January, 2009Brenda Bradshaw said... One thing I love about this book is the odd out-of-place shock value moments. The first one I came across was, "It would've been a hell of a nice place if not for the guy in the cage in the middle of the room." After that one, I read it mostly to read more of those kind of comments, and it kept its promise and delivered throughout the book.
Evil Editor said... That is a good line.
Dave F. said... I grew tired of the oddities cropping up everywhere.
Dave F. said... I was thrilled that the opening was his death but then as we got into the chapter, it got stranger and stranger
dana p said... I thought it got off to a great start. Knowing that the narrator was going to die, and come back to life -- presumably not as a zombie -- was what made me want to read the book... not that there's anything wrong with zombies...
Dave F. said... With the opening couple hundred words, I kinda had the hope that he would come back as a ghost and do the novel. I didn't expect him to visit the house of Bizarro and descend into the pit.
dana p said... Dave, I had high hopes for the House of Bizarro. But I was cruelly disappointed...
Evil Editor said... Back cover: In a genre where twisted souls and violence are the norm, Piccirilli's work stands out for how it blends these elements with a literate sensibility. Is this accurate, thriller readers?
Dave F. said... Accurate enough for back cover copy. But By the end, I felt cheated.
dana p said... Was it a thriller? More of a hybrid horror-thriller-something...
Brenda Bradshaw said... Yes, I think it's a thriller. It's along the lines of Koontz, which interestingly enough, this book is dedicated to him.
Evil Editor said... I chose the book because it won an award as best paperback original thriller of the year, and it opened and closed like a thriller. The middle wasn't thrill a minute, but maybe that's good. Thrill a minute doesn't often happen in real life.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Knowing what happens with Nuddin in the end, it makes me wonder at the motives of Mrs. Shepard at the beginning. She had the "family obligation" to keep Nuddin, but at the same time, knew it was best to keep him contained. What Flynn (and we) considered "abuse" -- in hindsight, it wasn't abuse. Maybe not the best way to handle someone like Nuddin, but her INTENT was well.
"You don't understand. We're protecting him."
"From what?"
"From the world. From temptation."
That's our first hint. HE doesn't need the protection. The WORLD does. It's a temptation to Nuddin. And it's so great she'll risk killing Flynn AND shooting at him even though he has Kelly with him in the car.
Does that make her as bad a person as we thought she was?
dana p said... I thought it made Mrs. Shephard a very STUPID person. Come on, lady, just spit it out. Don't hint. Of course, if she hadn't beaten around the bush, there wouldn't have been a book.
Brenda Bradshaw said... That scene also has a line I love:
Her mother holding a gun on a stranger couldn't rate all that high on the Holy Shit Barmeter if your own mentally handicapped uncle lived in a cage in your basement. Was that just another sign of practicality?" HA!
Dave F. said... She's completely nuts. Something unsaid made the father dial the CYS
Evil Editor said... I guess if you read a lot of mysteries, you like for the killer to be the obvious person occasionally and the least obvious occasionally, and someone in between most of the time. To me this was least obvious. I didn't mind Nuddin being one of the bad guys, but the ambulance driver?
Brenda Bradshaw said... That's because we can all relate to ambulance drivers. We've all experienced them, or know we may some day, and so they're REAL and what Peterson did as an EMT could be real. Nuddin... he's more of the fantasy.
Evil Editor said... It was more the feeling of coincidence that bothered me. The guy in the cage at the house collaborates with the guy who saves the narrator's life later that night.
Dave F. said... What's his name the hero, is so dysfunctional, I was surprised the police didn't start trailing him. Everywhere he goes dead bodies turn up... where were the police?
Brenda Bradshaw said... Flynn, and yes, they did tail him. They'd pulled off the tail four days before Florence was murdered in the theater.
Evil Editor said... It's not his fault some woman's head explodes while he's talking to her.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Laughs! EE! That's one of my favorite things of this entire book. The description of her head blowing apart like a flower blooming, having her guts in his mouth, getting CUTS from flying pieces of skull. The novel is worth reading just for that part there.
Evil Editor said... I wasn't sure what had happened. I thought maybe he imagined it till the next chapter started.
dana p said... The more I read, the less interesting & sympathetic I found the narrator. By the end, I neither respected him nor cared what happened to him. Kind of not the effect the author was looking for, I suspect.
Dave F. said... That's my reaction too, Dana. He was so damaged he wasn't sympathetic. I also didn't believe that the CYS official would house two damaged children at her house without psychological evaluation. She's taking care of damaged kids and she brings in more?
dana p said... And he was damaged because... his brother died painlessly in a car accident that was his own stupid fault. And it damaged the narrator soooooo badly. I don't know. I wanted to tell him to get over himself.
Brenda Bradshaw said...What did you think of Zero, the dog? And how Flynn saw tons of dead people, like his brother, Danny, and Patricia (Danny's dead girlfriend). I never really figured out WHY. It almost felt like a forced part of the novel without any real meaning behind it.
Dave F. said... He needed a stable friend to show off the normal world.
BTW - I thought the dog was an interesting device.
dana p said... About the dog -- it made me think of the dead guy in that Todd mystery series (sorry, can't remember the name). The one with the WWI veteran who hallucinates the soldier he executed. The dog device felt like it was "borrowed" directly from there.
Evil Editor said... As with movie thrillers, there are always things you find unbelievable, but did it keep you turning the pages? I read it a lot faster than I expected to.
Dave F. said... I did read this fast but the last few pages were agony. I lost any interest in Flynn. Maybe that because he never did seem to deal with his brother's death.
Brenda Bradshaw said... What role do the damn movies play? I got tired of hearing "film noir". What point was it? Was it just to give us insight into his character? The ONLY thing I can find is him selling his posters to fix his dead brother's car. The memory of his brother, the power that stupid car represents, is greater to him than his own interest/hobby.
Evil Editor said... Perhaps the author is into film noir. The About the Author (page 319) confirms he's into noir novels and cult films. As does the front of his web page. As a writer, you save a lot of research if you make your character be into the same stuff you're into. Write what you know. Flynn was an obsessive kind of guy. Movies and the car and his brother. Maybe you have to be obsessive to be good at a CPS job.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Then why did it take him 20 years to hunt down Emma? Was that like... Obsession through Denial?
Evil Editor said... He was a kid when he knew Emma. Not that he ever knew her.
dana p said... Emma! Poor, poor Emma. How are things going to go for HER, now that this crazy-a$$ guy has fixated on her & idealized her into something magical. Ugh.
Dave F. said... Brenda, I think he retreated into his own world after his brother's death. He just found it easier to have a huge pity party in his mind and never come to terms with the death. So he never spoke to anyone but he created the fantasy of getting his brother back by living with death and possibly dying.
dana p said... The more I learned about the narrator, the more self-pitying, and eventually pitiful, he seemed. Brenda, I thought the author had real talent. He made me laugh/snort out loud a few times too. I ran across a review of another of the author's books recently. (I'm not going to ready anything more of his.) It had 2 brothers with issues, and ANOTHER special-sacred car. The book, that is, not the review.
Brenda Bradshaw said... I don't really read thrillers, so I have no idea if this is a "good" one or not, in general. I MAY read something else by Piccirilli, but if it starts in with film noir and muscle cars and their "power", I'd pitch it against the wall.
Brenda Bradshaw said... I wish there'd been more interaction between Flynn and the shrink Moody (anyone else find that a hilarious name for a psychiatrist?!). It was sooooooo funny after the shrink's big long declaration and then he asked Flynn, "So tell me about your mother." Flynn's reply was too damn funny for words: Flynn hopped up, said, "Oh for the holy love of sweet baby Jesus Christ in a shit-strewn manger," and walked out.
dana p said... Brenda, I agree, that was one of the book's great moments.
Evil Editor said... In fact, that's one of the great lines/scenes in literary history.
Dave F. said... I agree with EE - Moody is one of the great scenes with that huge, wordy build up and then "About your mom?"
Brenda Bradshaw said...Also, the reporter, Jesse Gray, there was like this attempt of a relationship but it never went anywhere.
Evil Editor said...They did hit the sheets. That's not exactly nowhere.
Robin S. said... I agree - hitting the sheets is definitely somewhere. Or it can be, anyway.
Brenda Bradshaw said...I guess the romance writer in me wanted more out of that, and to see another side of Flynn past the muscle car and the movies but it never came about, so she ended up just being another reporter without a real purpose in the novel. If you take her out of any scene, the scene still stands. That's not saying a lot about her character. Brenda Bradshaw said... OH! Another thing I really, really disliked about this novel: Trevor. He's the kid who helps around Sierra's house and befriends Nuddin. His stupid "confession" that he wasn't abused; he just didn't want to MOW THE LAWN. GAH! No words. Just gutteral sounds of frustration inserted here. That was horribly anti-climatic to a stupid extreme.
dana p said... Brenda, the Trevor reveal was just one amongst a vast sea of non-credibilities by the time it came up.
Dave F. said... I thought the Grey newspaper character lost big when she kept pumping him for news stories and trying to sleep with him at the same time. Gee, I don't often call women bad names but she deserves one.
dana p said... I usually loathe it when the sexy young woman *cannot resist* getting in bed with the frumpy, unappealing middle-aged-narrator-stand-in-for-the-author. Kudos to this author for making it credible to me -- by creating the woman as such a messed-up, unappetizing, fundamentally boring piece of work herself.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Hi Robin! What's your take on MIDNIGHT ROAD?
Robin S. said... I'm on the fence about this one....precisely because the depression had no end game, as far as I was concerned. Just noir for noir's sake doesn't do it for me. Was anyone else depressed by this book, or did you all already say that?
Brenda Bradshaw said... It was depressing, Robin. I mean, I get the entire "Kill your darlings" as a writer. Throw more and more and more crap at them. Kill those they love, put them through hell, see how much they can take, etc. BUT! The purpose of that is to get a greater sense of RIGHTNESS by the end of the book, that they suffered for a reason, and found redemption/happiness/reward at the end. I didn't feel that at the end of this one.
Evil Editor said... When your main character's job is investigating child abuse, there're bound to be some depressing pages.
Robin S. said... Well, yeah, EE. Child abuse as a topic is horrific. But I felt like the darkness had no let up. Not that I expected Little Mary Sunshine to show up.
Dave F. said... I did like the noir tone but I felt cheated about the end. I like "redemption" and "resurrection" as an ending. Plus, everyone I know who's suffered a loss has come to terms with it, myself included.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Dave: I agree. I mean, Flynn is like the Epitome' of Denial.
Evil Editor said... I certainly hope no one comes to terms with it when they lose me.
dana p said... EE, I for one will be inconsolable. (Guess I'll just have to go first.)
Robin S. said... I would never get over it, so don't go anywhere, please.
Brenda Bradshaw said...And why did Sierra have to be a gunshot-to-the-face survivor for her role in this book? Her wigs and plastic surgery, the comment Flynn accidentally makes about "a gunshot to the face" and she's like "been there, done that"... AWKWARD MOMENT! I never understood what purpose having her all physically messed up meant for her character and the novel in general. If you take away her past, it doesn't affect the story aside from the car/gun being one of her ex's, but even so, it would have worked without her violent history being attached to it.
Dave F. said... I Agree Brenda, The story would have worked without her violent history being attached to it. Maybe she was too interesting a character? I know it's good to have interesting characters but should they all be so striking? That's a question for the author when creating the book.
Evil Editor said... It doesn't have to be important to the story when you give a character's background. Although wasn't it the metal plates in her skull that helped her survive the beating long enough to talk to Flynn?
Brenda Bradshaw said... EE: Yeah, something about the plates, I do remember but was it NECESSARY? We went through several parts where he'd talk about her plastic surgery, how it affected her smile/sneer, how her left eye hung lower, showing she was tired, etc. I think we could have had a "she had a plate in her head" to save her in that scene without all the other gore that made me and my incredible ability at visualization cringe whenever she came on scene. Seemed unnecessary to the story for me. Unless it's because he's always so vitally surrounded by extreme disaster -- even his boss's face.
Evil Editor said... Well, you can't just say she had a plate in her head after she survives. That's Deus ex machina. We have to know all about it in advance.
dana p said...
Somehow, killing Sierra in that grotesque way felt to me like cheating. Over-the-top. Like the author was going for a cheap shock, at the reader's expense.
Dave F. said... Sierra's death fit the rest of the story. The gunshot head, the chases in the snow, the car crashes... All the work of a madman. I think the author fell in writer's love with Sierra. I have characters like that. They are so easy to write and they are so vivid, too. I'm not saying they do any good to the story but that's a writer's love affair. I didn't mind Sierra's physical injury stuff.
dana p said... I guess I didn't buy the madman stuff. Maybe that's why it didn't work for me. The author just did not convince me with the Nuddin characterization.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Dana: I didn't see Sierra's death as over the top. I found her living description way over the top though. Her death almost had to be violent like that because of WHO killed her. It showed his strength to be able to do that much damage to someone like Sierra, who'd already seen/experienced so much. I found her described death more credible than her life.
Dave F. said...Am I the only one who felt unprepared for Nuddin being the villain? I did feel unprepared.
Brenda Bradshaw said... I wasn't surprised it was Nuddin. I mean, we'd been warned that they were protecting him from temptation. And, usually something like that comes full circle. It started with Nuddin so it ended up Nuddin. What I wasn't expecting with Nuddin, though, was the creepy intelligence underneath it all, but even THAT shouldn't have surprised me because it's stated he's Autistic, and we all know what brainiacs Austistic children are at the core of the shell they live in.
dana p said... I could see the Nuddin reveal coming. And -- I did not buy it. There were a bunch of credibility issues in this story, & that was probably the biggest for me.
Evil Editor said... I wasn't prepared for either villain, but the guy who saved Flynn's life? That's the one that got me. He happened to be driving the ambulance. He had nothing to do with the actual case.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Peterson did more than drive the ambulance. He was an actual EMT who saved Flynn. He had a huge God complex, which isn't surprising. We're used to seeing that in doctors, but who ever really thinks of the EMTs like that? I kind of liked that twist, but where does Peterson team up with Nuddin? At the initial scene when Flynn is dead for 30 minutes? That part never really registere with me, the two of them teaming up.
dana p said... I swear I've seen that EMT god-complex device used in fiction before. I have the power of life & death yadda yadda... Does that ring any bells for anyone else?
Evil Editor said... Evil Editor said... Possibly everything's been used in fiction by now. I guess Nuddin and Peterson were both there that night. Though I don't see them bonding under even good circumstances.
Dave F. said... At that level of manipulation, you don't need to bond, just connect and find the right words to get the person to listen. It's manipulative and creepy. LIke interrogations by the police. At the point Peterson admits his involvement is when we, as readers, should start to question who he had contact with. But maybe the author should hint at that, too. Perhaps, that's a missing line or a word in the book we should not reproduce.
Evil Editor said... True, if Peterson had an accomplice, it had to be someone who was there the night Flynn drowned.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Well, Nuddin and Peterson obviously met that first night at the wreck when Flynn "died". Nuddin had been in the car, helped to save Kelly by getting the window down, etc., so he'd still be there when the EMTs/cops got there and worked on Flynn. But that's so... "in passing". At what point did Nuddin see this supposed weakness/secret in Peterson to make him want to team up to torture Flynn? That's never explained and I really had assumptions.
Dave F. said... AS much as I analyze things, when I am reading or watching a movie, I tend to wait for the author to tell the story. I do not analyze for hidden motives and stuff like "Why is that mother crazy?" ... That's why I missed Nuddin. You had to say to yourself, why is that woman nuts. Could it be her autistic, naked idiot son/brother/incestuous sibling is really a brilliant savant and has driven her mad?
Sorry, not in my idea of a book to enjoy.
Robin S. said... I have to tell you, I skipped parts of this novel, which for a readholic like me, is saying something. Still, I felt huge empathy for the victims, and their hopelessness. It had many positives - for my taste, I think it could've been stronger with an occasional release from the underworld feeling I had when I read it, but the descriptions were quite evocative.
Dave F. said... It's a well written book. It's vivid and has good thrills. And I did finish it. But I just didn't connect with the main character. I liked many of the lesser characters, though. It was very modern and gritty - like an urban noir.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Okay, some more of my favorite lines from MIDNIGHT ROAD (yes, I marked them):
Sometimes you couldn't keep your dead dogs quiet.
Here it was, a retarded guy with drool on his chin telling Flynn he was stupid. (LOVE that one)
You could die a lot of dopey ways but being stabbed in a cage while wrestling a naked autistic idiot-savent split personality was way the hell up there. (This sums up the novel for me -- find the biggest impossible-sounding over-the-top thing and write a novel about it because you can, even if the novel doesn't really hold any sense of anything else.
And my personal favorite:
All families have secrets.
Sometimes it's you.
Brenda Bradshaw said... I'm glad I read this novel (twice even) and those kind of lines like I indicated above were all I really needed to flip the pages. I love his lines like those -- but then again, I'm kind of sick that way. It takes a lot to get shock-value over on me, but Piccirilli definitely did it.
Robin S. said... Brenda, That last favorite you listed was my favorite as well.
Brenda Bradshaw said... Robin: me too! It's definitely a statement which makes you sit back and say, "Whoaaaaaaaa... wait... ohhhhhhh crap..."
Maybe that's just me who had that reaction... I'll shut up now...
Dave F. said... I will give this as a gift to one of my friends and they will appreciate it. And I mean that. No irony, no satire, no silliness.
dana p said... Some good stuff: He does a good job of establishing mood. He knows how to get things off to a whiz-bang start.
Evil Editor said... I like the third one, Brenda. Glad you copied them, it reminds me that there was a lot of humor from the narrator.
Dave F. said... Brenda's right about his writing. It is really exciting and precise. It takes time and effort to craft sentences that stunning. That's hard work and Piccirilli does a good job of it.
BuffySquirrel said... *waves in passing*
Robin S. said... Yeah, Brenda, I liked it because said a lot without a bunch of explanatory fluff attached (and I do get the joke about how a woman who writes in long, long sentences would think that).
Brenda Bradshaw said... Thanks to everyone who participated and read this novel with me and taking time to come and post (waves to Buffy!). I've enjoyed the discussion and breaking the novel apart to poke around its bloody guts (and this one had a lot of bloody guts to explore!)
dana p said... Thanks, EE & Brenda.
freddie said... Damn. Just missed you guys. For some reason, no matter how well-written, thrillers always seem cliched to me.
