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2011, Scribner
INTERVIEWS, BLOGS, AND SUCH: The Good and the Ghastly is represented by agent Adrienne Rosado of Nancy Yost Literary
Agency. |
THE GOOD AND THE GHASTLY (A
Novel) It's the
thirty-fourth century and the nuclear apocalypse has come and gone.
Civilization has rebuilt itself, and the results are eerily similar to the
early part of the twenty-first century. But there are a few notable
differences. Visa owns everything. Deer are the most common domesticated
animal. And misinterpretations of preapocalyptic
history run amuck (e.g., Sarah Palin established the theory of natural
selection). But what hasn't changed is the nature of good and evil. The Good and the
Ghastly centers on two people linked through violence. Mobster Junior Alvarez
has risen from street thug to criminal overlord. He will go to incredible
lengths to get what he wants—and he desires to live however he pleases,
without compromise. The intensity of his quest is matched only by that of the
mother of one of Alvarez's first victims. She has gone vigilante and is
hunting down mobsters. The two are prepared to go to the ends of the earth to
manifest their wills—one good, one ghastly, both ruthless. A wild satire of
our own society, The Good and the
Ghastly is a visceral novel informed by Boice's
unnerving sense of reality and pathology. It is also an honest, old-fashioned
good-versus-evil story—with a twist of modern-day madness. Ò[The
Good and the Ghastly] is [a] great [book]Éthat speak[s] broadly to what
we want from a novel, and more specifically to what we should demand from
emergent writers — reformulation, reinvention — something new
about the world beyond themÉ. The conflict between a rising gangster and a
vigilante mother who pursues him is open and epic in its curve. The prose, ringingly clear, sometimes maddeningly flat, is always
well footed. As in his first novel, MVP, about a basketball star with
a striking similarity to Kobe Bryant, Boice deals a somewhat slight, often
sly variation on the world we live in now, so that even the money we spend on
it may be a kind of ticket to a half hell we're reading about. It hasn't
happened yet, but the book lives.Ó —Tom Chiarella,
Esquire ÒWickedÉThe kind of towering bildungsroman-cum-crime
fiction carnival that is both entertaining and well-craftedÉ James Boice,
quite the contrarian, has conjured a brutal, sharp diamond in the literary
rough. The Good and the Ghastly feels
fresh and urgent while culling themes as old as the Bible and as zeitgeist-y
as The Sopranos: the neo-noir crime epic.... A pulpy piece of work
that is contemporary and allusive. It's enough to satisfy readers in need of
instant gratification as well as those less ravenous who prefer to sip and
savorÉ At once, The Good and the
Ghastly deserves the literary fiction crown and yet, it is also, in its
own right, a piece of glorious trash. It is ugly and sensational, yet Boice
is an evocative writer who knows what he's up to.Ó —Ryan Lattanzio,
San Francisco Bay Guardian ÒBoiceÉis a stylistic ventriloquist,
combining biting satire and blistering scenes of violence with a fondness for
rare words (Òluciferous,Ó ÒrejectamentaÓ)
and a rugged lyricism that makes his writing hard to classify and harder
still to forget.Ó —Drew Bratcher, Washingtonian ÒAmped-upÉ. [The Good and the Ghastly] follows post-apocalyptic predecessors
like Walter M. Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz"
in dramatizing man's genius for misconstruing history and compulsively
repeating destructive mistakes. But mostly the book's thrills lie in the
savage exploits of Junior and Josefina and in the promised collision of an
unstoppable force with an immovable object.Ó —Sam Sacks, Wall
Street Journal ÒHilarious and fucked up to the max;
Boice invents a whole other methodology of existence; a town in here called Walmart, Ohio; show called Television Show; champagne
called Expensive Champagne; uses one of its epigraphs in a really interesting
way; great.Ó —Blake Butler, author of There Is No Year, HTMLGiant "Beyond the muscular brilliance of Boice's language lies a deeply penetrating tale of a
near-America as scary and heart-wrenching and decent as our own. The Good and the Ghastly holds a
mirror up to contemporary society then smashes through it with breathtaking
force. I couldn't put it down." —David Goodwillie,
author of American Subversive ÒFinding James Boice has been a
revelation for me. His hard-bitten prose flies off the page at you like
the cracking of a machine gun, and he infuses this violent, gritty and
fast-paced novel with enough subtle satire and unexpected weirdness to keep
you riveted right until you flip the final page.Ó —Tony OÕNeill, author of Sick City and Neon Angel ÒJames BoiceÕs
tale of the fearsome future—and the life of a sadistic striver named
Junior Alvarez—is harrowing, heinous, and brilliantly imagined. Boice
writes with jagged energy and a rollicking dark wit. From the opening lines,
his story pulls like a train.Ó —Lew McCreary, author of The Minus Man ÒLike a
literary Magic 8-Ball. Ask it questions, shake it up, and watch the
novel's playful, hilarious, and terrifying hallucination of our future.
From one smuck-up to another, you'll be hooked by
the beautiful beating heart propelling this romp's incredible energy.Ó —Joshua Mohr, author of Termite Parade ÒThe
Good and the Ghastly is the hallucinogenic fever dream of
contemporary satire. Alternately brutal and lyrical, it field-dresses
everyday being with poetic violence. A decidedly necessary addition to
post-millennial literature.Ó —Darin Bradley, author of Noise ÒBloody and bloody funny, James Boice's at once coolly objective and deeply human writing
does the dystopian novel like no other. The Good and the Ghastly reads like
Cormac McCarthy executing a Kurt Vonnegut premise through a Joan Didion filter. An original, in other words.Ó —Andrew Pyper,
author of Lost Girls and The Killing Circle ÒJames
Boice brings the prose as hard as his characters bring the fierce in this
post-apocalyptic battle story. A true original, Boice knocks it out of
the park again.Ó —Elizabeth Crane, author of You Must Be This Happy To Enter "James
Boice's sentences crack like hot electric bullwhips
across the backs of America's demons. By head-spinning turns arresting,
violent, outraged, pointilistically detailed,
tender and gut-busting hilarious, The Good and the Ghastly dances
across a dystopian future in a mash-up of genre hooliganism and the inventive
glee of literary madness. A page-turning adventure like none you've ever
taken." —Christopher Ransom, International Bestselling Author of The
Birthing House and The People Next Door ÒI donÕt know why [James Boice] doesnÕt
get more attentionÉ. Junior is a great character. HeÕs despicable from a
young age, seducing minors and busting heads. He believes he is destined for
greatness and the shame he feels at his back-door status is palpable and the
motivation for the swath of violence he unleashesÉ. The Good and the
Ghastly is a detached view of a killer, with all his charms and warts,
building an empire and chased Javert-like by feds
and vigilantes. James Boice is as good as ever hereÉ. HeÕs gritty and
reflective, twistedly funny, and his sentences are as sharp as ever. A
fearless, unrepentant book of a fearsome futureÉ.Ó —Jason Chambers, Three
Guys One Book ÒThe
Good and the Ghastly couldnÕt have been published at a more opportune
time. Besides riding the wave of post-apocalyptic (or in this case,
maybe more accurately post-post-apocalyptic) fascinationÉitÕs also
important that The Good and the Ghastly was released around the same
time that Whitey Bulger was locked-up. É This novel
is just as, if not more, necessary than any true-crime, shocker biography
about Bulger. É The
Good and the Ghastly isnÕt only timely and interesting and necessary.
ItÕs also brave.Ó —Scott Beauchamp, Full
Stop ÒThe Good
and the Ghastly is a regionalist sci
fi novel--the first of its kind, as far as I know--with the ruthless
determinism of the gangster genreÉ Boice's two
greatest strengths are on full display in The Good and the Ghastly:
his language and his feel for a place both immediately recognizable and
deeply mysterious.Ó —Richard Prouty,
One
Way Street Ò[The
Good and the Ghastly] is a book
about the brutality of the human spirit, the desperate, clawing side that
will always lurk in us no matter what era we live in. It's a book about
violence and power and revenge and what they do to us, packaged in a
compelling crime story artfully told by one of the most magnetic voices in
modern fiction.Ó —Matthew Jackson, A
Walrus Darkly "Boice's
view of our present and probably future world is grotesque, depressing, and
exactly right. He's ruthless in exposing the wrongs we choose to collectively
ignore. But his relentless, addictive sentences find the exposed humanity in
even the most inhumane people, and the reason we keep going through all the
savage stupidity and greed: For all its horrors, life is also very funny." —Tim Molloy, TheWrap.com, author of How to Break Bad News ÒThe Good and the Ghastly may be the most
fun book I have read all year, which may sound like an odd thing to say about
a dark and often violent satireÉ.Ó —Largehearted
Boy, Largehearted Boy ÒThe Good and the Ghastly is a
gritty, harsh look at what happens when humans refuse to lie down and play
dead. Part Palahniuk's Fight Club,
part Burgess's Clockwork OrangeÉ.
This book is like one swift, bloody kick to the head.Ó —Lori Hettler,
The
Next Best Book Blog ÒMaybe figuring out where weÕve really
been will let us know where weÕre going; what the future will bring is such a
pressing concern, but what we donÕt know about the past seems just as vast.
Jump way ahead: not decades from now, even farther–farther than you can
really comprehend. ItÕs 3348 AW. Things have failed, horribly, and have
started over; or, repeated. EverythingÕs just a little different; we
certainly havenÕt learned much. Or, weÕve learned it all and weÕre still
utterly human. Still linked to the battle of good and evil. Still two-faced
and egotistical and horny and afraid. People have deer instead of dogs. And
so, something about this is calming–reassuring–we make the same
mistakes over and over; eventually we make progress, but itÕs slow, and we
have to be reminded. WeÕre selfish and scared, always. ItÕs what drives
everything. WeÕve got desire to live, maybe thatÕs the only reason we last.
But we should stay in check. We should reexamine who we have on pedestals;
because in this new world, Sarah Palin and Stephen King and Bob Dylan are the
ones remembered, and not in exactly the right ways. ThereÕs always
fear when your life is changing.Ó —Micah Ling, Book
Punch Reviews ÒThe
Good and the Ghastly is an engaging satire that rips into twenty first
century values by extrapolating how the future will look at this era of phony
hypocritical compassion.Ó —Harriet Klausner ÒThe title might suggest zombie cowboys,
but The Good and the Ghastly is some serious shitÉ. ItÕs a smart
rampage for the strong of stomach.Ó —Kevin Sullivan, Dig
Boston ÒDark and terrifying and realistic and
also a little hilarious. You might not have heard of James Boice, but you
will soon, because he writes the kind of books that grab you, punch you in
the face, make out with you, bake you a plate of cookies, then for good
measure, kick you in the gut. But in a good way.Ó —Robin Wasserman ÒBoice is a monster.Ó —Weston Cutter, Corduroy Books
ÒKnocked me out.Ó —Caroline Leavitt ÒSkillfully rendered in poetic and
compelling language, so beautiful that the reader is swept along in spite of
the bestial and psychotic nature of the one and the awful pain of the other.
ÉAchieves great heights in the poetic rendering of the inner lives of these
two profoundly disturbed characters.Ó —Bill Brody, MostlyFiction Book Reviews |
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