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The Dead Beat
It’s 1997, and the comet of the century is due some time about now, on its 3000 year roundtrip.
For want of anything better to do, Adam and his meth addict friends end up in San Francisco, wondering where their place in the addict hierarchy might be, why no one has written a good book in over a decade, and what the fuck the comet might mean, when nothing on earth means anything.
And in a zip of light and a snort of meth the comet is gone, taking with it this last snapshot of earth for 3000 years, leaving Adam to wonder if it meant anything at all, or whether it was maybe just a bit cool that the sky looked different. Just for once. For the last time in his life.
For want of anything better to do, Adam and his meth addict friends end up in San Francisco, wondering where their place in the addict hierarchy might be, why no one has written a good book in over a decade, and what the fuck the comet might mean, when nothing on earth means anything.
And in a zip of light and a snort of meth the comet is gone, taking with it this last snapshot of earth for 3000 years, leaving Adam to wonder if it meant anything at all, or whether it was maybe just a bit cool that the sky looked different. Just for once. For the last time in his life.
104 pages, Paperback
First published September 29, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 2, 2011
When I read a book without even a suggestion of a plot I need it to be filled with characters I feel various levels of emotion towards. Usually it is the extremes of love/hate, desire/despise etc. In The Dead Beat I felt a great deal of empathy and understanding with the characters. Most crucially I felt involved.
Set a just a few years after my own wild days, these characters had aspects to them which I recognised as being true to a certain cultural group. One like I frequented at times. The desperation, depravity and depths to their self-indulence is key to understanding the societal 'me' phenomenom which we see around us and which they suffer greatly. It is clear from the start that the household of friends are scrapping the bottom of their life's barrel. Fortunately for me the bottom of my barrel was not so deep.
There is as much an end to this story as there is Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. I did not feel that the characters were exceptional in their world rather that they were indicative of the exceptional perspective on our Western society as it was then. And as it still is.
Set a just a few years after my own wild days, these characters had aspects to them which I recognised as being true to a certain cultural group. One like I frequented at times. The desperation, depravity and depths to their self-indulence is key to understanding the societal 'me' phenomenom which we see around us and which they suffer greatly. It is clear from the start that the household of friends are scrapping the bottom of their life's barrel. Fortunately for me the bottom of my barrel was not so deep.
There is as much an end to this story as there is Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. I did not feel that the characters were exceptional in their world rather that they were indicative of the exceptional perspective on our Western society as it was then. And as it still is.
December 10, 2010
Some writers create books full of non-stop action and noise. Others take hundreds of pages to tell sprawling stories that span generations. Cody James writes pitch-perfect short-novels in which the world is revealed to us in the smallest details.
I fell under the hypnotic spell of James’ prose when reading her first novel, Babylon — which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be available at the moment. (I hope it’s reissued soon,) Her second novel, The Dead Beat, is not a disappointment.
The Dead Beat is set during the summer of 1997 in and around San Francisco. Adam, a blocked writer and meth addict is our narrator. He lives in the usual squalor with his fellow-junkie friends. Not much happens. A comet comes and goes as do a couple of girlfriends and jobs. Resolutions are made and broken. It all leads somewhere, sort of.
But you don’t read James for her plots. You read her for the voice, the inimitable, bewitching rhythm that gets into your head and builds itself a home.
A writer to whom she’s arguably comparable is Flannery O’Connor though Bukowski might be a more obvious choice. O’Connor was famous for her Catholicism, and James is a self-avowed Satanist, but both are astute observers able to capture the human condition concisely. Both offer their characters (and readers) momentary glimpses of a greater truth — what O’Connor defined as “grace.” Neither is ever guilty of sentimentality, and both write in prose sharp enough to draw blood.
In The Dead Beat, James has the technical challenge of telling the story in the first person through Adam. She must filter her voice to fit him. It’s always a bit of magic when a writer can pull this off, whether it’s Samuel Clemens convincing us he’s Huck Finn or Nabokov masquerading as Humbert. Adam is probably more reliable than either of those two, but he’s still limited. — dead pan, shut down, often high, looking for drugs or in withdrawal.
The grace here is not heaven sent. If there is a greater power at work, it’s one that comes from community — however warped. Adam and his roommates care for each other as best they can. The transcendent is what’s left of their humanity — what the addiction hasn’t yet destroyed — their ability to be kind to each other — to connect. It’s the sometimes goofy conversations about every day stuff that show us these lost souls — the debate about whether “uncomfort” is a word, whether pot heads are more annoying than coke heads, and of course whether anything has any meaning at all.
This is a novel in which characters struggle to find a reason to go on living, yet it’s strangely life affirming. James has brought us Adam’s truth, and ultimately it’s our truth as well, one with which we all struggle and can identify.
I fell under the hypnotic spell of James’ prose when reading her first novel, Babylon — which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be available at the moment. (I hope it’s reissued soon,) Her second novel, The Dead Beat, is not a disappointment.
The Dead Beat is set during the summer of 1997 in and around San Francisco. Adam, a blocked writer and meth addict is our narrator. He lives in the usual squalor with his fellow-junkie friends. Not much happens. A comet comes and goes as do a couple of girlfriends and jobs. Resolutions are made and broken. It all leads somewhere, sort of.
But you don’t read James for her plots. You read her for the voice, the inimitable, bewitching rhythm that gets into your head and builds itself a home.
A writer to whom she’s arguably comparable is Flannery O’Connor though Bukowski might be a more obvious choice. O’Connor was famous for her Catholicism, and James is a self-avowed Satanist, but both are astute observers able to capture the human condition concisely. Both offer their characters (and readers) momentary glimpses of a greater truth — what O’Connor defined as “grace.” Neither is ever guilty of sentimentality, and both write in prose sharp enough to draw blood.
In The Dead Beat, James has the technical challenge of telling the story in the first person through Adam. She must filter her voice to fit him. It’s always a bit of magic when a writer can pull this off, whether it’s Samuel Clemens convincing us he’s Huck Finn or Nabokov masquerading as Humbert. Adam is probably more reliable than either of those two, but he’s still limited. — dead pan, shut down, often high, looking for drugs or in withdrawal.
The grace here is not heaven sent. If there is a greater power at work, it’s one that comes from community — however warped. Adam and his roommates care for each other as best they can. The transcendent is what’s left of their humanity — what the addiction hasn’t yet destroyed — their ability to be kind to each other — to connect. It’s the sometimes goofy conversations about every day stuff that show us these lost souls — the debate about whether “uncomfort” is a word, whether pot heads are more annoying than coke heads, and of course whether anything has any meaning at all.
This is a novel in which characters struggle to find a reason to go on living, yet it’s strangely life affirming. James has brought us Adam’s truth, and ultimately it’s our truth as well, one with which we all struggle and can identify.
December 7, 2010
How do you make a reader willingly and avidly read on about the lives of four house mates who are dragging themselves deeper into the dark depths of drug addiction? How do you make the reader care about these people and their black world even when described in all its horrific detail? Good writing with a solid voice and a cracking pace is the simple answer.
Cody James clearly knows what she is writing about and can portray the world of the falling apart without coming down on either side of the fence. She can tell you about Adam and his friends in graphic detail with humour and pain, but it is up to you to decide how you feel about them.
And feel about them you do. Adam, the main character, is heading for death and doing a very good line in self destruction. His friends Sean, Lincoln and Xavi are all gripped by the same addictions and sense of desperation. They each show it differently with Lincoln putting his hopes into a relationship that seems to have only remote prospects of lasting. Sean swings through bisexuality looking for satisfaction and Xavi trys to control his environment to bring some sort of sense of calm.
As Adam falls apart and takes his failings out on his friends and women he is involved with it would be easy to be turned off and hate the guy. But there is a part of you, perhaps all of us, that refuses to turn away until the light has completely gone out. You want to believe that Adam will sort himself out and recover some stability.
A few years ago now I stayed up late one night and watched a film with a young Michael Hutchence taking one of the main roles. Dogs in Space was the title, if I remember rightly, and it centered on a collection of misfits sharing a house and trying to find happiness. But excess and tragedy mar the group and it is a movie with a lot of self reflection and growing up in its tale. Had expected this to perhaps go in the same direction but liked the way James left the characters open to your interpretation.
Ultimately Adam and company could go either way. That is perhaps the greatest irony of drug addiction as so well portrayed by James that even until the end there is a chance of pulling out of the nosedive. Would Adam have done it? You would like to think so but this story pulls no punches and so you are well prepared to accept that he wouldn't.
Cody James clearly knows what she is writing about and can portray the world of the falling apart without coming down on either side of the fence. She can tell you about Adam and his friends in graphic detail with humour and pain, but it is up to you to decide how you feel about them.
And feel about them you do. Adam, the main character, is heading for death and doing a very good line in self destruction. His friends Sean, Lincoln and Xavi are all gripped by the same addictions and sense of desperation. They each show it differently with Lincoln putting his hopes into a relationship that seems to have only remote prospects of lasting. Sean swings through bisexuality looking for satisfaction and Xavi trys to control his environment to bring some sort of sense of calm.
As Adam falls apart and takes his failings out on his friends and women he is involved with it would be easy to be turned off and hate the guy. But there is a part of you, perhaps all of us, that refuses to turn away until the light has completely gone out. You want to believe that Adam will sort himself out and recover some stability.
A few years ago now I stayed up late one night and watched a film with a young Michael Hutchence taking one of the main roles. Dogs in Space was the title, if I remember rightly, and it centered on a collection of misfits sharing a house and trying to find happiness. But excess and tragedy mar the group and it is a movie with a lot of self reflection and growing up in its tale. Had expected this to perhaps go in the same direction but liked the way James left the characters open to your interpretation.
Ultimately Adam and company could go either way. That is perhaps the greatest irony of drug addiction as so well portrayed by James that even until the end there is a chance of pulling out of the nosedive. Would Adam have done it? You would like to think so but this story pulls no punches and so you are well prepared to accept that he wouldn't.
October 17, 2010
This is a brutally honest, humane, humorous account of life at the bottom of society's heap in 1997 San Francisco. Narrator Adam is a writer with a meth habit, a group of neurotic friends who increasingly infuriate him, and writer's block. His circle of acquaintances hang out, ponder, take substances, try to overcome addiction, and watching over everything is the approaching Hale-Bopp comet which stands as a powerful metaphor of their own indecision. They spend the book hoping the comet will be a deus ex machina that will somehow change their lives, will make the decisions they are incapable of.
What raises this book way above anything in the genre - it's the best since, and possibly including, Brett Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero - is the heady mix of pitch-perfect characterisation and sparkling observation. We find ourselves as transfixed as Adam at one stage by a speeding OCD teenager spending the whole night arranging his collection of buttons till he realises he's run out, and embarks on a desperate quest through night-time drugstores to find more buttons to organise. And this demonstrates the book's other great quality - its humour. Life may be the pits for these youths, but life at the bottom can be hunmorous - full of the tiny, terrufying, hilarious incidents that pepper truly great examples of this genre - such as the film La Haine.
Recommended on every level - a brilliant novel by a brilliant debut author
What raises this book way above anything in the genre - it's the best since, and possibly including, Brett Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero - is the heady mix of pitch-perfect characterisation and sparkling observation. We find ourselves as transfixed as Adam at one stage by a speeding OCD teenager spending the whole night arranging his collection of buttons till he realises he's run out, and embarks on a desperate quest through night-time drugstores to find more buttons to organise. And this demonstrates the book's other great quality - its humour. Life may be the pits for these youths, but life at the bottom can be hunmorous - full of the tiny, terrufying, hilarious incidents that pepper truly great examples of this genre - such as the film La Haine.
Recommended on every level - a brilliant novel by a brilliant debut author
January 9, 2011
The Dead Beat is set in 1997 San Francisco, under the ominous shadow of the Hale-Bopp comet on its 3000- year round trip. Narrated by Adam, a writer with writer’s block, a meth addiction, hallucinations and recurring nightmares about a moustachioed cockatoo, the frenetic energy of the language, style and sentence structure reflects the state he and his three best friends are in.
But despite their disintegrating relationships and circumstances, they retain their raw honesty and emotional sensitivity, and that’s what gives The Dead Beat its power. For at the heart of The Dead Beat, beneath the dirt, disease, ugliness, apathy, paranoia and bile that seems to surround them from every side, there is a dark beauty in the black humour, warmth and affection that the close-knit circle have for each other.
Combine that with pitch-perfect dialogue and it all adds up to one of the boldest, bravest and most original books I’ve read in a long, long time.
(Excerpt from full review of The Dead Beat at For Books' Sake)
But despite their disintegrating relationships and circumstances, they retain their raw honesty and emotional sensitivity, and that’s what gives The Dead Beat its power. For at the heart of The Dead Beat, beneath the dirt, disease, ugliness, apathy, paranoia and bile that seems to surround them from every side, there is a dark beauty in the black humour, warmth and affection that the close-knit circle have for each other.
Combine that with pitch-perfect dialogue and it all adds up to one of the boldest, bravest and most original books I’ve read in a long, long time.
(Excerpt from full review of The Dead Beat at For Books' Sake)
November 14, 2010
The Dead Beat treads similar philosophical ground to Generation X by Douglas Coupland, but in this case, the characters whose lives we get to share for a brief snapshot of time are a different breed from the middle-class, angst-ridden crowd to whom Coupland introduced us. James draws on her colourful past to show us a different side to life in San Francisco - one of burned-out twenty-somethings scraping by in dead-end jobs and dead-end college courses as they strive to engage their demons through mutual self-destruction. This brand of introspection is driven by a need to explore the limits of disconnection and dissatisfaction in near-contemporary American society, and it's this slant - this perspective that most readers cannot share - that renders the characters' interactions fresh and compelling. I was hooked from page one.
October 1, 2010
A great book perfectly capturing the struggles with the alternating madness and banality of life.
In some ways the banter and the quirks of the characters make it hard to see them suffer. But, that said… hey, it is only a book and the characters are very funny. Things like the throwaway lines about Morrissey or Munchausen’s had me laughing aloud: the dialog combines the exhausted humor of a night that never ends with the polish that a truly first rate writer brings.
The book leaves off with no particular conclusion, moral or solution. But life goes on. And that – and this book- is as marvelous as any comet.
In some ways the banter and the quirks of the characters make it hard to see them suffer. But, that said… hey, it is only a book and the characters are very funny. Things like the throwaway lines about Morrissey or Munchausen’s had me laughing aloud: the dialog combines the exhausted humor of a night that never ends with the polish that a truly first rate writer brings.
The book leaves off with no particular conclusion, moral or solution. But life goes on. And that – and this book- is as marvelous as any comet.
August 13, 2016
Awesome book. Such a shame it's out of print. This is a real rock'n'roll novel that makes compulsive reading. Reminded me of Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman for its sense of atmosphere and beautiful, honest prose. I can't recommend it enough - but as I say, it's almost impossible to get hold of a copy these days. In 2011 it was up for the Guardian's Not The Booker Prize and due to the overwhelming amount of positive reviews from bloggers there was an inevitable backlash from the literary community. A few harsh words were written and Cody James pulled the book to its current out of print status. Totally undeserved. This book could've, should've become a cult classic.
January 19, 2011
This is such an a-Maz-ing book. Read it! No, seriously, don't read this review - read The Dead Beat instead. Read it for a masterclass in pitch-perfect dialogue that just zings with life and sounds completely right; read it to see what it's like spending some time with a group of Meth-heads without having to take the stuff yourself; read it to see how their friendships can make a story about those who have lost direction, hope and their way in life an ultimately uplifting tale, despite the grim detail used to describe their lives as Meth users. This is just brilliant writing. READ IT!
October 22, 2011
Even though this book contains some interesting themes, it is possibly the most depressing book I have ever read. I found it very hard going. It describes in what becomes almost boring detail the ups and downs of drug users' lives. The characters are completely self-obsessed with nothing in their lives except the prospect of a messy death at the end of a miserable existence. If there is any lightness or humour in the story, I couldn't find it. If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be 'dreary'.
October 23, 2010
A great book perfectly capturing the struggles with the alternating madness and banality of life.
It's also funny. Things like the throwaway lines about Morrissey or Munchausen’s had me laughing aloud: the dialog combines the exhausted humor of a night that never ends with the polish that a truly first rate writer brings.
The book leaves off with no particular conclusion, moral or solution. But life goes on. And that – and this book- is as marvelous as any comet.
It's also funny. Things like the throwaway lines about Morrissey or Munchausen’s had me laughing aloud: the dialog combines the exhausted humor of a night that never ends with the polish that a truly first rate writer brings.
The book leaves off with no particular conclusion, moral or solution. But life goes on. And that – and this book- is as marvelous as any comet.
Read
March 1, 2011Cody James is Gen X lit; she captures the voice and experiences of a generation abandoned, and its hope for its future. This is Kids grown up.
March 9, 2011
A story about self-sabotaging meth addicts that manages to be at once painfully honest, defiantly hopeful, and laugh-out-loud funny.
September 5, 2014
This was absolutely amazing.
There is nothing else I can say, except go get a copy!
There is nothing else I can say, except go get a copy!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews