Book Review: Iraqi Icicle and The Second Father
Guest post by Ian Curr
WITH the current surge of audiobooks here are two unlikely bedfellows in popular writing. Both books are set in Brisbane during the bad years of the Bjelke-Petersen government. I know both the authors Bernie Dowling and Domenico Cacciola. We lived in the same district of Fortitude Valley and New Farm during some of that time.
The protagonists in the books are on opposite sides of the law. Both had fascinations for horse racing, illegal gambling, corruption, political police, sex, drugs, and prostitution. Iraqi Icicle is neo-noir fiction and The Second Father is a memoir. Step aside Andrew McGahan’s Last Drinks – they say Queensland is another country; if so, these authors help redefine the streets of your town.
GORE Vidal biographer Jay Parini reckons Hard Case Crime has done the world a disservice by publishing this 1953 pulp novel written under a pseudonym. Hard Case claims to have discovered a lost novel by Vidal but that’s a bit of a stretch because the author expressly forbade its reprint during his lifetime. Wisely so,
Like Phillip Marlowe’s manners, Thieves Fall Out is pretty bad. Bland is the best word to describe the finished product which even the publisher concedes was cobbled together from the pages of tabloid newspapers. Vidal biographer Parini, writing in theGuardian, says the author would have turned this novel out in a few weeks. It shows.
FOR PETE'S SAKE
THE main protagonist Peter Wells is not seedy nor desperate nor quippish enough for good noir. For Pete’s sake, Vidal calls him Pete for most of the novel. A Pete does not have his life constantly in jeopardy and does not win the femme fatale. Speaking of femme fatale, Helene with accents above the first two e’s does not evoke Bacall or Ida Lupino and her English henchman fails to channel a sinister whisper of Sidney Greenstreet.
OF course you could pay $60 for one of the second-hand copies of the pulp original. What I do not understand is why the original would have the words “not a reprint” on the front cover. As always, buyer beware.
GORE VIDAL BLACKLISTED
Vidal in 1948
THE background to Vidal writing Thieves Fall Out was his effective blacklisting by publishers and critics after his 1948 novel The City and the Pillar had a central homosexual relationship, not portrayed with the homophobia required of mainstream literature.
Spurned by the literary establishment, Vidal put out three crime pulps under the name Edgar Box and they proved quite lucrative. Vidal thought enough of them to lend his real name to reprints (1978, as a box set actually.)
VIDAL thought little enough of Thieves Fall Out to suppress its reprint under any name.
Given the hostility to The City and the Pillar, you have to wonder why Vidal chose to make one of the deadliest villains a homosexual. The man tries to rape Pete who also learns that homosexuality was rife in the Arab world. I doubt if Vidal researched this. It certainly presents in the novel as stereotyping, an essential element of homophobia.
WITH the release of the Jay Parini biography, there will be comment on whether Vidal was a self-loathing gay though such discussions, whether based on race, religion or sexuality, soon become entangled. It is quite feasible that Vidal, knowing that homophobia was a staple of pulp fiction, cast his nemesis in that role as an acerbic reflection of the establishment reaction against The City and the Pillar.
Vidal appears respectful of the Moslem (sic in the novel) religion.
The ban on alcohol and the use of hashish are both mentioned. Vidal uses the word courier in reference to drugs. I wonder if this was in the 1953 original or whether it was a re-edit. The book could have done with a preface explaining if there were re-edits. An epilogue explaining the genesis of the novel and the politics in Egypt would also have been handy.
DOWNFALL OF FAROUK
Hedonist King Farouk 1948
THE novel is set in the time (1952) of the military overthrow, with the help of the CIA, of the Egyptian ruler King Farouk. Vidal depicts Farouk as a womaniser and a Nazi sympathiser both of which were undoubtedly true. He also paints him as a tyrant which is less provable but he only vaguely alludes to his extravagant lifestyle which led to Farouk's loss of popularity.
I was hoping Farouk would re-enter the novel towards the end. Alas not, we only see the King in a cameo at the beginning when he struts his stuff on the dance floor.
Vidal will be remembered for his historical novels Julian, Washington D.C., Burr and Lincoln among a body of work which included essays, plays and screenplays. Thieves Fall Out is not among his serious historical-fiction.
I would certainly encourage anyone interested to buy the eBook. To my mind further expense to read this pulp novella of seven chapters would be foolish.
WE have all done it. Find a book
from one of our fave genres and we are ¼ the way through but it hasn’t grabbed
us. It’s the Least Favourite Jelly Bean Color Syndrome
We are consuming our least- favourite- color-jelly-bean book
and contemplating putting it aside. It is after dinner and we might put it aside
and we might move on to social media or even television. Just one more chapter.
What happens when a mature-age woman discovers that her best friend, her workplace, her daughter and finally her lover all begin to think of her as old?
What a shame this is the last one in the series! I really like this author’s style. Her characters are ‘real people’ – what they think, what they say, how they feel. The descriptions of the locales make you feel you are actually there. And the story line is not just real-world but allows me, the reader, to use my own imagination to add to the content – one of the qualities I look for in books.
Trudy, the heroine, is starting a new life – following her passion, I suppose, and immediately meets situations that key in to her special abilities. Danger, nastiness, evil but also friendship, caring and protection. The full spectrum is here. I must be changing into an old romantic (something for which I blame Trudy and her powers!!!)
There have to be more in this series, Ms Sharp.
Vision IV: The Reluctant Psychic Blooms is available from
Before I introduce our song, I would like to share some amazing sculptures from World War I soldiers. These photographs were release to coincide with Remembrance Day, November 11, this year, commemorated by Commonwealth countries.
Now for our song which references both Jane's book and war.
This is not the book I am offering FREE for reviews
but mine is the same shape
I HAVE had a few modest sales of my Old-Child (OC) anthology Naughty Nineties Volume 1 and now I need some reviews.
As I write this, I see where
Veronica Roth has garnered 9595 reviews for her Hunger Games knock-off Divergent. That number 9595 is obviously the
bench mark so I am aiming for 7 reviews.
Read on to see how you can be one of
the magnificent seven.
A.G. Chambers
is a young author resident in New Zealand and her first novel Jaded Rein is a cross-genre
piece which for convenience I have labelled dystopian fantasy. You have come
this far you might as well read my review.
I HAVE read three or four Patterson novels, all
hand-me downs rather than bought. The latest is Loss of Innocence, a cliched
title but we will let that pass.
Bent Banana Books has all its titles at BewdifulBargainBasement prices this festive season starting with Bernie Dowling’s neo-noir novel Iraqi Icicle at .99c.
Check back
regularly at www.bentbananabooks.com.au click on books in our gallery and see what
bargains are on offer.
The Iraqi Icicle
eBook bargain begins on December 7 at Amazon US. Your copy for Kindle is a few
clicks and .99c away. The promotion
begins at Amazon UK on December 8 for £.99.
Australian author
Bernie Dowling applauds this promotion.
“I am pleased
Amazon and Bent Banana Books have made Iraqi Icicle available at the eBook
price of .99c,” Dowling said from his home
north of Brisbane.
“I created the novel as a deliberate challenge for the reader with a headache from the sugar-hits
of formula thrillers. Now,
people can read the eBook to decide which friend would appreciate the paperback
for Christmas."
He said the
correct answer to what is an Iraqi icicle was find out for yourself.
XXXXXXXXXX
I have not blogged here for quite some time so I am not sure if you are out there. Helloooow! Helloooow! Anybody there?
Any way, if you are out there, you know the drill. We finish with a song. As this post is about a neo-noir novel this one is appropriate. The video is a cultural atrocity but the song is cool. Cheers, Bernie.
FREDERICK
Lee Brooke could be creating a new literary sub-genre – the relationship thriller.
Like all good thrillers, Collateral
Damage crackles along at a merry pace while the reader eagerly awaits the denouement
of Annie Ogden’s entanglements with three men.
Glenda A. Bixler is the latest reviewer of my novel Iraqi Icicle.
Glenda writes she had never heard
of the band The Go-Betweens which is a regular motif in the novel. Ms Bixler
went to the trouble to present a Go-Betweens sampler which heads her review.
Ladies and gentlemen, please
put your hands together and give a big shout out to our guest reviewe,r Glenda
A. Bixler.
I TRY
not to trouble myself unduly with matters of commerce.
For
five days next week, I am giving away my enovel Iraqi Icicle. I do this not because I think it makes a lot of
commercial sense but because others tell me it does.
It
seems the Amazon algorithms will discover me this way.
RUSSELL Brown is an Aussie newspaper photographer.
He
and I have worked on the same newspapers, the Pine Rivers Press and the Northern
Times for more than a decade and we live in neighboring suburbs in the
Pine Rivers district of Australia.
Because
he is Australian, Russell has been honored with the nickname, Rusty.
This is the second I
have read in the series with reluctant spy Rudi Flynn at its centre.
Like Weimar Blues, Dark Clouds easily stands alone as Flynn is once more conscripted
into the secret service of Britain, and, for good measure, the United States,
this time round.
This novel has the
30-something American-born and raised, English resident, Flynn, still pursuing his alcohol and drug fuelled journalistic
career. We discover some of the reasons why he is pretty much washed up
professionally by the time of Weimar Blues.
The trademark comedy
is still here, especially in the amusing thoughts the somewhat aimless Flynn is
reluctant to express in words.
At its core, the novel
is as dark as the title, cover graphic, and plot suggest. Flynn is enlisted to
help his president and her majesty when rumours surface that Islamic terrorists
are plotting to explode a nuclear device in Britain.
There are some quite
harrowing scenes in which Flynn is present but either powerless or unwilling to
intervene.
The
person-in-the-street commentary throughout the book works well though the
anti-multiculturalism rhetoric outweighs more liberal voices. It is obvious the
views of send-`em-back to-where-they-belong are not those of the author but
included to show a common sentiment in most western countries.
The powerful message I
took from this book is that authorities from Islamic and Christian nations do
evil things while flawed but good people look on.
If you have an
interest in world affairs, a liking for bleak humour, and a reasonably strong
stomach for violence, this book is for you.
For our musical accompaniment, let's hear from some clouds which were not dark at all.
This review is from: Iraqi Icicle 2nd edition (Kindle Edition)
"Iraqi Icicle" is definitely not your average run of the mill crime drama. Oddly, there are very few categories where a book could be listed that I can't imagine this fitting in some way or another. While this book does have a hefty dose of profanity, there were times when I felt it added to the story and other times when it made me laugh.
This is a hard book to describe without accidentally giving something away as there is so much going on underneath the cover. Steele Hill is a character that I felt had the correct amount of inner turmoil and personality that made him not only fun to read, but memorable. There were some good secondary characters in this book too, but Steele definitely steals the show. This author certainly has a sense of how to keep his reader in suspense. This book deals with some hardcore subjects, but I thought the author did so in a way that made it exciting to read.
This book is gritty and a little dangerous and if you are in for a seat of your pants kind of ride this might just be the thing. Be careful though, I have warned you that this is not your grandma's fireside novel!
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