Happy Birthday, Uncle Lar
Which is today. One day shy of mine (and four years, if you want the full count.) At least *someone* in der Blogosphere is older than me, though you'd be hard-pressed to find more. But hey, it puts me right in the middle of the Big Two's current target market. Too bad, as a rule, they keep missing that target, at least where I'm concerned.
And in honor of today's occasion, I was going to review True Facts, but I see that Mikester of Progressive Ruin beat me to it. I'd only add that reading True Facts is like having Larry standing over your shoulder and giving you encouragement (even if it is a tad oblique, such as "be the bunny").
Except for one thing, Larry wouldn't ever do that. He'd ask how things were going, and answer any questions you had about the process, and even offer encouragement when you were feeling low. But he'd never, ever stand over your shoulder. Larry's not a hand-holder, a coddler, a protector. He's a stern taskmaster who will recognize efforts, but only saves applause for completed projects. He wouldn't stand over your shoulder because he'd want you and your team to finish the project on your own accord and not because he was egging you on. Larry makes a pretty lousy cheerleader, mostly because he doesn't look that good in chenille and short skirts.
Instead, I'll turn my attention to Steven Grant and Vince Giarrano's Badlands, which AiT/Planet Lar re-released a couple of years back. This isn't light reading, folks. This is not a happy-go-lucky "let's find out who killed Kennedy and wrap it all up tight" sort of thing. This is a big, mean, unflinching and more than a little disturbing book. I take that back, it's not mean. Steven Grant doesn't do anything out of spite or simply because he can, like a five year old sociopath pulling wings off flies. Everything that happens in Badlands happens for a reason. None of it's exploitative or revels in how seriously disturbed most of the cast is.
Conrad Bremen, the protagonist, isn't a cookie-cutter antihero spouting one-liners and cocksure platitudes while doing what man's gotta do. He's troubled (to say the least), self-loathing, wracked by doubt and indecision. Bremen lets others live through him, complicit in his string-pulling as much as the puppetmasters themselves. He's not a role model, not even for a career criminal. There's almost nothing redeeming about his actions. He's a pawn of persons and events far superior to himself. He is acted upon, and never acts himself unless his back is against the wall. This is not what heroic fiction is all about, people.
By contrast, the cast of characters arrayed around him are forceful, inventive, proactive in the pursuit of their own interests. Everyone but Connie knows what's going on, though the supreme irony is that the master puppeteer, or at least the prime mover between the figures who are calling the shots, a man known only as Janetty carries in him a shameful secret that he goes to grotesque lengths to protect. And it's a secret that Connie has known ever since the two met. While it eats Janetty, it does nothing to Bremen, and that's perhaps his one saving grace.
It doesn't take much work to see Connie as an everyman, buffeted and tossed by events completely out of his reach, and yet at the center of them. The pivotal moment of history that Badlands revolves around, the Kennedy assassination (it's on the cover and not much of a spoiler) becomes a redefining event for society, much as it is for Connie. I won't say that Connie draws new strength from his experience, because the only strength he shows draws from desperation, when he realizes that he's not only a pawn, but that his role was empty and a ruse and that his purpose was to be a public death in a Dallas parking garage. In the end, however, there's a shot at redemption, or perhaps more accurately, rehabilitation for Connie. But he has to lose literally everything to do it.
Vince Giarrano's art is spare, but doesn't flinch from portraying actions and events in brutal detail when the story calls for it. The art is solid and grounded in bits of historical detail that successfully evoke the barren heart of America in the early sixties.
I'll admit, the first reading of Badlands was a hard one. Not because it was laid out badly. Completely the opposite, everything was cleanly put together and easy to follow. But Steven Grant's relentless and unwavering determination to do what had to be done in the story made it a tough and uncompromising read. There's precious little innocence in Badlands. Everyone gets what they deserve, but for perhaps Anne Peck, who seemed to get it rougher than some of the others. A little distance between me and that first reading lets me look at the work a little more clearly and recognize its quality, unencumbered by my initial emotional reaction. And make no mistake, it was a reaction that was every bit as real as being kicked in the ribs or having your face slammed to a cold tile floor.
Badlands is not for everyone. But then most outstanding works are like that. I'd recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the many crime books out there, but Badlands doesn't rely on surface gloss or movie-emulating cool to grab hold of the reader. This isn't for suburban gangstas who want to kick back with a forty and talk about how badass they are. This is old-school crime intersecting with our history, making for a powerful blast to the reader.