"Nobody Move", Denis Johnson

Taking this new novel out of the library early in the week, it was viewed as likely to be a diverting airplane ride read. It barely survived the trip. While of course Johnson can write, the story could at best be called a playful imitation of those noir crime novels filled with villians, lowlifes, and bullets. Really, the story is pretty much terrible. Having profusely, and honestly, praised "Tree of Smoke" over a year ago before it won the National Book Award, this comment reflects disappointment. Ok, some of the writing is good, but the story itself is not unlike many of those "True Crime" paperbacks with the exception of the fact that some of those are filled with humor until the latter parts of the books, the climax and denouement always requiring too much killing to put a light end to the party.

"Nobody Move" certainly has the killing. Most of the characters die. The ones that don't are doomed eventually, or as one is described, "just your typical solitary human wreck". Since reading the occasional offering of the noir crime genre is entertaining primarily because the genre itself has elements of self-parody, reading a parody of parody seems rather pointless.