleans to Texas, it felt like home as that is my stomping ground. When the named hurricane intersects the tale, it is a storm I remember well. Obviously, all of these factors add up to an easy calculation for me loving the story. But it is the outstanding writing talent of the author that sealed this for me.
In a nutshell, a bad guy decides to turn good. Mobsters and father-like devotion make the path toward the light complicated, while the diagnosis of cancer might end up being the best thing to happen to Roy in years.
If you enjoyed the first season of the HBO series True Detective, then Galveston is right up your alley. Nic Pizzolatto wrote both, of course, and I loved that this debut novel's protagonist shares the same initials as the philosophical TV series hero and likes to cut little tin men out of dead beer cans, too.
Moody and suspenseful, this book reads like classic 1940s noir. Heavy, oppressive clouds are relieved by clear moments of happiness - just like the feeder bands of a hurricane creeping its way toward the coast. A guy's book, for sure, but women with depth will be drawn in too. There is violence and tenderness and epiphany, and it remains one of my favorite books ever.
Perfect read for a hurricane.
In a nutshell, a bad guy decides to turn good. Mobsters and father-like devotion make the path toward the light complicated, while the diagnosis of cancer might end up being the best thing to happen to Roy in years.
If you enjoyed the first season of the HBO series True Detective, then Galveston is right up your alley. Nic Pizzolatto wrote both, of course, and I loved that this debut novel's protagonist shares the same initials as the philosophical TV series hero and likes to cut little tin men out of dead beer cans, too.
Moody and suspenseful, this book reads like classic 1940s noir. Heavy, oppressive clouds are relieved by clear moments of happiness - just like the feeder bands of a hurricane creeping its way toward the coast. A guy's book, for sure, but women with depth will be drawn in too. There is violence and tenderness and epiphany, and it remains one of my favorite books ever.
Perfect read for a hurricane.
July 3, 2022
4.25 Stars — Galveston is not your average thriller/crime novel. It’s grit permeates the surface of your psyche and I — for one — found myself encapsulated in the protagonists thirst for revenge, it became an obsession of not only his, but mine! Roy’s not having the best day, but his misfortune is our pulsating-read so terminal-diagnosis and all, I was strapped in and living every minute and moving every paragraph.
That is the sign of an excellent novel. Galveston, is a tale about vengeance and ultimately reaping-what-you-sow philosophy in the context of a life lived on the outer limits of society. A world 99.9% of us will never truly know or would want to know, not really.
Full of solid prose, with sharp but also poignant sentences, I found this a pleasure to read for 90% of the novel. Yes, it does suffer ever so slightly from the setup to the pre-ending — a section that’s far too long in my very humble opinion — but it’s no deal breaker. Galveston still hits the mark & manages to tie together a knot of extremes and pays off fairly well.
But the strength here is the emotive, psyche piercing I mentioned earlier. In the heart of the novel, 70-140 pages in. Setting up Roy’s circumstances, his compass-shifting passages are pure raw-unadulterated-engulfing-literature as far as I am concerned.
Enjoyable, full of tension & regret. Well worth reading!
That is the sign of an excellent novel. Galveston, is a tale about vengeance and ultimately reaping-what-you-sow philosophy in the context of a life lived on the outer limits of society. A world 99.9% of us will never truly know or would want to know, not really.
Full of solid prose, with sharp but also poignant sentences, I found this a pleasure to read for 90% of the novel. Yes, it does suffer ever so slightly from the setup to the pre-ending — a section that’s far too long in my very humble opinion — but it’s no deal breaker. Galveston still hits the mark & manages to tie together a knot of extremes and pays off fairly well.
But the strength here is the emotive, psyche piercing I mentioned earlier. In the heart of the novel, 70-140 pages in. Setting up Roy’s circumstances, his compass-shifting passages are pure raw-unadulterated-engulfing-literature as far as I am concerned.
Enjoyable, full of tension & regret. Well worth reading!
July 5, 2014
The past isn't real and the last new song you liked is a long way in the past. You know you'll never get out alive but you hope to avoid a deadline, forty years from now you'll find yourself stumbling down a lightless highway where nobody knows your name. Galveston is THAT kind of novel and it's so nearly perfect in the same way that Pizzolatto's True Detective is and they both open you up to a world where nobody has anything left to lose and even if they did they wouldn't know what to do with it anyway.
Yes, this is a book full of wonder, written by a man in full control of his power over the English language and the literary noir genre, that it took a smash hit TV series to make people aware of this novel is scandalous.
Roy Cady, bagman for a Russian-American gangster starts off having a really bad day, and it just keeps getting worse. Pizzolatto takes him on a journey of the soul, not necessarily of spiritual awakening but one that makes him aware in no uncertain terms just how pointless his life is and how small he is in the not so grand scheme of things. Brief connections to others affect him more than he is ready to admit, whilst around him people are living their own disasters and existing in any manner that makes the interminable crawl towards the grave bearable.
The combined effect is awesome, it made me want to never put the book down whilst at the same time to ingest it in bite sized portions allowing time to ruminate on the words and mood created, careful not to overdose on the goodness provided.
Yes, this is a book full of wonder, written by a man in full control of his power over the English language and the literary noir genre, that it took a smash hit TV series to make people aware of this novel is scandalous.
Roy Cady, bagman for a Russian-American gangster starts off having a really bad day, and it just keeps getting worse. Pizzolatto takes him on a journey of the soul, not necessarily of spiritual awakening but one that makes him aware in no uncertain terms just how pointless his life is and how small he is in the not so grand scheme of things. Brief connections to others affect him more than he is ready to admit, whilst around him people are living their own disasters and existing in any manner that makes the interminable crawl towards the grave bearable.
The combined effect is awesome, it made me want to never put the book down whilst at the same time to ingest it in bite sized portions allowing time to ruminate on the words and mood created, careful not to overdose on the goodness provided.
May 29, 2024
Прилична кримка от създателя на сериала "True detective". Не ми се навлиза с детайли в тъмната история описана в нея, нека да ви изненада, доколкото може.
Поосакатен е текста от слабия превод, но става да се прочете.
Цитат:
"Цял живот съм познавал този род типчета — провинциални кретени, зациклили в състояние на постоянен яд. Тормозят дребни животинки, а като пораснат, налагат децата си с каиш, катастрофират с пикапите си пияни, на четирийсет откриват Исус и почват да ходят на църква и по проститутки."
P.S. Има и филм от 2018 година. ;)
Поосакатен е текста от слабия превод, но става да се прочете.
Цитат:
"Цял живот съм познавал този род типчета — провинциални кретени, зациклили в състояние на постоянен яд. Тормозят дребни животинки, а като пораснат, налагат децата си с каиш, катастрофират с пикапите си пияни, на четирийсет откриват Исус и почват да ходят на църква и по проститутки."
P.S. Има и филм от 2018 година. ;)
March 28, 2014
Galveston – Simply Stunning
Having read Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto it is easy to see why this has been an award winning debut novel from the creator of the HBO and Sky Atlantic series True Detectives. While in this crime thriller the police tend to play a walk on part he uses exactly the same creative devices used in True Detective. Those devices make you feel that you too are central to the story and telling this in the first person to someone makes you feel as if you are there in the first person. Within the story there is a strong noir presence that pervades throughout and helps to give this story some depth.
Roy Cady acknowledges that he is a bad man who has done some terrible things in his life time and that he has lung cancer that will kill him shortly. His boss wants him to visit Frank Sienkiewicz to give him a little reminder but things do not go to plan and he needs to go on the run taking with him a beaten up young girl with him. They need to put some space between them and New Orleans and head out through Louisiana in to Texas, picking up the girls daughter on the way. They end up at a beach side motel in Galveston where they all try and put their hard lives behind them but like everything in life it soon catches up soon enough.
This is a story of hope and being able to turn your life around when you hit rock bottom and trying to escape your past and sometimes good things do come out of the bad times. This is a very atmospheric gripping crime novel which slowly draws you in and then grabs you by the throat so that you do not want to put the book down. At times the description and imagery is bleak, and you can see the low rent motels the cowboy bars the dusty weed infested strips where the people will stab you soon as look at you. The novel shows us there are many people around you that are trying to escape something and you are only incidental to that. The novel shows that even the bad guy should never give up hope of good things happening.
This is a brilliant short novel full of grit and the desperate vulnerability of all the players around you. A brilliant first novel and I look forward to his next.
Having read Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto it is easy to see why this has been an award winning debut novel from the creator of the HBO and Sky Atlantic series True Detectives. While in this crime thriller the police tend to play a walk on part he uses exactly the same creative devices used in True Detective. Those devices make you feel that you too are central to the story and telling this in the first person to someone makes you feel as if you are there in the first person. Within the story there is a strong noir presence that pervades throughout and helps to give this story some depth.
Roy Cady acknowledges that he is a bad man who has done some terrible things in his life time and that he has lung cancer that will kill him shortly. His boss wants him to visit Frank Sienkiewicz to give him a little reminder but things do not go to plan and he needs to go on the run taking with him a beaten up young girl with him. They need to put some space between them and New Orleans and head out through Louisiana in to Texas, picking up the girls daughter on the way. They end up at a beach side motel in Galveston where they all try and put their hard lives behind them but like everything in life it soon catches up soon enough.
This is a story of hope and being able to turn your life around when you hit rock bottom and trying to escape your past and sometimes good things do come out of the bad times. This is a very atmospheric gripping crime novel which slowly draws you in and then grabs you by the throat so that you do not want to put the book down. At times the description and imagery is bleak, and you can see the low rent motels the cowboy bars the dusty weed infested strips where the people will stab you soon as look at you. The novel shows us there are many people around you that are trying to escape something and you are only incidental to that. The novel shows that even the bad guy should never give up hope of good things happening.
This is a brilliant short novel full of grit and the desperate vulnerability of all the players around you. A brilliant first novel and I look forward to his next.
January 23, 2014
I recently watched the first episodes of True Detective and instantly fell for it. Like when hearing a song in your teenage years and thinking it was composed just for you, this show fits with my taste perfectly. Due to this, I picked up Nick Pizzolatto's novel hoping for a similar story that would tide me over.
What's instantly recognizable is the tone. It's reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, in that the narration is delivered with a permanent frown and doesn't hesitate to describe in detail how dilapidated both the world and characters are. They are tired and have been since arriving into the world where continuing to do what you know is preferable to the cost of changing. These characters are the focus of the story and singularly what the book is about. Like with True Detective, where I'm primarily interested in learning about the characters, Galveston is a character study of people who don't have much fondness for the world but clench to it anyway, always looking for those flippant peals of happiness in the murk of daily existence.
The negatives of the novel are located in the plot. There's not a lot here and what there is has been done more times than I wish to remember. If the reader isn't interested in the characters or Pizzolatto's descriptive passages, I think they will have a hard time finding something to invest.
While it's often derivative and the plot is undeveloped. Pizzolatto shows a talent for character craftsmanship. They are the type of characters who live and breathe of the page and he's able to create a believable supporting cast without loosing focus on who the main players are. If you like lots of grit, reflection and descriptive prose, there should find something to like here.
What's instantly recognizable is the tone. It's reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, in that the narration is delivered with a permanent frown and doesn't hesitate to describe in detail how dilapidated both the world and characters are. They are tired and have been since arriving into the world where continuing to do what you know is preferable to the cost of changing. These characters are the focus of the story and singularly what the book is about. Like with True Detective, where I'm primarily interested in learning about the characters, Galveston is a character study of people who don't have much fondness for the world but clench to it anyway, always looking for those flippant peals of happiness in the murk of daily existence.
The negatives of the novel are located in the plot. There's not a lot here and what there is has been done more times than I wish to remember. If the reader isn't interested in the characters or Pizzolatto's descriptive passages, I think they will have a hard time finding something to invest.
While it's often derivative and the plot is undeveloped. Pizzolatto shows a talent for character craftsmanship. They are the type of characters who live and breathe of the page and he's able to create a believable supporting cast without loosing focus on who the main players are. If you like lots of grit, reflection and descriptive prose, there should find something to like here.
February 26, 2014
Roy Cady (“Big Country” to his enemies) is an enforcer for a New Orleans gangster, just south of 40, and diagnosed with cancer. It gets worse. Blood and carnage and death in a bleak room, but also a bit of luck, soon find Cady on the run. Along with him, improbably, is a young prostitute, Raquel (“Rocky”). Against every considerable survival instinct in his being, Roy decides not to abandon her. Is it a new sense of humanity brought on by his looming mortality? Or is it just simply that he recognizes someone else who has had it hard and needs a new start? The answers to these questions are constantly being turned over in Cady’s mind, as he reflects on his life, while walking on the beach with his dog outside of Galveston, like some sort of crippled pirate. On the periphery of these reflections, looming like a rapidly concentrating metaphor of sorts is Hurricane Ike.
Author Nic Pizzolatto (creator the HBO show True Detective) does a slow reveal throughout the novel, as he weaves back and forth in time. If you like the show, you will not be disappointed. Galveston is one dark noir, filled with hard people doing hard things, and always with memorable dialogue. But the book is much more than that. It’s also a reflection on aging, mortality, the meaning of memories, and the limits of vengeance. To say much more would rob the novel of its many impressive turns against the genre grain. That said, Galveston is as fine a noir as I’ve read in a while. Comparisons to Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson seem off to me. For one thing, there’s more heart in these characters than McCarthy ever portrays. Pizzolatto knows his characters, and the geography they inhabit (“white trash terror camp”). I think closer Grit Lit comparisons can be found in Darrel Woodrell or Larry Brown. Pizzolatto’s choice of a Faulkner quote to open the novel is spot on.
Note: Galveston is currently a cheap get on Kindle.
Author Nic Pizzolatto (creator the HBO show True Detective) does a slow reveal throughout the novel, as he weaves back and forth in time. If you like the show, you will not be disappointed. Galveston is one dark noir, filled with hard people doing hard things, and always with memorable dialogue. But the book is much more than that. It’s also a reflection on aging, mortality, the meaning of memories, and the limits of vengeance. To say much more would rob the novel of its many impressive turns against the genre grain. That said, Galveston is as fine a noir as I’ve read in a while. Comparisons to Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson seem off to me. For one thing, there’s more heart in these characters than McCarthy ever portrays. Pizzolatto knows his characters, and the geography they inhabit (“white trash terror camp”). I think closer Grit Lit comparisons can be found in Darrel Woodrell or Larry Brown. Pizzolatto’s choice of a Faulkner quote to open the novel is spot on.
Note: Galveston is currently a cheap get on Kindle.
March 20, 2014
I liked Roy, Rocky and Tiffany and rooted for their survival in this rather gloomy work of atmospheric crime fiction. After a hot, one hundred MPH start, the fugitive trio ends up hiding out in a run down motel on the beach in Galveston, Texas where tight, fast paced crime fiction go to die. Way too much meanering soul searching dialogue ensued until what I thought was an unsatisfying wrap up at the end. Reading other GR 4 and 5 star reviews, I'm clearly in the minority on this book mainly because the late James Crumley is still driving my "county noir" pick-up truck with Victor Gischler in hot pursuit!
February 28, 2014
Sometimes I think I am reading a completely different book than everyone else.
December 10, 2016
I lived in the mind of the protagonist, a hit/bag man in New Orleans who finds himself on the wrong side of his sleazy boss and takes to the road with a young girl who he tries to save. Roy is a largely damaged hero, and his worldview is shaped by a troubled upbringing. His "recovery" after a horrific beating is told beautifully as he ekes out a life on the margins of Galveston. The gulf environment and people are powerfully detailed, and the dialogue is sharp and revealing in the manner of Woodrell or Larry Brown or even Matthieson (Shadow Country). This is a very talented writer, and I couldn't help but fall in love with these pathetic creatures trying to claw out a living. Tragically, Roy almost succeeds but ultimately is crushed by life and bad luck and the accident of an unfortunate upbringing. I loved every word of this masculine tale of ego, breathtaking loss and a final recovery of sorts. It has a powerful finish and is spot on with respect of what it is to seek love in a world of hurt. I look forward to his next one.
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