The Counselor by Cormac McCarthy

(pb; 2013: screenplay)

From the back cover

"In early 2012 it was announced that Cormac McCarthy had written his first original screenplay - news which provoked huge excitement, a swift deal and the appointment of Ridley Scott to direct. But this is no ordinary screenplay. This is a work of extraordinary imagination which draws on many of the themes of McCarthy's work as well as taking it to new dark places. It is also written with great descriptive passages counteracting the dialogue, so the reader is given the full experience of the McCarthy prose. It is the story of a lawyer, the Counselor, a man who is so seduced by the desire to get rich, to impress his fiancée Laura, that he becomes involved in a drug-smuggling venture that quickly takes him way out of his depth. His contacts in this are the mysterious and probably corrupt Reiner and the seductive Malkina, so exotic her pets of choice are two cheetahs. As the action crosses the Mexican border, things become darker, more violent and more sexually disturbing than the Counselor has ever imagined."


Review

McCarthy’s excellent and word-spare screenplay is not for those who like their reading optimistic and warm. Its characters are distinctly McCarthy-esque ─ often cynical and cruel ─  and their dialogue and actions are appropriately bleak, given the harsh, deadly realities that surround them. This is one of my favorite films of 2013, and reading this further confirmed my love of McCarthy’s stark writing and word-lean crime tales. This is one of the best pieces of writing I have read this year.

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The film, later retitled The Counsellor, was released stateside on October 25, 2013. Ridley Scott directed it.

Michael Fassbender played Counselor. Penelope Cruz played Laura. Cameron Diaz played Malkina. Javier Bardem played Reiner. Brad Pitt played Westray.

Rosie Perez played Ruth. Bruno Ganz played Diamond Dealer. Dean Norris played Buyer. Goran Visnjic played Banker. An uncredited John Leguizamo played Coverall Man Randy. Sam Spruell played Wireman.

Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins

(hb; 1974: republished as Killing Them Softly)


From the inside flap:

"Jackie Cogan's trade is central to [the underworld].  He is an enforcer.  He can be depended upon to 'handle' a problem before it gets out of control.  And when a high-stakes card game under the protection of the New England mob is heisted by unknown hoodlums, Cogan is called in.  Expert, businesslike, a shrewd detector of other people's weaknesses, he moves in ruthless and efficient ways among a variety of hoods, hangers-on, and big-timers: a compulsive gambler with a dangerous bad-luck streak, a thug who steals dogs, a once successful out-of-town hitman, a cunning lawyer representing the regional don, and a young punk whose 'professional' career as at a crossroads.  Until, finally, in an almost empty parking lot, with five consecutive shots from a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight Police Special, the situation is handled, and 'law and order' is restored."


Review:

Overly chatty crime novel with interesting characters, noir-veracious mood and genre-inevitable murders.

Cogan's Trade (or Killing Them Softly, its new title) is an okay read by a talented writer who  revels in giving his characters plenty of milieu-centric "voice(s)".  If  this novel were edited down to its plot-core dialogue and storyline, this would be an excellent novella.

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The resulting movie, Killing Them Softly, is scheduled for stateside theatrical release on November 30, 2012.

Brad Pitt played Jackie Cogan.  Scoot McNairy played Frankie.  Ben Mendelsohn played Russell.  James Gandolfini played Mickey.  Vincent Curatola played Johnny Amato.  Richard Jenkins played "Driver".   Ray Liotta played Markie Trattman. 

Trevor Long played Steve Caprio.  Max Casella played Barry Caprio.  Sam Shepard played Dillon.  Slaine played Kenny.

Andrew Dominik scripted and directed the film.

Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk

(pb; 2004: non-fiction)


From the back cover:

"Chuck Palahniuk's world has always been, well, different from yours and mine. In his first collection of nonfiction, Chuck Palahniuk brings us into this world, and gives us a glimpse of what inspires his fiction.

"At the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival in Missoula, Montana, average people perform public sex acts on an outdoor stage. In a mansion once occupied by the Rolling Stones, Marilyn Manson reads his own Tarot cards and talks sweetly to his beautiful actress [then-]girlfriend. Across the country, men build their own full-size castles and rocketships that will send them into space. Palahniuk experiments with steroids, works on an assembly line by day and as a hospice volunteer by night, and experiences the brutal murder of his father by a white supremacist. . ."


Overall review:

Exceptional collection of essays - charming, risible, sexual, alarming, touching and otherwise mood-effective, about, as Palahniuk notes in his introduction, lonely people "looking for some way to connect with other people."

Stranger is as incisive, subversive and insightful as his novels, and any reader familiar with Palahniuk's body of fictional work will likely see direct links between his nonfiction and fiction.

This is a book worth owning - not only that, it's a book that bears re-reading*, at a later time, especially for writers looking to hone their characterization, research efforts and overall appreciation for ink-craft.

[*For those not familiar with my reading bents, I rarely re-read books (except if it's for site review purposes, and even then, it's not that often).]


Standout essays:

1.) "Testy Festy": Public sex acts highlight a controversial get-together, the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival, in an otherwise conservative state.


2.) "Where Meat Comes From": Amateur wrestling, and its life-changing scars and results, are explored. Interesting study in an "underappreciated" sport.


3.) "You Are Here": Amateur screenwriters meet Hollywood pros, hoping to effectively pitch their ideas.


4.) "Confessions in Stone": The lives of three dedicated castle builders are explored - their successes and their failures, as well as their strange-for-modern-times learning (and castle-necessary) learning curves. (Echoes of this essay's facts can be seen in Palahniuk's novel Diary.)


5.) "Frontiers": Palahniuk experiments with steroids, with mixed results.


6.) "The People Can": Life on a submarine, in all its subversive-for-that-group nuances, is detailed.


7.) "The Lady": Palahniuk hosts a debunk-spooky-ghosts-bulls**t party in a supposedly haunted house.


8.) "In Her Own Words": Charming hang-out session/interview with Juliette Lewis.


9.) "Not Chasing Amy": Palahniuk, then an unpublished novel writer, attends Tom Spanbauer's writing workshop, where Palahniuk's education in craftwork is kicked up a necessary notch. One of my favorite entries in this collection.


10.) "Reading Yourself": Palahniuk interviews Marilyn Manson.


11.) "Dear Mr. Levin,": An open letter to Ira Levin, author of Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives and other entertaining, subversive works. This is another favorite entry in this collection.


12.) "Almost California": Palahniuk, visiting Los Angeles on book/movie business, has a small-scale, memorably disastrous day.


13.) "The Lip Enhancer": Palahniuk's lip plumping experiment goes wrong with amusing-in-hindsight results.


14.) "Monkey Think, Monkey Do": Subversive novels, Søren Kierkegaard's theories and man's propensity for destruction, self- and otherwise, are linked in an effective manner. Antoher one of my favorite entries here.


15.) "Now I Remember. . .": Hilarious, incisive take on memory, chihuauas and writing.


16.) "Consolation Prizes": Palahniuk writes about post-Fight Club popularity and ruminates about the sad and disturbing facts surrounding his father's murder.


Other essays:

"Demolition"; "My Life as a Dog"; "Why Isn't He Budging?"; "Bodhisattva"; "Human Error"; "Escort"; "Brinksmanship"

Less Than Zero, by Bret Easton Ellis

(pb; 1985: prequel to Imperial Bedrooms)

From the inside flap:

"Set in affluent Los Angeles, it is a raw and powerful portrayal of a generation of young people who have experienced sex, drugs, and dissatisfaction at too early an age. Its narrator, Clay, comes home to Los Angeles for Christmas vacation, following his first trimester at an Eastern college. Trying to make sense of the life left behind, he renews his ties to his old girlfriend, Blair; to Trent, a male model; to Rip, his dealer; and, most tragically, to Julian, Clay's best friend from high school, who has got into trouble with drugs. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the rich suburban homes, the relentless parties, the seedy bars, the glitzy rock clubs, and the seamy underworld of pornography and homosexual prostitution. . ."

Review:

Clay's stream-of-consciousness narration is a party-till-you-drop nightmare; his first-person present tense POV spans a month, seen through his melancholic, it-all-runs-together senses.

Clay, at eighteen, is at crossroads, like many of his friends -- whom he's felt distant from for years. He's directionless, caught between his deeply-embedded L.A. ennui/self-absorption and his emerging maturity, which has yet to reveal what direction or form it will take for him: between the glitzy boredom of soulless sexual encounters, constant drugs, rotting social bonds, and the blasé reactions of his friends (to daily, small scale horrors and tragedies around them), he's f**ked up.

Ellis's tightly-edited writing immediately immersed this reader into the shallow-life, frazzled mindset of his protagonist. Ellis sprinkles his narrative with shocking amorality and blink-and-you-miss-it cleverness, burying these smart-minded elements in a river of banality (usually conversations) and soundtracking it with an often provocative, takes-you-back Eighties soundtrack.

Check it out.

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The film version was released stateside on November 6, 1987.

Andrew McCarthy played Clay. Jami Gertz played Blair. Robert Downey Jr. played Julian. James Spader played Rip.

Anthony Kiedis, lead vocalist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, played "Musician #3" -- he's billed as Cole Dammett. Flea and Jack Irons, Kiedis' bandmates, played "Musician #1" and "Musician #4".

An uncredited Brad Pitt played "Partygoer / Preppy Kid at Fight".

Marek Kanievska directed, from a script by Harley Peyton.