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Nothing Personal
The DePinos are miserable, living in a rundown apartment above a deli on Tenth Avenue. The Sussmans live in a posh building on the Upper East Side. When Joey DePino loses his job and is threatened by his bookies and loan shark, he involves the Sussmans in a sick, desperate plan to pay off his gambling debts. But ad exec David Sussman has his own problems trying to stop his suddenly psychopathic mistress from ruining him, and he won't go down without a fight. As the lives of the DePinos and the Sussmans become increasingly intertwined, Joey and David plunge their families into an amoral world where anything is possible and nothing is personal. Part crime novel, part unflinching satire of compulsive gambling, eating disorders, and cold-blooded evil, Nothing Personal firmly establishes Jason Starr as one of the most exciting young noir novelists around.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
8 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
Jason Starr
116 books245 followersJason Starr is the international bestselling author of many crime novels and thrillers, including Cold Caller, The Follower, The Pack and The Next Time I Die. He also writes comics for Marvel (Wolverine, The Punisher) and DC (Batman, The Avenger) and original graphic novels such as Red Border and Casual Fling. In addition, he writes film and TV tie-in novels including an official Ant-Man novel and the Gotham novels based on the hit TV show. His books have been published in sixteen languages and several of his novels are in development for film and TV. He has won the Anthony Award for mystery fiction twice, as well as a Barry Award. Starr lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 3, 2020
(Tw: Mention of rape)
There was a time, maybe as recently as 3 years ago or so, that I really would have enjoyed Jason Starr’s work. Jim Thompson-esque crime fiction set in New York City featuring the worst human beings alive? Gimme some of that.
I don’t know if getting older makes me soft or my tastes are more specific or what but Starr’s books, while well-written and thrilling, just don’t it for me. The male characters are ludicrously dumb and evil. The female characters are all narratively scolded for daring to have ambition beyond their station in life. It’s not that I need “likable” characters; Gillian Flynn’s characters are inherently unlikeable, which is part of what makes her books so compelling. What I need is a reason to care. And I don’t have one besides figuring out what happens next.
Make no mistake, this would have been a 4-star read for me back in the day. Starr knows how to thrill. Nothing happens the way you think it will, right up to the last page. I was practically shredding it trying to figure out what comes next. But in the end, I just feel like I want to take a shower and hug my family. Starr wants to use farcical circumstances to probe the depths of human capability but he doesn’t really have an interesting take on it besides people suck. It doesn’t help that there’s a graphically described rape scene in the book for no reason, plus one that is strongly implied, that made me feel like reading the thing wasn’t even worth it.
Sad thing is, I’ll probably come back to his work at some point. But…ah. Eh. Let me make sure I can schedule time to clean my brain after.
There was a time, maybe as recently as 3 years ago or so, that I really would have enjoyed Jason Starr’s work. Jim Thompson-esque crime fiction set in New York City featuring the worst human beings alive? Gimme some of that.
I don’t know if getting older makes me soft or my tastes are more specific or what but Starr’s books, while well-written and thrilling, just don’t it for me. The male characters are ludicrously dumb and evil. The female characters are all narratively scolded for daring to have ambition beyond their station in life. It’s not that I need “likable” characters; Gillian Flynn’s characters are inherently unlikeable, which is part of what makes her books so compelling. What I need is a reason to care. And I don’t have one besides figuring out what happens next.
Make no mistake, this would have been a 4-star read for me back in the day. Starr knows how to thrill. Nothing happens the way you think it will, right up to the last page. I was practically shredding it trying to figure out what comes next. But in the end, I just feel like I want to take a shower and hug my family. Starr wants to use farcical circumstances to probe the depths of human capability but he doesn’t really have an interesting take on it besides people suck. It doesn’t help that there’s a graphically described rape scene in the book for no reason, plus one that is strongly implied, that made me feel like reading the thing wasn’t even worth it.
Sad thing is, I’ll probably come back to his work at some point. But…ah. Eh. Let me make sure I can schedule time to clean my brain after.
June 12, 2023
Jason Starr has been the king of the neo-noirs for the past 20 years...Nothing Personal (2000), his second novel, is another look at the daily scum his characters waddle through in New York City. The story-line follows two couples, one rich, one poor, who are friends and each individual has their own set of problems that can take them down at any time. Adultery, lies, deceit, kidnapping, murder and more all play a part in this entertaining crime-fiction. Yes, it's a page-turner, I read it in two sittings...only take away is there's an element of Soap Opera to it, but, not a biggie...3.5 outta 5.0....I'll bump it up to a 4.0...
December 19, 2014
Joey DePino is a loser. He's a gambling addict and in to the bookies for over nine thousand dollars. His wife Maureen's income is all that is keeping them from living on the streets of New York, and their apartment has never seen a designer more sophisticated than Ikea. He's at the Meadowlands and his sad-sack bet finally comes in first; but even when he wins, he loses. The race is called because of some illegal activity in one of the turns. Everyone's calling their markers in, and Joey doesn't know how he's going to pay off his debts. A visit from one of his creditors leaves him worse for wear physically as well.
Meanwhile, the husband of Maureen's best friend is experiencing difficulties of his own. David Sussman has different troubles than Joey. David has plenty of money, lives in a nice place, has a nice wife, a nice daughter, a nice job. All this niceness isn't enough for him, though. He's going through a midlife crisis. He can see the signs of aging on his face; his hair is thinning. In addition to superoxidants and shark's cartilage, he's trying to reaffirm himself by engaging in a series of affairs. His latest is a doozy. He's become involved with an Asian woman at work, Amy Lee, and bragged mightily about his exploits. The only thing wrong is that Amy has interpreted David's actions as meaning a permanent commitment. Shades of fatal attraction!
As the book proceeds, both men become more desperate. Joey comes up with a scheme to get some money quick. He partners with an old childhood friend, Billy, who's more than a little mentally deranged as the result of an old accident. Billy also has the libido of two 19-year olds with some super-sized equipment to match. Definitely trouble in the offing. At the same time, Joey's wife, Maureen, is getting fed up with the hopelessness of her life and looking for answers of her own.
Meanwhile, David solves the Amy problem permanently. His existence is
falling apart. His daughter's been abducted; his wife is into full-blown anorexia and has found out about his affairs and just about written him off. Basically, his life is in the toilet.
Starr does a good job of building the events in the story and delineating the characters. He skillfully adds layer upon layer of disaster on each of the main protagonists until we are caught up in a maelstrom of evil. There's adultery, kidnapping, self abuse, blackmail, murder and a few other nasty tidbits.
What starts as a humorous tale rapidly becomes grimmer and grimmer. By the end of the book, we're in a pretty dark world. Kind of bizzarro noiro. There's lots of irony in this book, and the only person that seems to have any redeeming qualities is Maureen DePino. The last part of the book was too over the top for my taste, but at least Starr didn't take the easy way out and pin on an unrealistic fairy-tale ending. I was more disturbed by what he didn't say than what he did and sorry that some of the more likable characters didn't have a rosier future. Starr is a unique writer. If you're a fan of noir, you'll want to experience this book.
Meanwhile, the husband of Maureen's best friend is experiencing difficulties of his own. David Sussman has different troubles than Joey. David has plenty of money, lives in a nice place, has a nice wife, a nice daughter, a nice job. All this niceness isn't enough for him, though. He's going through a midlife crisis. He can see the signs of aging on his face; his hair is thinning. In addition to superoxidants and shark's cartilage, he's trying to reaffirm himself by engaging in a series of affairs. His latest is a doozy. He's become involved with an Asian woman at work, Amy Lee, and bragged mightily about his exploits. The only thing wrong is that Amy has interpreted David's actions as meaning a permanent commitment. Shades of fatal attraction!
As the book proceeds, both men become more desperate. Joey comes up with a scheme to get some money quick. He partners with an old childhood friend, Billy, who's more than a little mentally deranged as the result of an old accident. Billy also has the libido of two 19-year olds with some super-sized equipment to match. Definitely trouble in the offing. At the same time, Joey's wife, Maureen, is getting fed up with the hopelessness of her life and looking for answers of her own.
Meanwhile, David solves the Amy problem permanently. His existence is
falling apart. His daughter's been abducted; his wife is into full-blown anorexia and has found out about his affairs and just about written him off. Basically, his life is in the toilet.
Starr does a good job of building the events in the story and delineating the characters. He skillfully adds layer upon layer of disaster on each of the main protagonists until we are caught up in a maelstrom of evil. There's adultery, kidnapping, self abuse, blackmail, murder and a few other nasty tidbits.
What starts as a humorous tale rapidly becomes grimmer and grimmer. By the end of the book, we're in a pretty dark world. Kind of bizzarro noiro. There's lots of irony in this book, and the only person that seems to have any redeeming qualities is Maureen DePino. The last part of the book was too over the top for my taste, but at least Starr didn't take the easy way out and pin on an unrealistic fairy-tale ending. I was more disturbed by what he didn't say than what he did and sorry that some of the more likable characters didn't have a rosier future. Starr is a unique writer. If you're a fan of noir, you'll want to experience this book.
February 5, 2008
Hard to find but totally worth it. One of Starr's most fun books.
October 27, 2015
I devoured this book in less than a day. Enough said.
March 29, 2020
This is such a noir book - my kind of story. The characters keep getting into more and more trouble - they are all morally flawed and in the end (SPOILER) the bad guys get away with it. Just like real life.
September 3, 2025
Wow. Just wow. Unbelievably grim story with grim characters all suffering from mental illnesses and making poor life choices. Don't read this expecting sunshine and rainbows. I liked it and Jason Starr is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors.
August 17, 2017
Eh. I had higher hopes for it.
July 11, 2008
There is promise for Jason Starr, but this book doesn't quite get in touch with it yet.
In what is supposedly a noir-thriller setting, one encounters David Sussman, a successful advertising agent with (of course) a less-than-successful personal life. He never sees his daughter, his trophy wife is in the binges of an eating disorder, and his mistress Amy Lee is threatening to expose their desk-riding affair unless he divorces his wife and marries her. In a related story, Joey DePino has just lost the daily double at the track due to a technicality. Of course, he is deep in the hole, and, of course, he is bound only to get deeper in with Morty, a bookie with Yiddish so weak that Josef Mengele would have had a better chance of getting through a bar mitzvah. Joey's wife, Maureen, is old friends with David Sussman's bulimic Leslie, which hooks together our string of paper doll characters, allowing this thriller (comedy? noir spectacle?) to proceed.
But there is little happening of note. Amy Lee is a nemesis about as daunting as a Care Bear. At least, each Care Bear had a symbol on its belly to let you know what its special power of pleasure was. Amy Lee may follow Leslie Sussman to the supermarket and leave unsigned packages of blank audio tape for the unsuspecting wife in attempt to show David how easy it would be to ruin his life, but there is little about her that makes her seem much of a threat. Joey DePino is a drab compulsive gambler. His one interesting moment -- his fantasy about living somewhere where he can own a car so he doesn't have to take the bus to the track. The closest he comes to redemption -- his wife Maureen reveals that she married him because she was better-looking than him and he was uneducated.
As for David, his marital affair and general middle-age crisis prove unentertaining and drab. When Joey pulls in an old buddy of his named Billy Balls for a quick money scam, the reader can practically hear the pounding of the last few tacks into an obscenely vacuous coffin.
Starr seems to pick characters and situations into which he can barely show any insight. Amy Lee's obsession is unmotivated, David Sussman's midlife crisis mediocre and boring, and Maureen DePino's realization that she is still attractive enough to have an affair echoes of a sentimental made-for-Lifetime movie. What prove more interesting are those moments that seem to actually be digging at that fantastic conundrum known as character. In the middle of an argument about his gambling problem, Joey decides that he is too tired to argue a point Maureen makes because it will only result in more screaming, and he simply doesn't want more of that at the moment. In the midst of his trouble, David Sussman decides that, if he beats a unknown fat man on the street in a walking contest, everything will turn out all right. These small moments become much more highly charged than stereotypical gambling addiction or hackneyed Yiddish. Jason Starr seems as though he'd rather be handling the broad strokes, when in fact his true strength may be in the more subtle brushwork. The end of the novel, for instance, leaves a wonderfully intriguing sense of justice. Like a spaghetti western or Alex Cox film, who remains standing, who succeeds and who fails, becomes something to watch for. The last moment questions how success is measured and how the characters with the bull's-eyes on their souls have earned them. If this is one of the highlights of noire, Starr is doing very well at it, but the ride he offers to get us to that moment, while not bumpy, does not make for terribly interesting sightseeing.
In what is supposedly a noir-thriller setting, one encounters David Sussman, a successful advertising agent with (of course) a less-than-successful personal life. He never sees his daughter, his trophy wife is in the binges of an eating disorder, and his mistress Amy Lee is threatening to expose their desk-riding affair unless he divorces his wife and marries her. In a related story, Joey DePino has just lost the daily double at the track due to a technicality. Of course, he is deep in the hole, and, of course, he is bound only to get deeper in with Morty, a bookie with Yiddish so weak that Josef Mengele would have had a better chance of getting through a bar mitzvah. Joey's wife, Maureen, is old friends with David Sussman's bulimic Leslie, which hooks together our string of paper doll characters, allowing this thriller (comedy? noir spectacle?) to proceed.
But there is little happening of note. Amy Lee is a nemesis about as daunting as a Care Bear. At least, each Care Bear had a symbol on its belly to let you know what its special power of pleasure was. Amy Lee may follow Leslie Sussman to the supermarket and leave unsigned packages of blank audio tape for the unsuspecting wife in attempt to show David how easy it would be to ruin his life, but there is little about her that makes her seem much of a threat. Joey DePino is a drab compulsive gambler. His one interesting moment -- his fantasy about living somewhere where he can own a car so he doesn't have to take the bus to the track. The closest he comes to redemption -- his wife Maureen reveals that she married him because she was better-looking than him and he was uneducated.
As for David, his marital affair and general middle-age crisis prove unentertaining and drab. When Joey pulls in an old buddy of his named Billy Balls for a quick money scam, the reader can practically hear the pounding of the last few tacks into an obscenely vacuous coffin.
Starr seems to pick characters and situations into which he can barely show any insight. Amy Lee's obsession is unmotivated, David Sussman's midlife crisis mediocre and boring, and Maureen DePino's realization that she is still attractive enough to have an affair echoes of a sentimental made-for-Lifetime movie. What prove more interesting are those moments that seem to actually be digging at that fantastic conundrum known as character. In the middle of an argument about his gambling problem, Joey decides that he is too tired to argue a point Maureen makes because it will only result in more screaming, and he simply doesn't want more of that at the moment. In the midst of his trouble, David Sussman decides that, if he beats a unknown fat man on the street in a walking contest, everything will turn out all right. These small moments become much more highly charged than stereotypical gambling addiction or hackneyed Yiddish. Jason Starr seems as though he'd rather be handling the broad strokes, when in fact his true strength may be in the more subtle brushwork. The end of the novel, for instance, leaves a wonderfully intriguing sense of justice. Like a spaghetti western or Alex Cox film, who remains standing, who succeeds and who fails, becomes something to watch for. The last moment questions how success is measured and how the characters with the bull's-eyes on their souls have earned them. If this is one of the highlights of noire, Starr is doing very well at it, but the ride he offers to get us to that moment, while not bumpy, does not make for terribly interesting sightseeing.
August 6, 2012
Der Plot ist vielleicht eine Spur weniger spannend als bei anderen Starr-Romanen. Dafür sind dieses Mal wirklich alle Charaktere wahnhaft. Formvollendet.
»Jason Starr erweist sich als Experte für die Inszenierung bürgerlicher Alpträume« (Facts). Unterschreib' ich mal so.
»Jason Starr erweist sich als Experte für die Inszenierung bürgerlicher Alpträume« (Facts). Unterschreib' ich mal so.
November 11, 2015
Just ok
This was not one of my favorites by Jason Starr..the story line was interesting at first but it kinda just lost me towards the end
This was not one of my favorites by Jason Starr..the story line was interesting at first but it kinda just lost me towards the end
April 7, 2017
There is no hero in this novel, no good guy to cheer on. But it is well-written, and the reader absolutely must know what happens next.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews