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It was Friday the thirteenth and yesterday’s snowstorm lingered in the streets like a leftover curse.
This was one of the books mentioned in Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell. I'd previously heard of it because it was adapted into a movie called Angel Heart which I've never seen but which generated a lot of media attention due to getting slapped with an X rating due, as far as anyone could tell, to a moderately explicit sex scene in which the actress was (gasp!) black.
Consequently, I had been long since spoiled for the general outlines of the plot. The book still held up very nicely, as 1) the overall plot is extremely heavily telegraphed anyway, 2) the actual pleasure of the book is less in surprises and more in prose and atmosphere. The prose, especially in the early parts, is absolutely delicious: horror by way of Raymond Chandler. Though every now and then it oversteps the thin line between the dark humor of noir metaphors and hilariously terrible metaphors, even then, the results are memorable:
Revelation hit me like an ice-water enema.
In 1959, private eye Harry Angel gets hired by the sinister and mysterious Louis Cyphre to track down the singer Johnny Favorite. Favorite had a meteoric pre-war rise to fame, then was severely wounded in WWII and supposedly was catatonic in a nursing home ever since. Only he's not in the home, and apparently hadn't been for some time. Angel, who was also severely wounded in WWII, tracks down Favorite's associates, only to find that they have a tendency to get murdered right before they can tell him more than cryptic hints...
All along the avenue, cotton candy stands, fun houses, and games of chance were tightly shuttered, like clowns without makeup.
Either this is the sort of thing you will like, or it is not. I bet by now you know which it is. I liked it a lot, though warning for racism of the "white teeth shining against black skin" variety. Also there is voodoo. I found that tolerable as the actual black characters all had their own agendas and motivations, and were as fleshed-out as the white characters; your tolerance may vary.
I breathed its fruity aroma and took a sip. The cognac slid like velvet fire across my tongue. I downed it in three quick swallows. It was old and expensive and deserved much better treatment, but I was in a hurry.
Falling Angel
This was one of the books mentioned in Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell. I'd previously heard of it because it was adapted into a movie called Angel Heart which I've never seen but which generated a lot of media attention due to getting slapped with an X rating due, as far as anyone could tell, to a moderately explicit sex scene in which the actress was (gasp!) black.
Consequently, I had been long since spoiled for the general outlines of the plot. The book still held up very nicely, as 1) the overall plot is extremely heavily telegraphed anyway, 2) the actual pleasure of the book is less in surprises and more in prose and atmosphere. The prose, especially in the early parts, is absolutely delicious: horror by way of Raymond Chandler. Though every now and then it oversteps the thin line between the dark humor of noir metaphors and hilariously terrible metaphors, even then, the results are memorable:
Revelation hit me like an ice-water enema.
In 1959, private eye Harry Angel gets hired by the sinister and mysterious Louis Cyphre to track down the singer Johnny Favorite. Favorite had a meteoric pre-war rise to fame, then was severely wounded in WWII and supposedly was catatonic in a nursing home ever since. Only he's not in the home, and apparently hadn't been for some time. Angel, who was also severely wounded in WWII, tracks down Favorite's associates, only to find that they have a tendency to get murdered right before they can tell him more than cryptic hints...
All along the avenue, cotton candy stands, fun houses, and games of chance were tightly shuttered, like clowns without makeup.
Either this is the sort of thing you will like, or it is not. I bet by now you know which it is. I liked it a lot, though warning for racism of the "white teeth shining against black skin" variety. Also there is voodoo. I found that tolerable as the actual black characters all had their own agendas and motivations, and were as fleshed-out as the white characters; your tolerance may vary.
I breathed its fruity aroma and took a sip. The cognac slid like velvet fire across my tongue. I downed it in three quick swallows. It was old and expensive and deserved much better treatment, but I was in a hurry.
Falling Angel
