Half the Blood of Brooklyn: A Novel
by Charlie Huston
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charlie HustonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-12-26
ISBN: 034549587X
Number of pages: 223
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of Half the Blood of Brooklyn: A Novel
Book Review: A gripping, engaging novel that provides real chills
Summary: 4 Stars
If you are a fan of hard-boiled fiction, as I am, then a book with the title HALF THE BLOOD OF BROOKLYN will grab your attention. And this work by Charlie Huston certainly merits attention.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I have never been a big fan of the vampire genre. As a reporter, from what I have observed, the living scare me considerably more than the undead. But Huston has delivered a wildly imagined, fevered dream of a book, the third featuring his "vyrus"-infected private eye, Joe Pitt.
Huston describes himself as a writer of "Noircrime fiction." He is certainly hard boiled. In HALF THE BLOOD OF BROOKLYN we are treated to two decapitations, two arm amputations, a head split open by an ax and bullets fired into an ear. And that is in the first eight pages. If you are able to handle gore deluxe and multiple flying body parts, then you will find here an interesting reworking of the timeless vampire story.
For these are not your grandfather's vampires. No black capes or "children of the night" speeches for the 21st century Vampyre. Sunlight is still a big no-no for them, but otherwise things are different. Huston writes, "Holy water's just gonna get you wet, garlic is just gonna make your breath reek, and a crucifix is just a stick with a guy nailed to it...you bring a Vampyre down the same way you bring anyone down, only more so." Indeed.
The modern-day bloodsuckers live among the non-infected in society, but their numbers are so small that they must be discreet. If they were to become known, somebody in the civilian world would declare a "War on Vampyres" and wipe them all out in a flash. So while killing the stray homeless might be acceptable as a way to get fresh blood, widespread nighttime rampaging is definitely not cool.
So in New York they establish themselves into a series of clans and divide up their turf, much like the old political bosses of the city's Democratic Party and the criminal gangs of New York. Clan members have regulated access to the blood they need to stay alive and healthy.
HALF THE BLOOD OF BROOKLYN starts with the balance of power among the gangs being threatened when some Brooklyn clans want to cross the bridge into Manhattan. Vampyre New York threatens to become like the Balkans before the First World War where the slightest miscalculation can lead to a much wider and disastrous war.
Joe Pitt is chief of security, enforcer, hit man --- sort of the head of Homeland Security --- for the lower East Side clan known as The Society. They live in a state of uneasy peace with their much larger northern neighbor, The Coalition, which controls much of the rest of Manhattan island.
What Huston has done here to great effect is meld the hard-boiled noir of the detective story to the horror legend. Pitt is as hard boiled as they come, admitting, "A cure will not make me better. It will just make me like a regular son-of-a-bitch. Like the Vyrus makes you into something else. It doesn't. If you get it, if you survive, it was because you were already the type of person who will drink blood."
Pitt reminds me of Tom Neal in the great film noir, Detour. He is a guy who knows that the deck is stacked against him but still has to play his cards. Pitt says, "We're all going to the same place. I'm just taking a different road. If the scenery sucks, I can drive into a ditch whenever I want."
After an illegal blood dealer operating out of a candy store of all places is killed close to Society turf, Pitt is ordered on a mission to Brooklyn. At Coney Island, he encounters a really scary freak show featuring a Vampyre clan led by a midget. Things go from bad to really, really bad in a hurry. And crosses and double crosses quickly ensue as the blood flows.
However, Pitt has bigger problems than those at work. The only person he cares about in the world, his girlfriend Evie, is dying from AIDS in a hospital. So while a virus is killing her, another virus is keeping Pitt alive but living a life in hell. Pitt knows that he might be able to save Evie by infecting her with his Vampyre blood, which would attack the AIDS virus. But not everybody so infected survives, and even if she does, does he have the right to condemn her to an eternal life as a Vampyre?
In the end, although a Vampyre and killer, Pitt is faced with the very human dilemma of how to deal with a loved one in an impossible life or death situation where all the choices are bad ones. He is not just a monster, but a human monster.
Huston has written a gripping, engaging novel that provides real chills. In one scene, Pitt finds himself lost in a train tunnel with a Vampyre "white to the point of transparence" who lives down there. He says, "A train blasts past just beyond the alcove that hides the door, and I watch the real people flick past inside."
This might be the best noir sentence I have read in a long time. For how often do New Yorkers stare into the darkness of those subway tunnels as their trains blast past and wonder what lurks in that darkness, even as our reflections stare back at us? How close are we really to the darkness and how much of the darkness is already infecting us, even if we don't realize it?
HALF THE BLOOD OF BROOKLYN is a wildly entertaining novel. Charlie Huston is a writer worth keeping an eye on, and I, for one, am going to search out the other books in the Joe Pitt series. I suggest you do as well.
--- Reviewed by Tom Callahan
Summary of Half the Blood of Brooklyn: A Novel
?One of the most remarkable prose stylists to emerge from the noir tradition in this century.??Stephen King
?Hard-boiled horror, pulp noir vampires, decaying urban souls? you?re gonna need a shower after this one. . . . [Huston] kicks down the door of horror.?
?Fangoria, on Already Dead
There?s only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan?s Vampyre Clans aren?t interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York?s outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges and through the tunnels, the Clans want to know why.
Bad luck for PI and general hard case Joe Pitt.
See, Joe used to be a Rogue, used to work off his own dime, picked his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him into the arms of the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price. The price tonight is crossing the bridge, rolling to Coney Island, finding the Freak Clan, and figuring out what?s driving that bunch of savages to scratch at the Society?s door. No need to look far. The answer lies around the corner in Gravesend. Convenient, all those graves.
From uptown to the boardwalk, war drums are beating. Murderous family feuds and personal grudges are being drawn and brandished, along with the long knives. Blood will spill and, big surprise, Joe?s in the middle. But hey, why should this night be different from any other?
Sunset to sunrise: put off a war, keep your head attached to your neck, and save your girl. Check. Joe?s on the case.
Praise for Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt novels
?In conceiving his world (a New York City divided by vampire clans, each with different reasons to hate Pitt), Huston gives a fading genre a fresh afterlife. [Grade:] A.?
?Entertainment Weekly
?[Huston] creates a world that is at once supernatural and totally familiar, imaginative, and utterly convincing.?
?The Philadelphia Inquirer
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