Before getting into the return of le doc ... we at TK feel a need to address the Devils victory over the Rangers last night in Newark. TK has little to say except the following: Fuck hockey and Go Bills!
Now, the Doc is back!
For those unfamiliar with us here at TK (Temporary Knucksline), we’re a non-profit (boy are we non-profit) equal opportunity annoyance, but we do our best to amuse and promote as many of the arts and artists as we can. Included in our policy of equal opportunity annoyance is giving voice to a terrific writer and all around ball-breaker, Jim (Doc) Nyland. Somewhere right of Ghengis Khan, he’s been on a drinking sabbatical of late (yeah, no shit?) ... but today he’s back (to haunt me and Obama ... and I don’t even like Obama) ... here now, the Doc (his email to me last night):
So what’s happening, bro? I missed you.
It’s always nice to take care of the pleasantries up front.
I go away for a weekend of soul searching and perhaps some light cocktailing and return five months later to find this!
TK is covering literature and HOCKEY. Pray tell, what market are you shooting for… Toronto librarians? Granted they are a polite bunch and generally disease free, but unless you can somehow weave Wayne Gretsky into the narrative of the five New York crime families your book sales are going nowhere with this.
It’s only May, but the Bamster is in full campaign mode. He’s out there selling his wares like a Dublin hooker on the week before Lent and TK is covering hockey games!!!
I also noticed that you are getting prepared for your Summer solstice with a bevy of college co-eds on the deserted island of NoTellMotel, Maine. One of these days you have to explain how you get this to fly with the Principessa. I once suggested it as a way to improve my literary skills to my betrothed, the Ayatollah, and within seconds I was ducking sharpened steel faster than a shrimp at a sushi shack.
I have more on my tiny brain, but I thought I would keep it short after my recent sabbatical. Besides you have no idea the racket keyboard keys make when dealing with a five month hangover.
And how about a tune that was not written before they invented soap.
Bagged: The Line-Spacing Felon ... It looks like the ugly Knuckster will doing one more perp walk before the year is out. Last week I was bagged and tagged by my MFA mentor, Jessica Anthony ...
Each month we have to submit 30 pages of new fiction for analysis/comments/edits, etc., and while some might try and S-T-R-E-T-C-H what they produce, the ugly one understands the value of a buck (i.e., tuition) ... Originally Jessica thought I had used 1.5 line spacing, but that would’ve been too easy to catch. I used EXACT line spacing instead (you can cheat even more this way) ...
I usually get away with 2-3 extra pages per submission with my word processing skills (line spacing and solitaire I’m really good at) ... but this time, figuring it was our last submission of the semester and I was kind of on a writing roll, I squeezed some extra extra text in there ... when double-spaced (the way they’re supposed to be submitted), the total felonious assault on poor Jess’s eyes turned out to be 7 extra pages (37 in total).
She’s got a gift (my friends) ... She saw that there was something I was trying to do and she figured that out ... God bless her, she’s got a fuckin’ gift ... She’s good ... she’s very good.
Now I can consider shutter island my sentence ... not being a slave to fashion, I’m not sure what I can wear ...
The Angry Editor … boy has the Principessa Ann Marie come a long way. No longer content to offer manuscript suggestions to the ugly one (moi), she now hurls them my way (with attitude).
She started the first round of edits on the Jimmy Mangino (Shutter island/MFA crime novel) novel and said, “I have a lot of problems with this … that … and the other thing.”
Madonna mia, she’s become Editorstein!
I’ll be rewriting Jimmy Mangino according to the boss’s “suggestions” starting this weekend.
Saturday we’ll be having lunch with Corky and Dana King at casa Stella. Good timing, too … the wife has hired a new landscaper to try and make our barren front yard look like the rest of the lawns in Fords. It was up to me, there’d be one neat looking concrete slab with a park bench, water fountain and card table out there instead. Lunch will be much better than the lawn, that’s for sure. We got lots of eye-talian stuff coming from our favorite Pork Store ... and some sfogliatelle and cannoli ...
A very cool side benefit for me (with Dana) is learning hockey; he’s a genuine fan, I’m a novice. Co-worker Sue Bennett gets the bulk of the credit for getting me to watch the Rangers at the start of the playoffs (and I haven't missed a game since) ... it’s a great sport (especially during the playoffs) ... hopefully the Rangers will recover from the deveastating loss the other night (their best game of the playoffs thus far, except King Henry had an off-night and we seemed to run out of gas with six minutes left in the third period.
Dana has a new novel out on kindle, Worst Enemies. I had the pleasure of reading this one a few years ago and it’s terrific. I'm actually rereading it now. Just about everyone who’s read him (certainly all those I suggested read him), have fell in love with his writing (a touch of Elmore Leonard, another of John McFetridge and his own distinct style make him one of the very best around. Here’s an interview TK did with Dana just last year ...
Rangers-Devils ... Friday night our guys kick some Devil ass start to finish and bounce back for one more game 7 ... Rangers break out with a 5-2 ass-whooping ...
—Knucks
Music for a serial line-spacing abuser to prepare doing his time ...
The Wettest County in the World, Matt Bondurant ...
This is a hell of a novel, as hardboiled as it gets and yet equally as
poignant.It is a fictionalized version
of a true story that involves the author’s family (his grandfather and granduncles).Hard men living in hard times doing what it
takes to get along; what the people of Franklin County, Virginia have been
doing forever—making white lightning and then running it for sale; backwoods entrepreneurs
handling production and distribution.
The similarities to Cormac McCarthy are there, as are some
touches of Faulker (who is mentioned by the fictional Sherwood Anderson, a
character in the novel in Franklin County working a newspaper piece and getting
nowhere fast).There is some wonderful
history told in this novel; reflections on the depression and a particular rain
drought that makes tough times a lot tougher, but it is the story of the Bondurant
Boys that is most engaging.The sons of
Granville Bondurant are Forrest, Howard and Jack.Each is haunted by different demons that
involve guilt of one kind or another, but it is an iron will to survive at the
core of these men.For the eldest two, violence
is the skill by which they persevere; a determination to live free and unhindered
by laws and/or the machinations of a moonshine mafia; a group of men seeking
tribute for protection.The youngest,
much less inclined to kill and/or partake in the violence necessary for
vengeance, flirts with the desires of the material world (purchasing clothes
& cars with each new score), but there is a need of something greater that
ultimately drives Jack, a life with love.
No spoilers here, but the suspense is heightened by back and
forth jumps in time and writing that speaks to brilliance.The Anderson character’s several hints about
the dissolution of an American society hell bent on progress; the diminishment
of man’s creativity born of passion and sweat as he is forced to join assembly
lines and the marching drone of progress.One cannot help but see how this will ultimately lead to a society
ruined by credit default swaps and derivatives; ultimately, a loss of self to
industry in the name of progress.
This was a wicked good read, Amici.It is highly recommended.
Rangers-Devils-Kings ... I just finished watching the first
period of the Rangers-Devils and it’s picked up where it left off; the Devils
obviously wanting it more than the Rangers (certainly playing harder).I’m thinking it’s gonna take somebody on the
Rangers to drop Kovalchuk ... or put some step in their skates (?) ... hey,
what do I know.I know football, not
hockey.
So somebody was listening and Prust took a wicked cheap shot
at Kovalchuk ... the Rangers responded with some fire ... but still no score
and how many times do we really think Kovalchuk will miss some of those wide
opens shots he’s finding?Period three
starts soon ...
And what’s all this hockey “one timer” speak.A “one time” (drop the “R”) to moi is center
of the craps table prop bet (2, 3, 7, 11, 12) or any combination thereof (i.e.,
aces, snake eyes, ace-duce, yo ’leven, boxcars and BIG RED ... or, if you
prefer, Hi-low, any craps, horn and a world bet).
Bottom line, from what I’ve been watching throughout these
playoffs, I don’t see anybody beating the Kings ... hopefully our guys
(Rangers) will get their act together and start playing with some desperation
(rather than waiting until they lose and go down 2-1, then 3-1 and are truly desperate).
And isn’t it fun watching the Heat take it on the chin?I doubt the Pacers will hold serve again
domani, but I’ll sure be rooting them on.
Usually when I’m asked which writers have had the most
influence on me, I point to those who did so in the area I’ve been published—the
crime genre.George V. Higgins was the
most influential, no doubt.His first
three books (The Friends of Eddie Coyle,
The Digger’s Game and Cogan’s Trade)
were masterpieces by any standard (in any genre).Higgins was a master of dialogue with a
wealth of material from his days serving as an Assistant U.S. attorney for
Massachusetts and later a defense attorney and a journalist.
One of the many blessings of the MFA program I’m enrolled in
at Southern New Hampshire University (and I have to assume would be the case in
any MFA program for someone like me), has been the introduction to authors I’ve
never read before; an eclectic reading list from semester to semester that has
proved every bit as important and influential as Higgins was to me some 36 years
ago.
I’m at the end of my second semester in the program and for
the second time one author has not only awed me with his brilliance, he’s regenerated
the juices that make this stuff so much fun.He’s also a master of dialogue and although I was first introduced to him
during the first semester as a master of the short story, I’ve now come to
appreciate his novels as well.One, in
particular, has kept me up nights (reading, thinking and writing).
A religious, idealistic, polite, naive young man with
Presidential dreams comes to terms with an America in the 1960’s he’s managed
to view with blinders for nineteen years.From his desire to be good and liked and to help others and never want
to hurt anyone, he awkwardly steps into a marriage proposal he immediately
resents.He’s in love with another
woman, a German woman he’s met at a school he attends nights.This woman he purposely asks to marry him,
because he’s sure he’s in love with her.The dilemma will hold your attention for the length of the novel and the
resolution is an eye opener.
Both women are a bit older than he is, both come from
different backgrounds and both are much less naive than the young man.He’s going to school nights to become a
broadcaster, except he’s already decided he doesn’t want to do that once he’s
graduated.He lives with his mother who
likes her tea spiked with any cordial on hand and she’s created a dilemma of
her own; she’s going to marry a man she doesn’t love and the young man can’t
respect (her boss at work).
There are civil rights issues in the background and the aura of
Camelot.The young man wears his hair the
same way as the fallen president and often practices JFK’s speeches.This is going on during the escalation in Vietnam
under Johnson and the race riots that marred both the landscape and the ideals
of a nation born of freedom.The book’s
title comes from the Walter Winchell phrase and is most appropriate, I thought.
It’s a great novel, amici.Bausch is a great writer.There’s
nothing to do but read him and learn; whether it’s his craft you admire (as a
writer) or what he has to offer as a novelist (to his readers).This is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,
novel. I have Mitch Wieland and Jessica Anthony to thank for introducing me to Bausch. That in itself, has been worth the price of admission, amici.
Bausch has officially joined my personal club of “most influential
authors” and takes his place alongside Mr. Higgins.His writing, to put it mildly (and in my
Knuckesian way) has put a rocket up my ass.It may well fizzle at some point, but for now it’s a beautiful
thing.I haven’t worked this hard (at
writing) and enjoyed it so much in forever.
Laura Nyro ... Last week I learned I had to produce 40 pages
of new fiction within six days for our two peer groups in the MFA program.Apparently I wasn’t paying attention to the
school emails.That plus I was finishing
up the draft of the Star (shutter) Island book, Jimmy Mangino (the ten year
sequel to Jimmy Bench Press).So I’ve
been to bed late nights (even working between periods of the Rangers games) and
up extra early to catch up.I even took
off Friday from work to make some more headway.I do love deadlines, but considering the fact I have my last semester’s
packet to get off before May 26 (30 more pages of new fiction plus two craft
essays), this was kind of pushing it.
So Thursday night I needed to take a break for at least a
few hours.I watched some of the 2012 Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame inductions on HBO (a repeat, I guess).It’s always fun (and scary) seeing some of
the groups I enjoyed as a kid get up on stage.There were a few inductees I can’t even remember one day later, but I enjoyed
the Freddy King presentation and then was completely mesmerized by the Laura
Nyro induction (by Bette Midler).Who
knew one person could’ve written so many wonderful songs?Truly amazing.Talk about terrific writers, amici.How’s this for list of songs/hits (with my
favorite of the bunch from the induction)?
Sara Bareilles performing Laura Nyro’s Stoney End ...
Songs written by Laura Nyro.
1."Wedding Bell Blues"
2."Blowin'
Away" 3."Billy's
Blues" 4."Stoney
End" 5."And When I
Die" 6."Lu" 7."Eli's
Comin'" 8."Stoned Soul
Picnic" 9."Timer" 10."Emmie" 11."The
Confession" 12."Captain
Saint Lucifer" 13."Gibsom
Street" 14."New York
Tendaberry" 15."Save the
Country" [mono single version] 16."Blackpatch" 17."Upstairs By
A Chinese Lamp" 18."Beads of
Sweat" 19."When I Was a
Freeport and You Were the Main Drag"
20."Smile" 21."Sweet Blindness" [live version] 22."Money" [live version] 23."Mr. Blue" 24."A Wilderness" 25."Mother's Spiritual" 26."A Woman of the World" 27."Louise's Church" 28."Broken Rainbow" 29."To a Child" 30."Lite a Flame (The Animal Rights Song)" 31."And When I Die" [live version] 32."Save the Country" [live version]
Another of my favorites (and some very nice words about Ms.
Nyro):
The Rangers ... Oy vey, my new love of playoff hockey has
been interesting.Providing breaks from
reading and writing (and permitting me to ignore baseball), I’m really getting
into this stuff.I love the protocol after
a series whereby two teams that have beaten the shit out of one another shake
hands.I like it.I like it a lot.
As for the Rangers ... they seem to be begging a
disaster.How they didn’t show up in
D.C. the other night with a bit more determination than they showed was too
much like the way they handled the Ottawa series; not playing hard until they
had to.We all know the problem with
that.You (they) may get surprised.In game 6, the Capitals played with
desperation and determination and deserved the win.Ovechkin is a holy terror to the Rangers, as
is Chimera.I’d like to see the kid,
Kreider, on the ice a lot more (I’m a big proponent of speed in any sport) and
this kid has it. Holtby has played right
there with Lundqvist.Christ, I just
realized I’m memorizing their names.
They better show up tomorrow night or they’ll disappoint a lot
of fans (old and new).I’ve actually
watched a few other teams and right now if I had to make a prediction, the In
Knucks We Trust Bucks would go squarely on either the Kings of L.A. or
the Devils of New Jersey.The Rangers
still have something to prove—consistency.
The Knicks ... well, at least they took one game, and it was
a very gutsy performance, so kudos to them.The Heat managed to completely obliterate the Knicks 3-point game,
rendering Steve "Novacaine" Novak pointless on the court.Barren (the turnover King) Davis went out
with a nasty injury, but the Knicks responded.Game 5 was going to happen no matter how hard what was left of the
Knicks showed up.As for next season, I
vote for retaining Mike (Tone Loc) Woodsen and staying with young Mr. Lin.The Knicks won’t be good enough to win it all
next season and trading a young Lin for an old master like Steve Nash won’t
guarantee them anything but another first or second round washout.
—Knucks
No opera today, amici ... here’s Ms. Nyro’s herself with one
of her MANY hits ...
And one more, this time by the Fifth Dimension ...
And since Etta James passed last year, here’s Mr. and Mrs.
Knucks-Principessa’s wedding song:
Darwin is quoted often in this raucous romp of parallel stories; one a historical account of the Pfliegmans (the rise and fall of them) and the other the final days-to-days of the last of the Pfliegmans, Rovar. He’s a small, hairy fella who has spoken a word since childhood. He keeps weird insect pets (Rovar = Insect in Hungarian, by the way) … he lives an isolated life and expects nothing but the worst (as is his Pfliegman destiny). He sells meat from a bus on a Virginia countryside road (close to a river) and his life is pretty much one misery (whether it be insult or physical debilitation) after another.
If things don’t change (change being a key word here, amici) Rovar is doomed to be the final Pfliegman … extinction is all his. (as he expects his mother to say at one point in he novel: all of this terrible life is your fault).
The political hints as they relate to Darwin and the plight of the Pfliegmans are wonderful. My favorite passage has to do with Rovar’s dilemma of explaining to his love interest (Dr. Monica) his believed destiny:
How could I explain to her that the reason for my illnesses both is and is not biological? That my body is chained to a legacy of a thousand other crippled bodies that lived and died over the last millennium? … Weren’t the Pfliegmans, in that sense, actually necessary for their success? Isn’t it for the protection of the weakest members of our race that all good change happens in the world? Isn’t it true that if we do not care for the least among us—no matter how filthy or backward or solipsistic—we will become a race of monsters? What some historians and other official-sounding officials try to call “progress,” all the while asking themselves whether history should be written this way or that, we Pfliegmans have never asked, knowing full well, deep within our rotted cores, the sacrifice that we must make for the survival of the greater good. “Throughout nature,” Darwin writes, “one species incessantly takes advantages of, and profits by, the structures of others —”
If I didn’t mention that this novel is hilarious, I will now. It is hilarious. Whether reading the historical Hungarian story or Rovar’s in the moment pursuit of love, you will be smiling page by page. Isaac Asimov makes an appearance, as does Carly Simon (she and her very wide mouth) make a few actually. The fun starts early and doesn’t stop until the Kafkaesque ending. And it was at that time when the music began playing in my head … specifically a few lines toward the end that came to mind, but you’ll have to read the book to figure it out and/or catch the clue given in the video below.
I can’t give away the ending, but it was a beautiful idealistic vision … the kind I suspect we all need to maintain any hope.
A side note to the novel: I was so happy to read a reference to the Nixon-Kissinger illegal secret bombings of Cambodia in this novel. I did a political science thesis on the Khmer Rouge and how they came to power—exactly because of the Nixon-Kissinger connection and their secret B52 raids over a neutral nation state during the Vietnam “conflict”. What had started as operation Breakfast quickly turned to Operation Menu and more bomb tonnage was dropped on Cambodia during our attempts to get the so-called Vietcong sanctuaries along the border than the US and all its allies dropped in all of WWII.
And let’s not forget Dr. Atkins (that cocksucker) … Like Knucks recently, Árpád (one of the Hungarians in the historical story) was merely a man desperate for his carbohydrates. I felt my brother (Árpád)’s pain and abandoned that diet after 16 days of pure torture (and really bad breath).
Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review of The Convalescent: Jess Anthony's compulsively readable debut novel stars Rovar Pfliegman, who sells meat out of a bus in Virginia. Rovar is a peculiar, troll-like man: he is short and hairy, has not spoken since childhood, keeps a pet beetle and lives in the same broken-down bus that houses his meat business. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Rovar is his precarious singularity. He is the last of the Pfliegmans and, by his own account, he is falling apart. Although he halfheartedly seeks treatment for his various ailments, he seems far more bent on fulfilling the destiny of self-destruction all Pfliegmans (according to Rovar) are subject to. Rovar's explanation of his family sprawls deep into the past, probing beyond his chaotic childhood all the way back to the origins of the Pfliegman clan in premedieval Hungary. Along the way, the narrative nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony's style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own.
Art, Caliendo Style ... check out this dude’s art photography (above--know that place? You sure should ...) He’s doing our book covers for both Shakedown and Mafiya (which we’ve recently received our rights to again). Shakedown will be going ebook within the next month or so and Mr. Caliendo will be handling the photography while Dave Terrenoire (Rough Riders) handles the actual book jacket. Pretty cool, amici, pretty cool. Anthony has special photographic talents, amici. Check out Anthony’s gallery right here.
Happy 5th of May, Amici … how cool is that I no longer give a flying fuck about my weight (at least not this week) … Friday night (4th de Mayo) we ate (and ate) at our favorite Mexican restaurant mas Tacos, mas Enchiladas …
There will be four less Aints come opening day in the NFL this season … one of them (Jonathan Vilma) is gone for the entire season (and probably his career because who is gonna want him after another year?) Well, good, we say. They certainly deserve it. Knucksline only wishes those caught in cheating scandals of any kind get to wear the big ASTERISK Ravens coach John Harbaugh suggested they already have in our minds. The Saints scandal happened to fall right dab in the middle of their championship season, so let’s make sure that ASTERISK is right there with the ones the NEW ENGLAND CHEATERFACES have accumulated.
And each player from both teams wearing super bowl rings should have the following inscribed across the bottom: FRIGGIN’ FUUUUUUUUUUUUUGAZY.
—Knucks
And how ‘bout some magic, amici ... from the movie Amadeus(The Queen of the Night’s aria) in Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute).
“This taut, compulsively readable tale of mob life in and around New York City, Stella’s first novel since 2012’s Rough Riders, has the smack of authenticity on every page … Stella serves up a tasty goombah stew with a splash of Guinness, and no one can make this recipe simmer better than he does.” —Publishers Weekly
As usual Stella’s ear for dialogue is amazingly authentic and accurate, which not only lends credibility to each of his characters but also adds to the headlong pace of the narrative. These themes and the way they influence almost every character elevates the novel from a simple story of murder and revenge. At the same time they demonstrate Stella’s familiarity with present-day criminals and cops, and his mastery at presenting tales that illustrate their world and inner emotions. For those who have yet to discover the joy of Stella’s work, TOMMY RED is a good a place start as any. —Alan Cranis (Bookgasm) “Holy crap. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Why the hell isn't Stella on every mystery lover's must-read list. . . . This taut, tightly presented story of misplaced loyalties and retribution is nicely tied up in a fast-paced tale that, once you get used to the rhythm of the dialogue, just begs you to turn the next page.” —MenReadingBooks
“Stella was often compared to George V. Higgins and Elmore Leonard at the beginning of his career, but now the world of East Coast gangster fiction is all his.” —Mysterious Bookshop
“Tommy Red by Charlie Stella. Mob hit man gets into a snafu. This novel is only 165 pages long. Since this is a Stella novel you can bet it's 165 pages of greatness.”—Lake Mills Library
“Tommy Red builds to an explosive climax that should satisfy readers looking for action, while at the same time offering complex characterisation and thematic complexity that is beyond the reach of most crime novels.” —Crime Fiction Lover
“Stella reminds the reader of some recent episodes that the police would probably like for us to forget, most prominently the Eric Garner incident. Even the mob guys think it makes the cops look bad. There's a lot going on in Tommy Red, and big props to Stella for wrapping it all up in about 150 trade paperback pages. Good stuff and highly recommended.” —Bill Crider
“There are few writers (except possibly Elmore Leonard and George V. Higgins), who can write mob dialogue as well as Charlie Stella … Charlie makes navigating my way though the plot fun. And funny. How can you not laugh at this line. It was a little after one o'clock in the morning when he was thinking he'd like to bite the ass of that Mother of Dragons broad about to take a bath. (Game of Thrones).”—Patti Abbott
“No one writes better dialog, nor allows it to carry the story more than Stella, nor pulls it off better. Tommy Red could deteriorate into a series of scenes of guys bullshitting, but every sentence is an insight into a character’s mind, and one never knows when a prime plot point will emerge from a discussion about the merits of hockey versus football … Tommy Red a riveting tale told in an engaging manner. You know, just as you’d expect from Charlie Stella.” —Dana King (One Bite at a Time)
Stella’s capers are populated with criminals who are more clever than smart and lawmen who get stymied by clever but eventually prevail with smarts. A delight.— Booklist (Wes Lukowsky)
Along the way the reader is treated to some of the finest characterization it’s humanly possible to capture on paper… Stella’s always dark, often violent, occasionally humorous Rough Riders more than stands on its own, and is more than worth your time. — Book Reviews By Elizabeth A. White Sort of like Goodfellas meets Fargo. Check out Eddie’s World and start right in on Rough Riders. You’ll love the ride … Then read everything else he’s done.—East Coast Don (Men Reading Books) Mr Stella makes his story supremely compelling and has certainly made me a believer. I very much look forward to reading his next book – in the meantime, chase this one down, it works like a beaut. —Tipping My Fedora
Let me say right here that I loved this book. Though complex, the plotlines are deftly managed and everything dovetails towards its satisfying conclusion. Stella has a great ear for dialogue, with the New Yorkers clearly speaking a different vernacular to the Dakotans. —Crime Fiction Lover
Stella writes about criminals and cops, killers and cons, as if he knows the territory. This is one of those books that you rip through, eager to see who'll be the last man standing, as you never know who'll get the next bullet. Big, grim, boisterous, funny, and frightening all at once. Check it out.— Bill Crider
Stella’s characters’ voices sound authentic: no macho posturing — just their brutal, hard world. This is one of the leaner crime novels currently out there. For those wanting a serious character piece where the payoffs deliver, reach for ROUGH RIDERS. —Bookasm, Bruce Grossman
Rough Riders has a plethora of characters, many of whom you won't want to like but just might. What seems like true dialogue spews from mouths, FBI and locals alike. I found it very hard to put this book down, even to eat a meal. Author Charlie Stella has a way with words that makes him a master at his craft. Don't miss this one. —Bookloons Reviews (Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth)
This is a fast and furious thriller that brings back the antagonists in Eddie’s World in a good, the bad and the ugly storyline. Rotating between the northern Great Plains and the New York area, fans will enjoy this action-packed noir although the Feds are too scandalously uncaring about collateral damage or simply deadly avarice. –Genre Go Round Reviews (Harriett Klausner)
Johnn Porno Reviews ...
“Mr. Stella is a natural. As soon as I finished Johnny Porno I gave the book to my son so we could both be wiser-guys. Now I’m going to find all his other novels. He’s a true master.”—Dow Mossman, The Stones of Summer
“... Elmore Leonard fans are going to love Stella’s entirely original contribution to the slice-of-criminal-life genre, down-and-dirty division ... This is the seventh novel from Stella (Mafiya, 2008), who has made the underside of the New York underworld his home.”—Elliott Swanson (Booklist)
“Set in New York City in 1973, Stella’s vibrant seventh crime novel catches the cadence and daily grind of organized crime grunts … Stella tosses an eclectic cast of characters into the mix … admirers of Elmore Leonard and George V. Higgins will be happy.”—Publishers Weekly
“Johnny Porno is in many ways a master’s class on how to write a novel ... The dialog flows so smooth you’d swear you were over hearing someone’s conversation... He drops you in the middle and lets the reveals of the narrative come naturally through the dialog... Bottom line is that Johnny Porno is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.”>—Brian Lindenmuth (Spinetingler Magazine)
“Stella has fun with DEEP THROAT throughout the book, including the idea to sell fake autographed panties ... the book is so well-crafted and well-paced that it’s going to make more than a few best-of lists when the time comes. Stella never goes for the cheap outs, letting these characters develop over the course of his story ... Not only is it a throwback to the 1970s generation, but one that blows away most set in the present day.”—Bruce Grossman (Bookgasm)
“Based on my experience with Johnny Porno — I haven't read his other books but plan to remedy that soon (Charlie Opera is $2.00 on Smashwords) — I must say that Charlie Stella is one of the best writers the crime genre currently has to offer. He's a natural wordsmith, putting down the way people really talk in a way that still reads smoothly — not an easy task. The fact that Stark House Press, who previously focused on reprinting "lost" pulp novels, chose Stella as their first original author — after author Ed Gorman recommended him upon reading the manuscript — says a lot about his peers' respect for him.”— Craig Clarke (Somebody Dies)
“Psycho cops, bent cops, straight cops, Feds, wiseguys, good women, bad women,really bad women, guys on the make, gamblers, dumbasses, good guys, bad guys. This book's got 'em all (and more), and all so well-drawn that they seem like real people. There are also three or four plots going in, and they all converge in the final pages. I don't know how Stella managed to keep all the balls in the air, but he doesn't drop a one. Stark House's first original is a winner.”—Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodess series and several other novels
“Stella is of the George V. Higgins school and tells the story through compelling dialogue ... Like Higgins, Stella isn’t afraid to let action occur offstage, to be described by the principals after the fact. In Stella’s hands, this adds to the suspense, as he understands every overt climax lessens tension at its conclusion, while covert climaxes continue to ratchet it up.”>—Dana King, (New Mystery Reader)
“Charlie Stella has a gift for nailing the colorful characters in this seedy little corner of New York. The dialog couldn’t be more authentic, and from page one I was transported to a hot, gritty landscape full of guys who say ‘yous’ and women who are used to being used ... I relished how the focus was on the guys at the bottom of the totem pole, and I got to see what happens to the drivers, runners, and climbers who associate with organized crime. It ain’t pretty.”> —Rebecca Baumann, (Dirty Sexy Books)
A plot whose pacing is as fast as a pack of greyhounds and at the same time, miraculously, as crazily and craftily constructed as a Marx Brothers movie or a Rube Goldberg machine. A hungry menagerie of good guys and bad guys at feeding time. A writing style that’s top-shelf. Some side-orders of Suspense. Romance. Black Humor. All seasoned liberally with Sex, Violence, Drugs, and Rock and Roll. What else will readers find in JOHNNY PORNO? A novel that shouldn’t be this much fun or pleasurable. That’s Charlie Stella’s real crime.—Lynn Kostoff, Author of Late Rain (Tyrus Books 2010), A Choice Of Nightmares (New Pulp Press 2010), The Long Fall (Carroll and Graf 2003)
“This is a hell of a novel. Epic, yet human scale... It s wonderfully fresh and alive.”—Craig McDonald, author of Head Games, Toros and Torsos and Print The Legend
Johnny Porno is a terrific Nixon Era crime caper reminiscent of Elmore Leonard. The story line is fast-paced, filled with action and violence, and stars a seemingly hapless chump struggling to survive in a cesspool. With the fun look at pop culture in circa 1973 enhancing the plot, readers, especially boomers, will enjoy Johnny Porno’s New York joy ride.—Harriet Klausner (The Mystery Gazette)
“... this has all the trappings of classic Stella – decent guys, wise guys of various standing in the mob, good/dirty cops, but most importantly, dialogue that makes you want to stand up and beg for more. Through Stella, you can practically smell the garlic on the breath of the wiseguys trying to intimidate, strain to hear cops jerking each other around through hot dog stuffed faces, wince at the lunacy of an ex-wife going off the deep end, and nod approvingly when someone does a decent thing for Johnny. Why Stella’s books aren’t flying off the main table at the front door of Barnes/Noble and Borders is, in itself, a crime.”—East Coast Don (Men Reading Books)
“Charlie Stella's JOHNNY PORNO: absolutely excellent. Guy does dialogue like no one else.”— Russel D. McLean, Author of The Good Son and The Lost Sister(From an Interview with CRIME SCENE NI (Northern Ireland))
“Johnny Porno is exactly that – a hard man chasing the tail that won’t pay for the tears. By first reminding us of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and then translating its rhetorical question into the vernacular of our romantically challenged times, Stella’s way with words does the near impossible; it finds a way from pornography to romance in the paradox of power and impotence peculiar to all of us: ‘Fuck’s in a name?’”— Len Wanner, University of Edinburgh.
Charlie delivered papers, unloaded watermelons, cooked at McDonalds, cleaned dishes at a catering hall, worked in a cardboard factory, rolled posters, worked in his father’s head shop, was a bouncer, worked security, buffed hallways, cleaned apartments, humped sheetrock, was a ten year union window cleaner atop Manhattan’s skyscrapers, was a word processing operator-supervisor-manager and director, coached football, has had novels published here, Russia, Italy, Poland, Mexico and the UK, and did that knockaround stuff for 18 years before meeting his wife, the woman who straightened him out (in a good way). He earned his MFA degree from Southern New Hampshire University at age 57. He continues to write crime novels and has expanded his horizons to include ghostwriting non-fiction—Dogfella: How an Abandoned Dog Named Bruno Turned This Mobster's Life Around--A Memoir will be published in May of 2015.
