I had long wanted to read Adrian McKinty, undoubtedly because I've been reading publicity about Adrian McKinty for years. Lately, McKinty's been tweeting on Twitter, and this reminded me: "Oh, yes, I've been meaning to read McKinty for years; why don't I do that now?"
Although Dead I May Well Be is definitely a thriller, it doesn't have a red and black cover as so many do. Just a photo of a guy lying in bed beside a handgun.
If I'd known what Dead I May Well Be was about, ever, I'd forgotten it by the time I started the book. At first, I thought, "Oh, it's about the Troubles." A few pages later, I realized that this book was really going to be about living in New York as an immigrant, and a gangster, in the 1990s. And the gangster part ensured that there would be a lot of violence, and my heart just sank. I didn't want to read a book about a man making a living as a gangster.
However, I talked myself into trying to read the book anyway. I was thinking about the fact that I've hated the first chapter of almost every book I've read over the last two or three years; I've come to think of my appraisal at the end of a first chapter as entirely unreliable, or unimportant. I suppose that I used to enjoy crime fiction more than I do today. I suppose, too, that having formed a plan I'm a little reluctant to deviate from it.
A seeming stroke of luck opens the novel. "Belfast confetti," surprisingly, pricdes a windfall for some. Mikey seems to be lucky: another bomb has exploded in Belfast, and he and several other young men hanging out on the street experience a windfall. They're hired to put up replacement glass. A news photographer takes a photograph of the men and Mikey loses his unemployment benefits.
With no prospects for any kind of employment on the horizon, and knowing that his grandmother cannot afford to keep them both on her benefits, he very reluctantly agrees to move to New York and work on the crew of a drug peddler in an Irish part of Harlem.
The description of his barren apartment is a metaphor for how starved of spirit his life is in New York. But it gradually emerges that he, and his acquaintances on the crew, are all graduates of the Troubles. That is, they learned about violence as members of paramilitaries. Early on Mikey comments that the stakes were higher in New York: death instead of kneecapping. If that knowledge doesn't provide enough dramatic tension, Mikey is having a secret affair with the barely legal, very beautiful, and distant Bridget, girlfriend of his boss's boss. As utterly tragically stupid as this is, the poverty of his inner life, symbolized by the sparseness of his furnishings, makes this more plausible.
That's another thing about this book. It defied my expectations by presenting Mikey's gangster life as a wild veering between colossal stupidity and creative problem-solving.
Mikey commutes on the elevated train to meet up with his crew at the Four Provinces. He reads on the train. One one of his journeys, early in the novel, he reports that he's reading a book about a guy who won't get out of bed. Suddenly, it hit me: he's talking about Oblomov! I couldn't believe it.
He's winking at the reader. Oh my god, I'm the reader! He's winking at me! This is so exciting, I'm beside myself.
I'm ashamed to respond to pandering, but I couldn't help starting to really like Mikey at that moment.
Later in the book, Mikey offers another cryptic clue to the book he's then reading: "rich people in Long Island, a death." He's reading The Great Gatsby. Mikey's ex-military and sets up observation posts two or three times in the novel. For one, he listens to an audiobook of War and Peace. He opines that later in the novel, he's grateful when a few characters die as the high number of characters was confusing him.
"The train again. This time it was full of commuters and slightly more cosmopolitan. Harder getting a seat, but I managed in the corner. I got out my paperback. Rich people, Long Island, days gone by. A death.
"The crowd thinned as we edged out of Manhattan. I put bookshop bookmark in and as I did so I noticed that a note had been written on the back of it. 'Too much reading, not enough f*****.' Bridget's ornamental handwriting. It ticked me off. Bloody dangerous. What if someone in the Four P. says, 'What's that you're reading there, Mike?' grabs the book, the bookmark falls out, sees the scrawl, recognizes it? Jesus. I ripped up the bookmark and dropped it on the floor."
As I read it, I thought, this really reminds me of Dennis Lehane. Cities feature in both writers' work. Like Lehane, McKinty writes wonderful dialogue and uses it to reveal character. There's quite a bit of attitude, for lack of a better word, and real feeling. These writers have something to say. And, it also reminds me a little bit of Ian Rankin. After finishing the novel, I looked back on the shape of the plot and couldn't help feeling that the emotionally cool Bridget owes a little something to Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.
There's something epic about this action-filled thriller. I find myself thinking it's an epic poem, wrapped in an account of the immigrant experience, wrapped in a thriller. I think that makes this book a literary thriller. This book is witty, clever, sarcastic. When McGinty talks about setting up an observaton post, it makes sense and whether he knows or did the research, it's a success. feels like a giant statement of bravado. Is it pretentious that McGinty draws your attention to his knowledge and his skill? Perhaps it is, but I think it's also a promise of commitment to literary culture. And I have to admit, I really like this novel.
Although Dead I May Well Be is definitely a thriller, it doesn't have a red and black cover as so many do. Just a photo of a guy lying in bed beside a handgun.
If I'd known what Dead I May Well Be was about, ever, I'd forgotten it by the time I started the book. At first, I thought, "Oh, it's about the Troubles." A few pages later, I realized that this book was really going to be about living in New York as an immigrant, and a gangster, in the 1990s. And the gangster part ensured that there would be a lot of violence, and my heart just sank. I didn't want to read a book about a man making a living as a gangster.
However, I talked myself into trying to read the book anyway. I was thinking about the fact that I've hated the first chapter of almost every book I've read over the last two or three years; I've come to think of my appraisal at the end of a first chapter as entirely unreliable, or unimportant. I suppose that I used to enjoy crime fiction more than I do today. I suppose, too, that having formed a plan I'm a little reluctant to deviate from it.
A seeming stroke of luck opens the novel. "Belfast confetti," surprisingly, pricdes a windfall for some. Mikey seems to be lucky: another bomb has exploded in Belfast, and he and several other young men hanging out on the street experience a windfall. They're hired to put up replacement glass. A news photographer takes a photograph of the men and Mikey loses his unemployment benefits.
With no prospects for any kind of employment on the horizon, and knowing that his grandmother cannot afford to keep them both on her benefits, he very reluctantly agrees to move to New York and work on the crew of a drug peddler in an Irish part of Harlem.
The description of his barren apartment is a metaphor for how starved of spirit his life is in New York. But it gradually emerges that he, and his acquaintances on the crew, are all graduates of the Troubles. That is, they learned about violence as members of paramilitaries. Early on Mikey comments that the stakes were higher in New York: death instead of kneecapping. If that knowledge doesn't provide enough dramatic tension, Mikey is having a secret affair with the barely legal, very beautiful, and distant Bridget, girlfriend of his boss's boss. As utterly tragically stupid as this is, the poverty of his inner life, symbolized by the sparseness of his furnishings, makes this more plausible.
That's another thing about this book. It defied my expectations by presenting Mikey's gangster life as a wild veering between colossal stupidity and creative problem-solving.
Mikey commutes on the elevated train to meet up with his crew at the Four Provinces. He reads on the train. One one of his journeys, early in the novel, he reports that he's reading a book about a guy who won't get out of bed. Suddenly, it hit me: he's talking about Oblomov! I couldn't believe it.
He's winking at the reader. Oh my god, I'm the reader! He's winking at me! This is so exciting, I'm beside myself.
I'm ashamed to respond to pandering, but I couldn't help starting to really like Mikey at that moment.
Later in the book, Mikey offers another cryptic clue to the book he's then reading: "rich people in Long Island, a death." He's reading The Great Gatsby. Mikey's ex-military and sets up observation posts two or three times in the novel. For one, he listens to an audiobook of War and Peace. He opines that later in the novel, he's grateful when a few characters die as the high number of characters was confusing him.
"The train again. This time it was full of commuters and slightly more cosmopolitan. Harder getting a seat, but I managed in the corner. I got out my paperback. Rich people, Long Island, days gone by. A death.
"The crowd thinned as we edged out of Manhattan. I put bookshop bookmark in and as I did so I noticed that a note had been written on the back of it. 'Too much reading, not enough f*****.' Bridget's ornamental handwriting. It ticked me off. Bloody dangerous. What if someone in the Four P. says, 'What's that you're reading there, Mike?' grabs the book, the bookmark falls out, sees the scrawl, recognizes it? Jesus. I ripped up the bookmark and dropped it on the floor."
As I read it, I thought, this really reminds me of Dennis Lehane. Cities feature in both writers' work. Like Lehane, McKinty writes wonderful dialogue and uses it to reveal character. There's quite a bit of attitude, for lack of a better word, and real feeling. These writers have something to say. And, it also reminds me a little bit of Ian Rankin. After finishing the novel, I looked back on the shape of the plot and couldn't help feeling that the emotionally cool Bridget owes a little something to Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.
There's something epic about this action-filled thriller. I find myself thinking it's an epic poem, wrapped in an account of the immigrant experience, wrapped in a thriller. I think that makes this book a literary thriller. This book is witty, clever, sarcastic. When McGinty talks about setting up an observaton post, it makes sense and whether he knows or did the research, it's a success. feels like a giant statement of bravado. Is it pretentious that McGinty draws your attention to his knowledge and his skill? Perhaps it is, but I think it's also a promise of commitment to literary culture. And I have to admit, I really like this novel.
