Three Delays

by Charlie Smith

From Charlie Smith (Cheap Ticket to Heaven, Chimney Rock, Shine Hawk), author of three New York Times Notable Books and a literary stylist whose “writing can make the mountains ring" (New York Times Book Review), comes his first novel in more than a decade, Three Delays, which follows the troubled lives of two lovers as they combat their passions and each other. In the words of James Dickey, "Writers after Charlie Smith will have to take him into account, but I doubt if any will equal or surpass him."

Genres: Fiction, American

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 2010

Reviews

[Mbreaden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlie Smith’s latest novel, Three Delays, is divided into five parts and each installment serves as a depiction of the narrator Billy Brent and his on-again-off-again pursuit of Alice Stephens, a woman he has known and loved since childhood. Set in Southern Florida—the Keys, the ‘Glades, West Miami—for all but the first and final sections, which occur in Europe and Mexico, respectively, much of the focus of this novel is upon Billy’s drug abuse and his unfathomable Alice.
Charlie Smith, a prominent, Denis Johnson-like poet, clearly has his themes picked out, and because his writing is so intricate, and his cadences so rhythmic, the reader can settle into the the 350-page story of characters who are rutted in the repetition of their vices. And he could have detailed the shades of Billy’s love and compared one high to another for probably twice as long and we would have savored every word because, though the plot is rather thin, the writing is extremely engaging.
And the characters’ notions and manners are so precisely captured, with a loving smirk, that we can abide their rapid entrances and speedy departures—some vanish after only existing for a page or two. Perhaps one of my favorite sections was a chapter in section four (“We’re Passing Through a Paradise”), where Billy—now a semi-famous writer (Huh. . .) and struggling with NA—runs through a few handfuls of relationships, all ill-advised. He worries to his sponsor that he’s substituting one drug for another, which his sponsor is fine with, until Billy starts serving himself from the NA attendee cart. And all this to forget Alice, who has taken up with another man again.
By the start of the final section, Billy’s philandering has simmered—perhaps thanks to a rudely-placed dog bite—and though he’s once again dissolving Quaaludes into Arnold Palmers, the arch of the love is less explosive. He and Alice are living in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not really working. But the strange, intense lovers are not left alone for long, and a series of misfortunes place them in the desert of Mexico, ill-prepared for anything—certainly not Alice’s pregnancy—but drug use. **SPOILER ALERT** It’s a finale that reminded me of one of Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic backdrops and I was sorry to see such casually-idiotic characters in it. I suppose the point of the novel was to demonstrate their ineptitude was not just casual, but would ruin them. With Smith’s sometimes-humorous touches, I suppose I was misled, or found the characters too sympathetic to wish them harm.

[Connie Mayo · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK, I'm cheating in that I haven't finished reading it - but I don't think I will. This book really frustrated me - the writing is really just brilliant, poetic, lyrical, creative, visual. But the story is like a spiral to nowhere. I got so frustrated with the main character Billy, and I'm was working my way up to feeling like that about Alice - after a while I just felt like slapping Billy and telling him to grow up, stop whining and for cryin' out loud, stop ingesting drugs like candy.

[Jcooper Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I thought I would not like this book - a male drug addict and his obsessive love affair didn't strike me as interesting enough to spend time on a novel from his point of view, but recommended by a reader friend, I read the first page, and was captivated. Charlie Smith's 'story' is for you if you love language. The author is also a poet, and this is sentence after sentence of stunningly beautiful prose. It's a brilliant and wracked interior animated through and in context of things, and places. I gave this a five because the writing deserves bowled me over, but the story doesn't seem to be fully fleshed out as a novel might be, though, you understand fairly early on the ride you are in for, so I had no sense of disappointment.

[Michael Shilling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three Delays is a fine example of how character is plot; the lack of a cohesive narrative is not the problem here, and Smith takes a real and interesting risk by attempting to create a structure that mirrors the fragmented emotional make-up of these characters and their life-long relationship. But it fails terribly, due to the relentless adolescent navel-gazing of the two main characters, Billy and Alice. I lost count of the "Look I said/thought something profound!" moments after the first thirty pages. They're boring, solipsistic, inward-facing jerks, and totally silly in their grandiosity. Two stars for the occasional shape-shifting language, but otherwise, Wow, this was disappointing.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was going to say it's like Hunter Thompson with more unrequited love and better writing, but by the end it gets way beyond Thompson's scope.

[Linnet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Alice and Billy: the best case for never using drugs ever written!

[Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books are, for various reasons, hard to read. This was one for me. Someone who doesn't know depression, sadness, loss, or suffered with substance abuse, struggled with their finances, tattered on the brink of homelessness, suicide, overdose, and death might not have aa hard a time reading it as I did. I found this book at a library book sale and was drawn to the quote on the back. I dove in, and it took almost a decade to finish. I found myself in the main character, felt him as me, and kept putting it down for something easier and lighter. But I carried it with me across the country as I moved and only as I have turned over 50, found that the book wasn't telling my future, but more cataloging my life as what could've been. It's a great, lovely, weird, sad, happy, joyful, and depressing tale, which I highly recommend.

[D]

I scratched this one very early on, like a couple dozen pages in early on. Really, I'm okay with literary. I can handle it. But there comes a point in literary where it stops being good to read and starts being a showcase of the author's perceived awesomeness and that's where my eyelids start to sag. If I wanted to gaze at a naval I'd pick at my own. Thanks.

Perhaps it was the incessant use of 'waked up' that made me want to murder puppies. Yes, technically it's correct. And technically it makes my ears bleed. I don't know if this was the author trying to be quirky and use a little-used form of 'to wake' to make his writing stand out as OMG EDGE AND AWESOME. Or if this was a means to showcase the inherent quirkiness of the MC, except it made Billy sound like a pretentious douche. Either way I just couldn't take it. After about five instances of the MC being 'waked up' I stopped. I don't care how awesomely quirky it makes anyone look. I don't care if it's technically right. It either makes one sound completely uneducated (who actually uses waked up for past tense? personally I'm on board the woke up train) or like a self-aggrandizing dick. The former would be okay if the MC were actually uneducated. He's not. He's traveling Europe, getting high, existentially pondering life and spending SOMEONE'S money doing it. Which files him into the latter category. Gross.

Or maybe it was the meandering drug-induced hazed of a "plot" I kept trying to get involved in but it just seemed far too all over the place for me to keep track of. Billy's trying to get back together with Alice despite the fact that she's married (what a stand-up guy) and his buddy contracted malaria or something and was hospitalized so the poor guy (the MC, not the sick friend) had to hop himself up on his own and there was a lot of drugs and stuff. I didn't really see much of a point to it all and I certainly wasn't seeing any "star-crossed lovers" going on here. Just Billy trying to harass some chick into leaving her husband for him. The relationship looked pretty one-sided where I stood.

Nope, just wasn't into it. The instances of 'waked up' were enough for me to DNF it but if that weren't a problem the spirograph plot would have kicked me out eventually. I just didn't give a rat's ass about Billy and Alice was just a voice on the phone at the time I stopped. Plus whatever plot there was seemed more focused on drugs and Billy dissecting his own thoughts than anything else. Blah. Not for me.

[Kasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can appreciate from the reviews why some people just couldn't get into this book - the first two sections are a stream of consciousness drug filled babble, but the language and writing is just gorgeous. Charlie Smith is a poet like I've never read before. I had to reread sentences just to allow the beauty and depth of it to sink in.
For example: "My arms felt hollow, weak from lifting my life, like a man who'd just made love hanging from a tree."
Or
"Beyond a blank grassless hill face a house appeared, a languishing board house with two stories and galleries all around and one side sagging slightly, the kind of house in summer I'd love to come upon, and speculate on, a house wearing in its hair all the nests of yesteryear, a house not falling into the future but rising from the past."
The characters are not good people, especially Billy Brent, whom you keep hoping will snap out of his drug induced, fly by the seat of your pants lifestyle.
It's a "journey not the destination" kind of novel, and I loved every mile of it.

[Nicholas George · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's no question that Smith's prose is impressive; I found myself marveling at his descriptive powers. But basically this is the story of an unlikeable protagonist, a writer of sorts, and his almost-as-unlikeable girlfriend-wife-lover. They drift through life getting together, breaking up, finding new lovers, coming back together, again and again, all the while getting stoned or high. There is no particular plot or story to speak of, just two aimless people bent on self-destruction. I never did learn of the demons in their background that might have led them to such a life. Maybe the clues were there, but after awhile I just didn't care about these people.

[Maria Olson Goins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was crazy about this book at first, and then it just dragged on and on, in circles, and I was so tired of the protagonist being such a loser, not being strong enough to get clean, it became tedious & frustrating despite the poetic language. what kind of bullshit love is that. so i'd say i forced myself to finish it, hoping i would get as excited as i was initially, after reading the NYT review and runnning around bookstores trying to find it and devouring the first 50 or so pages in one coffee shop sitting like chocolate crack. disappointing. like loving somebody who loves drugs more.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically a plotless account of simultaneously the most romantic and destructive relationship you've ever had, multiplied by 100. I give Smith props for keeping me interested the whole way through, and I even shed a little tear at the end, as much as I was sick of these two by the conclusion, too. The book is repetitive and while we've all probably been in passionate, difficult relationships at one time, this particular fictional(?) account of a troubled pairing strains credibility too much to completely recommend. Might be best read as an apértif to a bad breakup.

[Angela P · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I have read in a very long time. Similar to William S Burroughs but with a plot, this book explores impossible love that many of us have experienced or have dreamed about. The true love; regardless of faults, that Billy & Alice share. I recommend this to anyone with a love of literature that doesnt take the common path.

[Allison Gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Part One" of this book, roughly the first 40 pages, is like an absolutely perfect standalone short story. Five stars. The book could have ended there. Smith's writing is fantastic throughout, but with really no narrative to frame it, it grew tiresome. Or redundant. Still, that Part One is well worth reading. Fans of Denis Johnson will especially love it, and maybe most of the book.

[Aaron Mcilhenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I had read this book for a class. That way, someone could have made me analyze all the genius metaphors and symbolism Smith used. As it was, most of them flew straight over my head, and I wasn't interested enough in the plotline to go into analyzing them. So more of a 4 for effort than for actual enjoyment.

[Dani O. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting storyline. Amazing writing! But a less than stellar ending. It's a worthwhile read if for no other reason than to experience the way Charlie Smith puts together a sentence. His observations on the human condition and description of the surroundings are unbelievable.

[Lisette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overwritten to the point of distraction. Every sentence works so hard to show off that any attempt at story or building engaging characters falls off the rails. This is a book to impress other writers not readers.

[Les · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fearless and fun!

[Erica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unreadable. Quit at p120 or so.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the plots get lost and is redundant, the imagery and language are beautiful.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

full review to come

[June · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my kind of book--drug induced ramblings. I really have never been interested in this kind of book.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every so often a book will really make me reconsider my policy of finishing every book I start. Three Delays is one of those books; it can best be summed up with the phrase "word vomit."

[Sam Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more in the same vein as Shinehawk and Lives of the Dead. I have to believe that someday readers will catch up to Charlie Smith. What a talent!

[Carmen Kern · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can tell a poet wrote this book. Some great lines with a lyrical slant to the story. The story itself was a little underwhelming but for the language alone, I'd recommend this book.

[Pamela]

Not doing it for me. Best to leave it and move onto something more enjoyable.

[K.M. Soehnlein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful sentences. Frustrating character.