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Nobody Move
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. National Book Award–winner Johnson (Tree of Smoke) goes lean and mean in this slick noir, originally serialized in Playboy last summer. Jimmy Luntz, a chain-smoking, fast-talking addictive gambler, is in the hole several grand to underworld bad dude Juarez, and he knows his kneecaps have a date with a tire iron when enforcer Gambol nabs him in Bakersfield, Calif. But perennial loser Jimmy gets a lucky break when he escapes, having shot Gambol in the leg and taken off with Gambol's cash-fat wallet. Soon enough, he meets alcoholic vixen Anita Desilvera. She's barreling toward oblivion, having been set up by her prosecutor husband and a corrupt judge in a $2.3 million swindle. As Jimmy and Anita hide out and plan a caper to get the millions, Gambol and Juarez track down Jimmy and learn of the big money at stake. Fates collide in the brutal last act, and, naturally, not everyone makes it out alive. With its crackling dialogue and mercilessly bleak worldview, this stark and darkly funny chronicle of a four-way race to the bottom is a testament to Johnson's sublime sympathy for lowlifes. (May)
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From
So noir it’s almost pitch-black, this follow-up to Johnson’s National Book Award-winning “Tree of Smoke” concerns a lovable loser named Luntz—barbershop-chorus member, Hawaiian-shirt wearer, and inveterate gambler—who is in debt to an underworld bad guy. “My idea of a health trip is switching to menthols and getting a tan,” he tells Anita Desilvera, a beautiful Native American woman whom he beds after a boozy night out, and who has bad guys of her own to escape. Against a desolate Western background of shantytowns and trailer parks, the pair’s story plays out largely according to the genre’s dictates, with wisecrack-laden dialogue and evenly dispersed cliffhangers that are a legacy of the work’s genesis as a serialization in Playboy. But there are also moments of arresting lyrical beauty—a river’s swollen surface under a crescent moon “resembled the unquiet belly of a living thing you could step onto and walk across.”
Copyright ©2008
03/02/2010
, to name one of many.
So the end result here is a mediocre 2-star tale coupled with a very good 4-star narration. That averages out to a 3-star product that left me wishing that it could have moved me.
06/09/2009
Reads like a B-movie script. No depth or character development. Waste of time. Book is same as this review.
05/06/2009
Taut and spare, "Nobody Move" is a light year from the depth and complexity of "Tree of Smoke." Hats off to the versatility--one book like Joseph Conrad combined with Charles Dickens, the next out of the shoot like Elmore Leonard mashed up with Dashiell Hammett. On its own, "Nobody Move" is a pleasure if you like deciphering information from oblique dialogue and spare narrative. Your hand will not be held in terms of figuring out who's scamming whom. It's quirky and smart, maybe a bit of "Pulp Fiction" on paper.
"Nobody Move" is a thicket of f-bombs, tangled sheets, motels, bars, cigarettes, lipstick, pay phones, two Cadillacs, .357 Magnums, shotguns, duffel bags and pages and pages of that highly-polished, clipped dialogue that is ready for a screenplay and has precious little to do with the way people really talk. A direct answer is rare.
Recommended for fans of Denis Johnson and this particular hard-boiled genre. Not recommended for those looking for a meaty, rich story. The tension is minimal and the story is over in a minute.
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