Stay Ugly by Daniel Vlasaty
Paperback, 161 pages
Published
February 2020
by All Due Respect, an imprint of Down & Out Books
This is my second book by the author, but the first book I read was Vlasaty's early New bizarro author series entry The Church of TV as God. I read that six years ago and said "So enter Daniel Valasty and then Church of TV as God. This is a surreal social commentary that seems tightly packed. I think this concept and story could have been twice as long under the skill of a writer like Valasty."
There have been almost forty of the New Bizarro Author series books and this one of the ones that stuck with me. Besides my writing parter Anthony Trevino's King Space Void this was Vlasaty's entry was my favorite. I checked all of the titles, even if I only finished and reviewed a few of them. Sometimes the full-on Bizarro doesn't connect with me.
This is a personal thing as I am a plot and vivid character reader. I could see even writing in a genre where those elements are not mandatory that Vlasaty had skills. So I was excited as DV started to release short novellas and novels in the crime genre. While I suggested that he could write longer pieces, it is clear that these short works are his sweet spot.
This is a smart direction for this author who is writing what he knows, considering his day job was for years working in a methadone clinic. Many of the smartest decisions a writer makes is long before they sit down to write. Authors that live in the real world and have unique experiences kinda have a duty to work them into their fiction.
Stay Ugly is a hard-boiled mystery novel that delivers on the title. It is a grim ugly tale, that is entertaining and for those with a dark sense of humor, it is funny. In 180 or so pages Stay Ugly is a tightly packed mystery that all unfolds after midnight in one of Chicago's nastier hoods. Every football coach quote Richard Pryor who said nothing good happens after midnight.
This story is told in first person by Eric whose small Rogers park world post-prison can't break the habit of calling him Ugly. He is not helping matters by dominating week after week the neighborhood's underground fight club. After winning another fight he was the smaller underdog in the dealer at the center of the fight club tells him that Eric's brother has disappeared with 100K of product.
His brother is marked for death unless Eric can find him first. The mystery of the missing methhead brother drives the story. My favorite elements are spoilers but let just say the last 30 pages were not what I expected.
If you are looking for a redemption tale with a happy character arc this is not the book. Vlasaty opens the book in the gutter and that is the wave he surfs until the last page. The best thing about the book is the pace, and some of the little details that made me laugh.
Like the chapter that ended with:
There have been almost forty of the New Bizarro Author series books and this one of the ones that stuck with me. Besides my writing parter Anthony Trevino's King Space Void this was Vlasaty's entry was my favorite. I checked all of the titles, even if I only finished and reviewed a few of them. Sometimes the full-on Bizarro doesn't connect with me.
This is a personal thing as I am a plot and vivid character reader. I could see even writing in a genre where those elements are not mandatory that Vlasaty had skills. So I was excited as DV started to release short novellas and novels in the crime genre. While I suggested that he could write longer pieces, it is clear that these short works are his sweet spot.
This is a smart direction for this author who is writing what he knows, considering his day job was for years working in a methadone clinic. Many of the smartest decisions a writer makes is long before they sit down to write. Authors that live in the real world and have unique experiences kinda have a duty to work them into their fiction.
Stay Ugly is a hard-boiled mystery novel that delivers on the title. It is a grim ugly tale, that is entertaining and for those with a dark sense of humor, it is funny. In 180 or so pages Stay Ugly is a tightly packed mystery that all unfolds after midnight in one of Chicago's nastier hoods. Every football coach quote Richard Pryor who said nothing good happens after midnight.
This story is told in first person by Eric whose small Rogers park world post-prison can't break the habit of calling him Ugly. He is not helping matters by dominating week after week the neighborhood's underground fight club. After winning another fight he was the smaller underdog in the dealer at the center of the fight club tells him that Eric's brother has disappeared with 100K of product.
His brother is marked for death unless Eric can find him first. The mystery of the missing methhead brother drives the story. My favorite elements are spoilers but let just say the last 30 pages were not what I expected.
If you are looking for a redemption tale with a happy character arc this is not the book. Vlasaty opens the book in the gutter and that is the wave he surfs until the last page. The best thing about the book is the pace, and some of the little details that made me laugh.
Like the chapter that ended with:
"I kiss my fists and Nicky tells me to go fuck myself and we walk into the dark building. Laughing it up like everything's good and cool and happy. Like we're not about to walk into a dark and dirty crack house and face some unknown shit.
Like everything isn't terrible."
I laughed out loud when I looked and the next page and the chapter was titled "Everything is Terrible."
So are there negatives here? Very little. I think the things I didn't like are personal to me and won't affect all readers. The narrative is first-person and which is my least favorite form of tense in part because it takes me out of the book. I assume the storyteller will survive to tell the story and I wonder constantly why and how they are telling the story. I will say the longer the book goes and I get lost in the story I think about it less. That is 'a me thing'. Speaking of me things.
The other thing is not Vlasaty's fault but the last book I read was a science book so all the character's dialogue with "Whatevers" and excessive "fuckings" and "shits" were correct but took me a few pages to settle into.
This is a fun book for crime readers who like stories vivid, visceral, and ugly enough to make you happy you don't live in the world of the book. That makes it my jam. This book would make a great film and is out there for crime readers who think the classics are too clean.
No comments:
Post a Comment