104 Book Round Up #4

Shame The Devil by George Pelecanos
I'm a huge fan of modern detective fiction. When it's done well, as Pelecanos exemplifies, it can be moving, almost Shakespearean and a match for anything within the more revered literary genres. Pelecanos is well known for writing television's greatest series The Wire but his own works are well worth investigation. This is the final volume concerning Nick Stefanos, a Greek private eye with a liking for the bottle and a series of tough relationships. He's a classic character of noir but Pelecanos infuses the story with the same sense of righteous social anger and downbeat, everyman atmosphere of that incredible TV show. Its by no means a life-changing novel, but those looking to further investigate similar fare to The Wire should check out his wonderful oeuvre.


The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin
Songwriter and vocalist of the incredible Richmond Fontaine, Vlautin essentially just transposes the pain-blasted country rock narratives of losers, drunks and dreamers into prose for his debut novel. This story of two brothers and their small adventures around the American heartland, drinking, philosophising and waiting for something better to come along. Its a beautiful, downbeat story that will chime with lovers of Denis Johnson, Raymond Carver or John Updike but Vlautin never quite manages to capture the subtlety of those peers and their evocation of humanity at its most purely desperate. Still, its a sad, moving story that is well worth seeking out.


Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Hands down the best book I've read in the challenge so far. To sum this up in only a couple of lines is near impossible given the breadth of its scope and ambition. A reinvention and subversion of The Great American Novel, this story of a Greek family through their history just has everything you could ever ask for. Its intensely moving in places, as his perfectly formed, easily lovable characters go through the trials and tribulations of life. Callie, the narrator, is indeed a hermaphrodite, a genetic anomaly born in this case from incest. Its a great triumph that despite the two moments of incest within Callie's family, you never consider it wrong or irksome. It is likely the most romantic slice of incest I've ever read. But Callie's story takes far too many deeply human turns to ever concentrate purely on the incest or hermaphroditism. This is a stunning achievement, written in some of the most elegiac, elegant prose my eyes have ever consumed.