Galveston: A Novel Author: Visit Amazon's Nic Pizzolatto Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1439166668 | Format: PDF
Galveston: A Novel Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Pizzolatto, author of the story collection
Between Here and the Yellow Sea, takes a hard-edged look at the stormy life of a compassionate criminal in his impressive first novel. On the same day in 1987 he's diagnosed with lung cancer, Roy Cady flees New Orleans, taking along Raquel Rocky Arceneaux, a pretty 18-year-old with a lurid past, whom he rescues from some hoods in the wake of a bloodbath. Rocky persuades him to stop in Orange, Tex., to pick up Tiffany, her three-year-old sister, and by the time they reach refuge in a rundown Galveston motel, 40-year-old Roy finds himself an unlikely father figure even as he struggles with a romantic attraction to Rocky. Pizzolatto's insightful portrayal of the heroic Roy, who takes a beating for trying to help the two girls, is rough and tumble real. As Pizzolatto switches smoothly between past and present, he vividly captures Galveston in all its desperate vulnerability as it faces the approach of Hurricane Ike in September 2008.
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--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
Pizzolatto, author of the short story collection Between Here and the Yellow Sea (2006), delivers a taut first novel suffused with a strong noir sensibility. Roy Cady is working as a strong-arm man for a low-level New Orleans gangster when two events change his life: he’s diagnosed with terminal cancer, and his boss puts out a hit on him. Soon enough, Roy and a young prostitute, Rocky—thrown together after a blood-spattered encounter with the would-be hit men—are on the run, traveling from New Orleans to Galveston. “Nothing ends well,” Roy muses at one point, and, of course, we know from the start that this road trip is on a collision course with disaster. The inevitable downward arc of all noir can bring a certain dreary sameness to the proceedings, especially if the writer paints his disasters by the numbers, but Pizzolatto builds tension by moving back and forth in time: we know it all goes bad, but we don’t know how. Add to that a writer with a real feel for the special poetry of noir, and you have a fine crime-fiction debut. --Bill Ott
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition (June 14, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1439166668
- ISBN-13: 978-1439166666
- Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
If you've forgotten why they call it "noir," it's time to read "Galveston," a blistering debut novel from Nic Pizzolotto that will whipsaw your emotions like a trip through a Gulf hurricane to reach the eye - a terrifying mystery edged with clever foreshadowing by way of parallel storylines twenty years apart.
Roy Cady is a 40 year old hit man for a second class New Orleans gangster, a gnarly mountain of a man who conjures the image of "Dog" from "The Bounty Hunter." On the same day he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, the chain-smoking, hard-drinking Roy is sent out on a new leg breaking mission that he suspects may have some extra twists of its own. It is there that he meets and is soon on the run with Raquel "Rocky" Arceneaux, an 18 year old hooker. Stopping along their flight from New Orleans, Roy and Rocky stop in Texas long enough to pick up Rocky's 3 year old sister. But if you're thinking this is sounding like the stereotyped whore-with-a-heart-of-gold tale where a sassy Julia Roberts-type breaks down the crusty outer layers of the hardened criminal to reach the mushy stuff inside - don't trouble yourself. This is about as sentimental as Cormac McCarthy - as far from feel good puff as doing hard time in Angola. Pizzolotto's cast is chainsaw-hewn from cedar swamp logs - rough and splintery with jagged edges and not much soft parts. He writes of the Gulf's seedy underbelly - of clam shell parking lots and busted beer bottles, broken down motels and the broken people that frequent them. Yet beyond the violence and grit there is a poignant and almost passionate tale - a searing lesson in human wreckage; a reminder that life is not fair and redemption is rare.
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