Neal Barrett, Jr (1929–2014)

Amusing but occasionally tiresome, much like a visiting three-year-old. Also like a three year old, it insists on interacting with those who would rather remain untouched. It reminds me somewhat of the famous male writers I read in the late 80s: Tom Robbins, Updike--kind of clever but more than a little fixated on females and the possibility of sex.

A cop calls Wiley Moss to let him know his father has died:
"If you hadn't told me he was dead, I never would have known he was alive."
The cop went silent a moment. I heard ice tinkle in a glass. Part of a country song. The man was in a bar somewhere. Neon signs, something with horns on the wall. He had told me his name was R.J. You can't trust a man with initials for a name."

The phone call send Moss hurrying down to Galveston, Texas ("in the Southwest somewhere"). He leaves his girlfriend, Giselle, behind with few regrets; before long he's oogling a beautiful copper-haired woman on a plane as he tries to ignore his seatmate, Chicken Man, who has some quality advice about fluids: "He held up his empty plastic glass. 'Whiskey is made from pure natural grain. Straight from Mother Earth. Toss out that juicer and get yourself on the road to health." Moss is soon careening from one disaster to another, meeting acquaintances of his father and trying to understand the life he was living as he works out who would want to kill him.

The plotting is straight from the school bumbling interloper who stumbles into a situation much larger than himself and basically only works out what is going on through dumb luck. Unfortunately, there's a bit at the end that doesn't quite satisfy--if you every read this, look me up and we'll talk. Suffice it to say that it won't work for fans of the definitive. I don't think. Unless I read it wrong.

Characters are all rather fascinating, if a bit extreme. Sadly, Moss is not a particularly likeable lead. He's clueless, both needy and hostile, and spends far too much time thinking about how attractive the female characters are. I found myself most drawn to a deaf child, Git, who was easily the most cheerful, clever and gentle person in the book.

What I most enjoyed about it was Barrett's writing, an interesting mixture of description and fragments that often segued off into imagination without any clear markers. It is deceptively simple and able to evoke emotion without specifics. By far the most enjoyable aspect of the story is the extreme characters and their banter. Written in 1996, I experienced a surreal moment when I read: "Chicken Man tried to grin. He had a little mouth like Donald Trump. Donald Trump can't hardly grin at all." I'm also a sucker for a caper, and this has a feeling of mad-cap adventure about it. However, like a visiting three-year-old, I was worn out after a relatively short time. I read this one over a number of days and thus was able to enjoy it instead of sliding into exasperation.

Two-and-a-half stars, rounding up for making me laugh.… (more)

"The lamp by the bed said cheap hotel. The lamp was bright orange, which is not a good color if you drink. You wake up and your head's a can of nails, you don't want to see a lot of orange. You want to see a color like black."

I found Barrett by way of reading his Hugo/Nebula novelette nominee, 'Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus.' Something about the tone, humor and nicely paced story intrigued me, and I found more of the same in Pink Vodka Blues. A solid mystery of the 'find the missing item' school, Russell Murray ('not Murray Russell') wakes from a bender in a motel room with a very attractive young woman. While he's heaving up last night in the bathroom, two large men break into the motel room, shoot the girl and then spy him hiding in the bathroom. Within a flash, he's on the run.

"I decided last week was the ideal time to leave town. That I really liked fishing a lot. That I could surely learn to like the local beer. As ever, good planning is the key."

He's pretty sure a drink or three will help him cope, but Chicago isn't selling at this exact moment, so he makes his way to the Wisconsin border where they have early opening on Sundays.

"The sign at the Wisconsin border reads: 'Warning! Wisconsin Arrests Drunken drivers!' To help bring this about, an impressive number of taverns line the roads. Other states have Mom and Pop groceries… Wisconsin has Mom and Pop taverns – more taverns per capita, locals boast, than any other state."

He buys a bottle and calls his friend and employer Tony Palmer, who seems excessively interested in where Russell is and what happened to a briefcase. Russell has no clue what Tony is referring so but starts to get worried, so he hangs up and takes to the road with his booze. You can tell its the late 80s, because the cop that picks him up leaves him at a rehab facility instead of jail. (Of course, Wisconsin still remains one of the best states to drive in while drunk, if by 'best,' one means no minimum sentence and it'll take four OWI before you reach felony level offense). After a bit of hallucination and a missed urinal, he comes around to Sherry Lou Winn, fellow resident, staring him in the face. She's well endowed in the financial sense and looks like a red-headed Cheryl Ladd, but even better, is a bit of a loose cannon.

"Sherry took a bite of dry toast. 'Les doesn't care for me a lot. He figures I'll bring you down.'
'You just might,' I said. 'I have no will of my own. I am easily led astray.'
'I sure do admire that in a man,' Sherry said."

The two end up on the road, trying to figure out what is going on and clear Murray's reputation. The danger eventually becomes quite real, as if Murray didn't already know. There's a lot of drinking, some intermittent research, and narrow escapes that all tie up in a solid, if somewhat confusing, ending.

I found it highly enjoyable, a kind of perfect read for a not-too-serious mood. The banter was amusing and I particularly appreciated the dry wit punctuating Murray's thoughts. Murray wrote for "The Literary Times,' and more than one of his jokes draws on the literary ("my mouth was dry as a page of Henry James"). There's a number of running jokes which amuse--particularly the ones relating to vocabulary--as well as a few absurdist images.

I half expected the staccato narrative style to grate, but strangely, I enjoyed it. I think Barrett kept the pace moving, and switched to a more descriptive style at appropriate moments. It might have also helped that I didn't read this all at once, but more as a diversion. Characterization may seem a bit simple at first--Murray is a bit of a sweetly sincere and straight-forward drunk--but I thought there was a nice subtlety to how Sherry and Murray related, and how their relationship evolved through the strain of their search for the briefcase. It takes skill to weave the balance between humor and daring adventure, and this nicely navigated humor and suspense.


Note: although this is described sometimes as part of the 'Wiley Moss series,' it is no such thing. Apparently Barrett wrote four detective novels in a quick time frame, with similar style. This book is a stand-alone mystery.

The review is on my Wordpress blog, and contains a number of links/ references for those who don't believe me about Wisconsin. https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/pink-vodka-blues-by-neal-barrett-jr-n...… (more)

A likable story about on the level of a Star Trek episode. The characters are sort of shallow and the plotting is not too deep, but it gets the job done.

The theme is mostly about medieval scheming and fighting within a strict theocracy, taking place on another planet populated by humans and demons, some of whom can 'jump' (i.e teleport). There is a central sci-fi mystery that is slowly revealed as the story progresses and is solved pretty satisfactorily by then end, an ending that mostly works and ties everything up nicely.

Probably more like 3 stars, but I have to give credit for the thought out sci-fi mystery that follows through to the end.… (more)