Nobody Move: A Novel
by Denis Johnson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Denis JohnsonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-27
ISBN: 0374222908
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Book Reviews of Nobody Move: A Novel
Book Review: "Not dying when somebody shoots you is as happy as it gets."
Summary: 4 Stars
(3.5 stars) In a complete change of pace from his National Book Award-winning Tree of Smoke, author Denis Johnson sets this novel in Northern California in contemporary times, creating a noir study of drug-addled, alcoholic criminals who don't have a clue about reality as they seek riches and revenge. Full of maiming, torture, and gunshot wounds, Nobody Move gives new life to "pulp fiction," a kind of dressed up, somewhat literary, pulp fiction--at least stylistically. For however superficial the story may be, however dark and violent the action may be, and however stupid and sociopathic the characters may be, Johnson is a writer with immense gifts of description, dialogue, and narrative compression, and he manages to create a vivid story with no wasted words.
Jimmy Luntz, a member of a barbership singing group, is heavily in debt to loan sharks when he is picked up by Gambol, an enforcer. While Gambol is driving Jimmy through the countryside on his way to meet his fate, Jimmy takes advantage of a momentary lapse, shooting Gambol in the leg, pushing him out, and stealing his wallet, his gun, and ultimately, his car. When Jimmy meets Anita, a woman whose crooked husband, a Palo County prosecutor, framed her for a $2.3 million embezzlement, they team up to try to get the money back, seeking revenge, not justice.
As Jimmy and Anita try to avoid their pursuers, the violence ratchets up. The syndicate still wants their money back, Gambol wants (literally) to dine on Jimmy's private parts, and Anita wants her husband's head. Vengeance is the watchword in the world of these twisted characters, all of whom are sociopaths. None of them think twice before shooting, and none of them have any regrets afterward. The novel, published as a four-part serial in Playboy Magazine during the summer and fall of 2008, is also full of graphic sexual violence. "Seizing the moment," the driving force for these characters, gains new meaning here.
Johnson, who is also a poet and playwright, makes this bleak world more palatable by creating memorable descriptions which add to the mood: "On such a night the river's swollen surface resembled the unquiet belly of a living thing you could step onto and walk across." On a rainy night one sees "ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy." Even short character sketches are spot on: Jimmy himself was "your basic bus-station javelina, but a nice enough guy." The dialogue sparkles, revealing character, mood, and relationships in few words.
Fun to read, this slight novel makes no pretense of being anything but a noir story about marginal characters leading dark and thoughtless lives, characters in the grip of their emotions at the expense of their reality. A student of Raymond Chandler when he was at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Denis Johnson has learned his lessons well. The book is what it is, he seems to say. Take it or leave it. n Mary Whipple
Tree of Smoke: A Novel, 2007, National Book Award Winner.
Train Dreams, 2002.
The Name of the World: A Novel, 2000.
Already Dead: A California Gothic, 1998.
Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, 1991.
Summary of Nobody Move: A Novel
From the National Book Award?winning, bestselling author of Tree of Smoke comes a provocative thriller set in the American West. Nobody Move, which first appeared in the pages of Playboy, is the story of an assortment of lowlifes in Bakersfield, California, and their cat-and-mouse game over $2.3 million. Touched by echoes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, Nobody Move is at once an homage to and a variation on literary form. It salutes one of our most enduring and popular genres?the American crime novel?but with a grisly humor and outrageousness that are Denis Johnson?s own. Sexy, suspenseful, and above all entertaining, Nobody Move shows one of our greatest novelists at his versatile best.
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