HALLOWEEN

"They're here,"
So said Heather O'Rourke long before "I see dead people". Oh, that cute little girl who got progressively plumper and weirder looking and then creepily died. So on a whim I watched the three Poltergeist movies in a pre-Halloween binge. LOVE the first one, an iconic movie because it taught me to count between thunder and lightning....My parents didn't do it. Thank you, Hollywood. God, I loved this movie as a kid for all sort of twisted reasons.

The two sequels, though, suck in wonderfully specific ways.
I'm sorry you died, creepy little girl Heather O'Rourke.
We all gotta go.

Hammerhead Ranch Motel

So... Tim Dorsey... I laughed again and all... But he pretty much writes the same book over and over, no?

Dane, Dane, Go Away

Healthy sensibilities should find America's love idyll with serial killers disturbing, except that I think (hope) that these stories are compelling not so much because they provide vicarious thrills to a murderous populace but because they work like reverse superhero stories, coming as they do with pre-packed extreme metaphors about law vs. disorder, internal conflict, social assumptions, and pretty much anything else anyone cares to work into them.
There's 1/3rd of a good movie in "Mr. Brooks", the third concentrating on Kevin Costner as a respectable, outstanding pillar of the community who gets joined by Beautiful-Mindish alter-ego William Hurt every time he goes out for a kill. It's great to see them two cackle and chum it up. But then this gets interrupted by a parallel sub-Saw storyline starring Demi Moore, and then by ANOTHER storyline involving Dane Cook. I can only hypothetize that since Kevin Costner and Demi Moore are not the box office draws they once were, some studio head was like: "Who do the kids like these days? Who? Dane Cook? Never mind, just bring him on! Can he act? Don't tell me, don't tell me, I like surprises!"
Anyway, the movie gets more and more ridiculous as it goes on but not in the "fun-over-the-top" way but in the "these-people-are-wasting-my-time" way. Still, one of the 20 + plot twists sort of works because it wonders: when a serial killer can also be a respectable family man, what kind of family are we talking about? Unfortunately, even that one is handled in a manner that is impossible to swallow, and it's a fake-out to boot, which just goes to show how hard it is to like this flick even when it almost does something right.

Unintentional (?) Humor in "Mr. Brooks" # 1: If you are called Earl Brooks, be sure to introduce yourself as "I'm Mr. Brooks," or "I'm Mr. Earl Brooks." You must never EVER say: "My Name is Earl." 'Cause Jason Lee made that freaking hilarious.
Unintentional (?) Humor in "Mr. Brooks" # 2: William Hurt, drily, as he watches Dane Cook walk away: "Even if he WERE charming and funny, I STILL wouldn't like that guy." Hahahaha, thank you, Mr. Hurt, for saying what I was thinking.

Little Home in the Prairie?

Death's the grim joke at the core of "A Prairie Home Companion", Robert Altman's last movie, which I lazily postponed watching even though it has one of the most phenomenal casts imaginable. But since I just read "Pontoon", I went searching for a little more of Garrison Keillor's homegrown fatalism, (mixed with Altman's ADD voyeurism), and I smiled often. The Angel of Death that watches over the characters in "Pontoon" is here embodied by Virginia Madsen, stalking behind the scenes at an imaginary last night of Keillor's show. It's a fail-safe cast, but I was surprised by Lindsay Lohan, who holds her own with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin. What a sad mess she is.

Lindsay Lohan, come back, I miss you! Stop flashing everyone! Quit the nose candy! I'll forgive it all!

The Number 28

The cliche goes that zombie movies work best in the George Romero mold, as a sort of murky pool reflecting societal concerns, be those racial disparity, consumeerism, political uncertainty, what have you. I'm not sure what Danny Boyle was worried about when he put together "28 Days Later", (ecological fears? biological weapons? Cillian Murphy out-zombieing the zombies?). It doesn't really matter, because he came out with one terrifically scary movie: "Zombies are slow and lumbering and... BORING... Let's have them RUN SUPER FAST!"
Brilliance.

"28 Weeks Later" is one of, like, NONE, horror sequels that may be even better than the original, a shocker with brains, (which it probably ripped right out of an unsuspecting skull.) One could gripe about the fact that the plot hinges on certain characters doing a certain stupid thing...but alas, isn't that what horror movies are about? People going up the damn stairs into the creepy attic when they should STAY THE HELL OUT?

The Breast

Sometimes I am reassured by my own innocence, because I googled "The Breast" fully expecting to find an image of the cover for Philip Roth's novella. Which I did, eventually.

So Professor David Keplesh finds himself transformed into the titular mammary, and although the Kafka comparisons are unavoidable there's something else at play here. Roth is having a lot of fun trying to gross out and titillate often in the span of a sentence, and whereas proving reviewers might scramble for meaning, I suspect there's more goofing off here than the literatti appreciate. So what's going on? Does the man become a breast as an expression of his own libidousness? Hmmm, too easy. Instead, I see more of Roth's not-so-covert mysogyny here: the most terrifying, humiliating, and downright awkward thing he can conjure is for a man to turn into a woman.
Isn't it funny how one can practically illustrate Philip Roth's novels with Woody Allen movie stills?

Batman: All War, All the Time.

...some loose, decent-but-not-amazing Batman stories from yesteryears.

Aishiteruze Baby!

Ah, the Nipponese. "Aishiteruze Baby"- No, I'm sorry, "Aishiteruze Baby STAR STAR"- warms your heart by putting it in a microwave and pressing all the kawaii buttons.
Who can resist the tender story of the love triangle between high school player Kippei, his catatonic classmate Kokoro, and his 5 year old niece Yuzuyu?

Very enjoyable shojo saga, touching on important issues like parenthood, premarital sex, anorexia, child abuse, and the proper making of bento. Here's what makes me wonder about a lot of manga:
How can these Jap authors write such intricate, dramatic, involving, thought provoking storylines, have such virtuosic command of their pen, craft so many lovable characters, and then have author's margin notes that routinely read like this?:
"Ooooh, the rape scene was sooo hard to draw! I'm pooped now! I love my doggy, he has a cold nose. I could kill for some fried octopus. What was I saying? Heehee, I'm such a scatterbrain!"

Heaviosity

Paul Pope's gorgeous art serves well this old, futuristic story. The plot is so kinetic that when it suddenly stops, having abandoned a host of interesting characters and ideas along the way, it feels mucho anticlimactico. I was a little underwhelmed. Beneath Pope's fantastic, thick, abstract linework, "Heavy Liquid" is the same old story about the desirable, mysterious box/bag/suitcase/safe with gold/heroin/dollars/muffins.

Stephanie Dailey

Dear Imaginary Reader: after reading Roth's "Our Gang" I wrote the longest, most thoughftul, generation-defining, argument-concluding post on abortion. Whatever your stance happens to be, your eyes would have opened to the supreme wisdom that emanated from that post, and you would change your opinions to agree with ME and only ME.
But then some Internet fun took place, and the post got deleted, and now I don't feel like making any of my inmensely brilliant points again. You're just going to have to take my word for it.

Talking about abortion, Tilda Swinton is wonderful in "Stephanie Dailey"; so's the whole cast, really. This is a doggeddly low-key, low-budget story about abortion, pregnancy, and the pressures of social acceptance, but it's never just out for controversy and polemics; the movie understands the weight and wonder of life, human and otherwise. If it was all about the acting, I would cry "Oscar!" but "Dailey" is simply not flashy enough, and smacks of Screenwriting 101 at points. Symbolic deers, anyone?

Another Yarn from Lake Wobegon

The reassuring thing about reading "old people books" is that, whereas a young fella like myself is scared of death, an oldster like Garrison Keillor is REALLY REALLY scared of death.

The not-so-reassuring thing? It seems that the summation of wisdom at the end of life is: "Enjoy things the best you can, because you'll end up dying ignominously."
So basically if I'm lucky enough to last another fifty years I can look forward to not learning anything new on that regard.

"The Big O"

Oh, and the Big O is a robot, you perverts.

So I was just reading "Portnoy's Complaint"...

You know that scene in “Annie Hall” where a split screen shows a WASP dinner on the left and a Jewish dinner on the right? WASPS all pent-up emotion behind a veneer of propriety, and the Jews loudly hurling recrimination and gossip like so much matzoh in a food fight… When I first saw that as a kid I got the idea and told my parents: “So, Jewish, that’s another word for Cuban, right?”

I think that’s why I never got a chance to add anti-Semitism to my many prejudices. Cubans are, like, that OTHER lost tribe of Israel or something. I relate. So I laugh my ass off in pained recognition throughout Philip Roth's self-loathing, "informer" tales of middle-class Jewyness. And then I laughed for different reasons at "Our Gang", the shockingly non-dated story about the administration of Tricky Dixon. But more on this in a few...

Meet the Robinsons

On a kick with the cartoons: MEET THE ROBINSONS is progressive eye candy, it's what I suppose the new Disney standard will be, Tomorrowland, Todayland, a wonderful fascist candy colored happiness that overcomes you while you struggle to make the world a better place.

A love note to the Disney spirit, that cutesy idea of decent progress and invention that I submit is the on-going American dream, a nation where niceness and ingenuity might just be the salve on our differential wounds. Oh, yes, I am reading William Gibson at the same time, can you tell?

NOT Keenan and Kel

In imitation of the POTUS I no longer read newspapers. My Yahoo homepage gives me all the news I need, like that bit about J.K. Rowling announcing that Dumbledore was gay. That WAS legitimate news, right? It’s not April 1st? Anyway, the sad upshot of my illiteracy is that I don’t keep up with the funnies… No Zits, no Foxtrot, no Baby Blues, no Boondocks... Whither the pleasures of keeping up with the glacial page of a newspaper strip? So it is with fondness that I spent last night devouring the adventures of Kevin and Kell, a King-Features-worthy strip about a sysops rabbit and his herd-thinning wife, a wolf.
HERE.

Reefer Madness

And this is the other other other OTHER movie about colorful deep sea madness. Evan Rachel Wood does a voice in "The Reef", but she's a cold fish, and unlike "Across the Universe", this movie didn't give me a chance to see her left nipple lovingly photographed, so my thoughts sort of drifted away after a while.

TRANSFORMERSROBOTSINDISGUISE

"Surf's Up" is the other OTHER big movie about penguins, so it might have slipped by you. But it's beautiful to look at....

...and Shia LaBeouf is good at being the soul besieged by CGI shenanigans, as he is in that big movie... ...that did what it was supposed to do.

Rise for the Blood Hunter. Or Don't.

Did "The Shield" get cancelled? Are they not making any more "Charlie's Angels" movies? Why are Lucy Liu and Michael Chiklis doing these things? Out of spite?

And while I ask such weightsome questions: how come no one told me fantasy novelist Robert Jordan died, leaving his "Wheel of Time" unfinished? Not to rage at a dead man, but his untimely death means that plodding through the last 10,000 pages "because I had to see how it ended" was a colossal waste of my time.
*sigh*
You will be missed.

Porn Star Name, Much?

It's difficult to convey how monstrous an early Woody Woodpecker cartoon is, before the character went through several extreme makeovers, becoming first the familiar Donald-Daffy hybrid character from the '50s and then the boring lovable 60s TV icon.
Marvel at this freak!

The early Woody Woodpecker cartoons give lie to the old cliches that a) there is such a thing as a wholesome past and that b) cartoons were made for kids. I simply cannot understand how responsible adults would expose children to this frightful, pyschedelically-colored retarded "bird" that has evidently escaped from an institution. Walter Lantz' early work for Universal take the looniness of Warner Bros' classic characters and sludge it up with all sorts of vulgarity...No, really, I can't convey it, you just have to dig those cartoons out of the vault.

Is Pluto Still a Planet?

Did I mention how hot Rose McGowan is? I had never seen a woman fire a rifle from her leg-stump in a sexier manner.

Remember I loved "Deathproof"? Yeah, "Planet Terror"? Not so much. The "Grindhouse" DVD marketing is now revealed as successful, because it's hard to imagine watching the two movies back to back without feeling a HUGE gap in quality. To me Robert Rodriguez has always been more about indie pluck and oddball ideas than about carrying those ideas all the way through to greatness, with the possible exception of "Sin City", and I fully credit Frank Miller for that. As a matter of fact, I humbly opine that Rodriguez has been ceaselessly remaking "El Mariachi," adding the English soundtrack, adding, er, sequels, adding vampires, and now adding zombies. Cherry Darling is a memorable character, but she's sprung from Sam Raimi's mind. Remember Ash with the chainsaw in his hand? What if Ash was HOT? And the chainsaw was on his leg? And it wasn't a chainsaw?
Ok, so anyway, it's a George Romero movie, with Sam Raimi moments, and Quentin Tarantino-like cameos, and too many characters you won't have time to care for, and none of the witty "Deathproof" lines. There are oddball moments plenty, but Rose McGowan speaks for the audience when, balancing on her recently acquired peg leg, she looks around and says: "This is ridiculous."
You said it, sister.

Obligatory

My unwitting betrothed is back on my brain, what with "Obligatory Villagers," a short and sweet melange of Broadway scraps, none-too-subtle political jokes, and the awesomest PETA party starter you will ever hear. God, this woman is so INTERESTING!

Douglas Wolk's "Reading Comics". Non-Sequentially

As a kid I got my grubby hands on a big Commie text-book called "How to Read Donald Duck", a manifesto exposing Carl Bark's designs on the minds of Latin American youth, (you know, evil Uncah Scrooge was the MAN whipping Huey, Dewey, and Louie while they sieved for gold, that sort of thing.) I guess my impressionable young mind never had a chance, because while I was reading all about how the capitalist pigs brainwash kids with messages transmitted through their fascist superhero comics, I was looking at the expository graphics thinking: "Ok, ok, Yankee comic books = evil... But damn... they're so pretty!!! I want!!!"
What was my point?
Oh, yeah, I like comic books.

No. You can't.

Making fun of Republicans! It never gets old, does it? Well, it kind of does after a while. We get it. They're war-mongering, don't like science, they're sexist, racist and homophobic. And apparently, made out of cardboard.
:-p
I ain't left wing or right wing. I'm wingin' it.

Beet: Not Just an Unedible Vegetable

It's also one of the better "Dragonball Z" knock-offs.

1+4+0+8= 13, and if you put a 2 on it instead of a 1, you get.. THE NUMBER 23!!! I AM SOOO SPOOKED RIGHT NOW!!!

John Cusack is very likable, (he's trademarked likablenessity). It's because he seems to be distinctly uncomfortable in every movie he wanders through: "Me? A star? Really?" He gives it his all as the Stephen King surrogate in "The Shining," about an alcoholic writer going crazy in a hotel haunted by th dead- I mean, wow, what will Stevie think of next!!! Gnarly, man.

"The Shining" does wonderful things with a premise that's been re-heated under a bright bulb at McDonald's, and not the good fresh, McDonald's, but the really scary one down by the docks where the mutant seagulls gather. I was very intrigued through the very effective first hour, and then it all goes to Hell, literally, sure, but also unfortunately.
The bevy of alternate endings on the DVD makes clear the kind of hackery going on here. It's like the freaking ending of "Clue": "Does the writer die, making this a story about despair?" "Does he kill his demons, making it a story about hope?" "Does he get reunited with his daugther, making it a story about love?" "Is he dreaming the whole thing?" "is he dreaming that he's dreaming the whole thing?" "Is it in his head?" "Is his head in it?" "Does Joan Cusack have a cameo?"
Your answer is as good as the director's. No, actually, your answer is much better.

Apologies:

I apologize. One religion has had almost no deaths to its record. Scientology. But have you ever read L. Ron Hubbard's books? They are war crimes, sir, veritable war crimes.

Bond. Jewish James Bond.

The politics in Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon series are veiled in a mistifying myopia that posits that when Muslims kill for their "cause", they're evil mo'fucking monsters, but when Zionists kill for THEIR cause... well, that's different, they're the good guys, and besides, they usually dedicate a sentence or two to wishing they didn't have to blow up the car with the "Islamist terrorist" (redundant, right?). Ah, what you gonna do. BOOM. Say hello to Muhammad.

Still, "The Secret Servant"'s palpable anti-Islamic hysteria is... well, I wouldn't say this in certain company, but who the hell can't relate? When most Muslim leaders refuse to outright disown and condemn terrorism ("Hey, I'M peaceful, it's cousin Abdullah who's a little wrong-headed, you know how it is!"); when statistics point out that Europe will be predominantly Muslim within 50 years; when writers and cartoonists fear for their life just because they dare to point out the weaknesses of your backward ideas, (if your faith is so feeble that an editorial cartoon threatens it, jump ship)... Fuck, when camels and women better not look a man in the eye, your religion SUCKS. There, I said it.
I'm a little intolerant of intolerance. Don't care if you're Catholic, Protestant, Shintoist, Mormonic or Moronic: all religions have the terrible weight of past and present murders and stupidities in their bank account, but geez, they tend to not BRAG about it.
Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are Muslims...
Ok, that's bull. Honestly, the interactions I had with Islam after that little old WTC incident have not been the bestest. Muslim "friend" #1's reaction after 9/11 was: "I didn't know you were such an angry person!" Yeah, when 3000 people are slaughtered, it does tickle my upsetty bone.
Muslim "friend" #2, (a woman) refused to look up from the ground when I was nearby, which is a great basis for a friendship, and when she HAD to talk to a man, she sort of aimed her voice to the left or right of the dude she was addressing, (she's not worthy, you see.) Actually, I'm still not sure if she was devout or mildly retarded. That could have been it.
Righ after 9/11 there was this incredibly counterintuitive influx of "let's try to embrace and understand the Muslim people" among academia- us crazy Western hippies, no wonder we're such dead meat! When was the last time a bunch of Muslim youth decided to expand their horizons and enter a synagogue? A synagogue they weren't planning to blow up, I mean?
Anyway, around those crazy days I attended a prayer meeting where culture shock slapped me in my quasi-feminist face by, er, dividing me from the female I went with. For once in my life I was sort of courageous and stuck by my self-righteous principles, because I am highly allergic to the smell of bullshit. I protested.
Nice Muslim guy with the "Israel, Go Home" pin: "Oh, yes, we've arranged things so you can't sit with your girlfriend. It's so you can enjoy your learning experience by meeting other men, and she can be exposed to wonderful Burqa fashions."
Me: "That's awesome. Still, I've been seating next to these guys and they were talking to me in gibberish, and when I couldn't answer, one sneered and called me a Jew."
Him: "Haha, such kidders. We love Jews. They're People of the Book."
Me: "Are Buddhists People of the Book?"
Him: "Haha."
Me: "That wasn't an answer."
Him: "You are a perceptive young man."
Me: "I would like to be perceptive while sitting next to my girlfriend, if you don't mind."
Him: (growing nervous) "Look, you can't. Women and men have to sit separate. It's the rule."
Me: "Why?"
Him: "So that they're protected from our contaminating eyes."
Me: "Oh, don't worry, I've 'contaminated' my girlfriend plenty already."
Him: "Look, you don't get it, men are BETTER than women. Women are not allowed to contaminate MEN. Allah is easily offended."
Me: "Wow, I guess me and this Allan dude have some things in common, 'cause I'm pretty pissed."
Ok. It didn't go EXACTLY like that, but that was the gist.
Wow, ok, where did this screed come from? I meant to quickly mention "The Secret Servant" before watching "The Simpsons". I guess this book scared me so much because it confronts me with my own cowardice. Could I be as courageous as Theo Van Gogh? I just think being a corpse does nothing for my looks. The fact is that when the crazies break through the door and start with their persuasive Uzi-based conversion techniques, I'll probably be all like: "Allah-akbar, mah brother, which way to Mecca again?"
And that makes me really sad.
A little paranoia forya: http://www.militantislammonitor.org

"Florida Roadkill"

The first Serge Storms novel is personally ingratiating. How can it not be, when the first character we meet is wearing a T-shirt from a certain institution of higher education, and the second character we meet says: "FIU? What's that, one of those shitty rap bands?" Aaaah, truer words... Also, the book has little 'cameos' from, like, the Florida writers I've actually met (Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry and James W. Hall). I guess it also has a cameo from the fourth, Les Standiford, but I'm not counting HIM, the bastard, took his class and only got to see him three times in the whole semester, he thought he was a big "Deal". That was a HILAAAAAARIOUS literary pun, in case you missed it, which, if you don't read as many crappy books as I do, you probably did.

Dissing Genius?

Ah, award season: The Al Gore-X27 just won the Nobel Prize for Innovations in Robotics, George W. Bush won fourth place at the Highland Middle Science Fair, (he had a neat posterboard about what happens when you soak a boiled egg in Diet Coke as opposed to Regular Coke.) I would like to nominate Vash from Yasuhiro Nightgow's "Trigun" for Reddest Costume.

Isn't it really red?

Anyhoo, someone just pointed out that I am very disingenous, for instance in my last post, and I looked up what that meant on www.dictionary.com (to see if it was a slur on my Hispanic heritage or something.) Turns out, it means something like pretending to know less than one really does. Ok, I admit I know more about artsy fancy operas than my post let on, and so here are some clarifications:
1) Aida is not Nubian, but Ethiopian. She is still white, though. Also, she is not fat, but "genetically modified" in order to accomodate her 400 lb lungs.
2) While the unwashed Italians might favor "Celeste Aida" and the played out "Ceremonial March", other highlights include the luminous "Slave Dance" from Act 2, and Amneris' "Alligator Shuffle" from Act 4.
3) Verdi briefly considered including a then-newly invented musical instrument, the saxophone, in his opera, but bailed at the last minute. What a visionary!
4) I am actually not making up 3.
5) Look at Vash's outfit, man! It's sooo red!

Aida

And not the Elton John one, either.

So after I disparaged Italy's third greatest contribution to the world, after "The Godfather" and the Olive Garden, I saw that episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer becomes an opera star, and, quite irrationally, I decided that was a sign that I needed to revisit some of opera's most glass-breaking moments, and since then I have been enjoying Verdi's relatively short "Aida", the story of the doomed love between a very fat Nubian slave (who is secretly a princess) and an equally fat Egyptian hero.
Their compounded obesity leads to the tragic collision of a pyramid. Look, it's in Italian, but I think I got the gist of it, at least I'm pretty sure that at the end...

SPOILER:

...Aida dies.

The Burke Series- "Strega"

DANG, this book was HARD! "Break a tube pipe on the pedophile's mouth and then force him to drink his own teeth," that kind of hard. I need a mind-scrubbing after that.

Nowhere Man on the Moon

The phantasmagoria in Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe" owes a lot to the work of a magician called Georges Melies, who some hundred years back got the idea that not only could that new born tripoidal creature capture things that were, but also, and maybe more importantly to people like me, it could capture things that weren't.

In the beautiful book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" Georges Melies plays a pivotal role. This is what happens when wonder and film and graphic novels meet in a French gare and hold their breaths while they wait to see who, or what, the train will bring in.

This One's a Tough One

Dear Imaginary Reader: Music is what you make of it. There's movies everyone can agree suck. There's movies that are blatantly good. Then there's movie musicals. "Across the Universe" will either thrill you or annoy you, sometimes both at the same time, but it probably won't bore you. What I don't think you should do is simply dismiss it, because there are some highly original, rewarding moments in this movie. Does it all hold together? No. I LOVED 20% of it, LIKED 70% of it, and rolled my eyes at 10% of it. Go and do your own math with it.

East Meets West... Weast?

The only difference between a cowboy and a samurai is in their musical tastes. Cowboys like Ennio Morricone MIDIS, samurais like the Arctic Monkeys. As you can tell, I'm learning a lot about the Far West and the Far East from a happy conflagration between playing an ancient Nipponese viderogamu called "Wild Arms" that takes place in the Wild West... sort of...while reading "The 47th Samurai" which takes place in the seedier districts of Tokyo.

"Wild Arms" is perhaps the least beloved of all the long running RPG series, (7 games so far). I don't know how beloved the Bob Lee Swagger novels are. A previous novel in this so-far-a-trilogy was turned into that movie "Shooter", with Marky Mark, but Bob Lee Swagger is really a character written for Chuck Norris. Superior thriller, "Lost in Translation" with more disembowelings, it took me back to the glory days of Ken Follet, Robert Ludlum and William Forsythe. Remember? When practically every other book written was a thriller with a Swastika and/or Scythe-and-Hammer on the cover, and they all had names like "The Petrograd Plot"?
While I try to cram as much nonsense as possible in one post, I have to say that I take my back my comment on "Letting Go". It is STILL a chore, a 600-page novella, but re-reading it now some 6 years after the first go I find that I see more of myself in it than I could have guessed all those years ago.

Defender of the Faith

The Library of America has been compiling beautifully the works of Philip Roth, (or "the less funny Woody Allen", as his mother originally intended to call him). A good chance for me to see him develop chronologically, instead of the random pecking I've done at his books. His debut "Goodbye, Columbus" is a great intro (roughly the third Roth book I read and the one that, along with "The Breast", made me a fan): a youthful throat-clearing before the humorous mea culpas that his books would become, and every one of the accompanying stories is great. The bloated sophomore novel, "Letting Go", is a dated chore, though. "When She was Bad" is a slight improvement, but not indispensable. It isn't until "Portnoy's Complaint" that Roth stops dicking around and says: "Ok, I'm good to go." More on that later.

"Sudden Prey"

Sandford's very good at these things.