Lucky Man

by Ben Tanzer (Goodreads author)

book data

32 ratings, 4.25 average rating, 15 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		43%
4		43%
3		6%
2		6%
1		0%

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published

March 15th 2007 by Manx Media

binding

Paperback, 224 pages

url

http://www.manxmedia.com/luckyman.htm

isbn

0976969017 (isbn13: 9780976969013)

description

Lucky Man is a story about friendship, growing-up and trying to move on. Interwoven throughout are explorations into dreams, the Twilight Zone, the Gr...more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 118)

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01/02/08

Kelly Moran rated it:

bookshelves: my-reviews

I just finished reading/reviewing this book for the author, Ben. Findings are below...
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In this book, Lucky Man, by Ben Tanzer, I found many grammatical errors, such as commas needed in several places and words missing to complete phrases, such as the/and/a. I found misspellings and words used out of context, such as their/there, and anyways/ any way. At times the language can be abusive, but given the situation and the characters I don’t feel it takes away fr...more

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07/25/07

Don rated it:

bookshelves: novels

Read in July, 2007

A really fast-paced read, and character-driven, which I like. I've been sort of lucky, myself. This is only the fifth novel I've read in four years (the rest being story collections, mostly), and it was a decent read.

Was a little thrown by the ending, but it's my own fault, not the author's (I met him at the reading he had in town, here). When you've been reading stuff like the anthologies Interfictions and Paraspheres, your mind expands into weird places, much like some of the ...more

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03/06/08

Gerald rated it:

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: fans of fratire

To the extent that Lucky Man is a first-person narrative about young men coming of age, you could say it’s fratire. But this is damned serious stuff, making the book much more ambitious, I think, than some of the other puke-on-my-own-shoes books in that genre.

This is, as the reader will guess soon enough, a last-man-standing story. In the end, the question is, “What’s it all mean?” Tanzer gives no clue, but I do give him a great deal of credit for at least raising the questio...more

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04/24/08

Bayshore Books rated it:

Read in April, 2008

“Lucky Man” by Ben Tanzer is an edgy debut novel depicting the struggles of four boys trying to escape the realities of becoming an adult. Through first person narration from all four points of view, I was able to get to know each and understand a bit more about the choices they make. The characters are believable and the story clearly shows the talent of Mr. Tanzer. As long as the reader is able to overlook the lack of editing or even proofreading, this is an impressive first novel.

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06/10/08

Ginnetta rated it:

Read in July, 2008

I was drawn in and became captivated. The drug trips were vivid to my imagination as was the escapism.
Update:
I changed my mind and gave this book 5 stars instead of
4 stars. From now on. In my world every writer gets 5 stars and poops Pulitzers.

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06/25/08

Maria rated it:

Read in October, 2008

recommends it for: everyone

This is a book about four friends, Gabe, Jake, Louie and Sammy, following their last years in school/college; however, it is not only a book for teenagers. I think everyone, young and old, will enjoy reading this book. It is a book about growing up, relationships, family problems and teenage social behaviour. The writing style is unconventional - there are no quotation marks used to signify speech, which first seems very unusual, but once you get used to it, doesn't seem that bad. Each chapt...more

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04/26/08

Ken rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Full disclosure: I know Ben Tanzer (although we’ve yet to meet in person) and will actually be reading with him at Freebird Books in Brooklyn, NY on September 28. (http://www.kenwohlrob.com/2008/08/mark-y...)

Some books have a way of winning you over. I remember the first time I picked up John Fante’s Wait Until Spring, Bandini. It was not Ask the Dust. When the former was written, the author had not developed into the great teacher of Bukowski that can be found in the latter. And...more Full disclosure: I know Ben Tanzer (although we’ve yet to meet in person) and will actually be reading with him at Freebird Books in Brooklyn, NY on September 28. (http://www.kenwohlrob.com/2008/08/mark-y...)

Some books have a way of winning you over. I remember the first time I picked up John Fante’s Wait Until Spring, Bandini. It was not Ask the Dust. When the former was written, the author had not developed into the great teacher of Bukowski that can be found in the latter. And yet, as I delved deeper and deeper into Wait Until Spring, Bandini, my perception of the novel changed. While the book is not a definitive example of Fante’s greatness as a writer (Ask the Dust is his most memorable book for a reason), it has great heart, it has soul. The scene of Bandini’s mother and father laying in bed together in the first chapter just about made me weep. It was a beautiful piece of writing. I was won over.

Ben Tanzer’s Lucky Man also won me over. Perhaps because the book starts so unsuspectingly, providing no grand opening or sudden launch into the action. It starts with a conversation — between the four main characters and the reader who serves as an impromptu listener of their life stories. But I think there is a simpler answer. There isn’t an ounce of pretense in Tanzer’s writing, something lacking among a lot of my peers. You never get the sense that Tanzer is trying too hard to convince you of his writing skill. His dialogue fits his characters. The situations always feel real. All of this helps the reader settle in and go along with what at first seems like a standard coming-of-age story.

Once the book gets moving however, the story takes flight (as do the characters). Lucky Man reads like a 220-page long prose poem, told by the four main characters who speak directly to the reader in present tense. One often feels like they’re reading transcripts of reality show confessionals strung together. This is even taken to an absurd pretense when one of the characters has an unfortunate incident. But it is also the four perspectives of Sammy, Louie, Jake and Gabe that deliver a great sense of seeing the world of Lucky Man from all sides, or rather all camera angles. Along the way, there is a lot of humor and a ton of sadness. But Tanzer never uses the breakups, suicides, adultery, car crashes, drug abuse, or sudden death as cheap thrills. This is life in all its grimness.

Ultimately, the title is a grand joke. And that is what really won me over in the end. Lucky Man can be dark. And anyone who has read my work knows I have a penchant for the dark and strange and cynical. But the last page of Lucky Man nicely turns a dark, cynical outlook into a great punch line.
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11/30/07

Jason Pettus rated it:

Read in November, 2007

(My full review of this book is larger than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: Some of Tanzer's newest work is currently being considered for CCLaP's upcoming publishing program, which starts in spring 2008. The person ultimately making the decision is the same person who wrote today's review.)

As regular readers know, it can be a real crap shoot with me sometimes when i...more (My full review of this book is larger than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: Some of Tanzer's newest work is currently being considered for CCLaP's upcoming publishing program, which starts in spring 2008. The person ultimately making the decision is the same person who wrote today's review.)

As regular readers know, it can be a real crap shoot with me sometimes when it comes to the subject of deliberately flawed characters, and especially when it comes to such characters making the same mistakes over and over; see, for example, my much-hated scathing pan of Darren Aronofsky's usually much-loved Requiem for a Dream, which in my case just rubbed me the wrong f--king way. It's not that I don't like flawed characters, because I do in certain cases; and it's not like I deliberately hate all creative projects where such characters make the same mistakes over and over, because I understand that that is part of most humans' nature and can sometimes make for great narrative stories. But I'm also just one of those people who personally can't stand most "weak" people out in the real world, or at least let's put it here as "people who let their vices control them, not the other way around;" I guess what really determines what I think about creative projects on the subject depends ultimately on that particular artist's skill level. As fans of these types of stories can tell you, the right tale of the right deeply flawed person can be a heartbreaking, breathtaking experience, a deep and profound look at what it really means to be human; the wrong look at the subject, though, I think can feel like a clawing chore as an audience member, a dreary job that that artist thinks they have the right to "put you through," not an elevating experience that you voluntarily want to be a part of.

And that brings us to Lucky Man, a striking coming-of-age tale that is also the first novel by Chicago author Ben Tanzer, and on top of that is the very first book by new basement press Manx Media. And I'm happy to report that the novel falls into the first camp of flawed-character stories when it comes to what I was saying above; that I ended up enjoying the story and its deeply screwed-up characters quite immensely, precisely because of Tanzer's deft personal style and of the brutal minimalism used to tell its Larry-Clark-style story. It is an unflinching look at the late teens and early twenties of the typical American male, a sometimes horrid stare into the maw of cruelty that can exist between such people in such a milieu; but it is also a survey of the American casual drug scene from the early '80s to the millennium, told in the order that so many Midwestern rural males actually experience it, from beer and weed in high school to acid and ecstasy at the state college, to cocaine and crack after school when the crushing reality of grown-up redneck life comes crashing around them. As someone who grew up in a rural area of Missouri myself, I can attest that Lucky Man spoke deeply to me, in a true voice that mirrors many of my own experiences from the years being discussed here; I mean, granted, it's an exclusive look at the bad side of such experiences, a bleak cautionary tale that is much more Sam Shepard than Garrison Keilor, but as long as you're up for a dark story that relies on a white-trash setting for its flavor, this is a pretty great tale indeed.

Told as a series of first-person reminisces...(less)

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08/11/08

Ross rated it:

Read in August, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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03/11/08

Jason Jordan rated it:

Structurally similar to Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, or Dills’s Sons of the Rapture contemporarily speaking, Ben Tanzer’s debut novel Lucky Man (Manx Media, 2007) splits the narration among the four chief characters, who are otherwise known as Gabe, Jake, Louie, and Sammy. And as the back of the book aptly puts it, “Lucky Man follows four friends from their final days of high school through their first couple of years out of college. Each has personal demons they are battling – anger, su...more

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12/18/08

Ben rated it:

I wrote this book and I rated it. I am thrilled with the former and I am a little embarrassed about the latter. Either way though, I hope you read it. Well that, and enjoy it. And then maybe share it with your friends and possibly even buy more copies. So there you go. Thanks.

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01/06/08

Sherrie rated it:

bookshelves: first-novel, small--independent-press

Read in January, 2008

Ben Tanzer's debut novel LUCKY MAN sucked me in with its smart little chapters changing point of view every few pages like a good high school basketball game. This is a plot driven book that lets character development rise from action.

I wasn't sure how he was going to tie it all together in the final pages, but I think he did it. Very, very interesting. A fresh, energetic voice.

[If I were able to rate Manx Media with the star system, however, I would give them one, lonel...more

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01/14/08

S. added it

Read in February, 2008

It is funny, but also sad and strange and surprising and many other engaging ‘S’ words. I was especially impressed by his range of emotion and for his clever plotting. As the novel went from coming-of-age to On the Road-like road trip, I was happy to bum along, expecting it to end in the requisite literary epiphany, but I was excited by the deft turn in the book’s conclusion. Lucky Man makes me eager for more from Tanzer.

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01/06/08

Rusty rated it:

Read in November, 2008

Yeah, so this has only taken me months to review(I don't really know how long (Sorry Ben!). This is a very slick debut. I'd call it a coming-of-age novel, but it's more complex than that. I found all the relationships (esp the father/son dynamic) to be right on target. Some layout issues and typos make the book feel less than professional sometimes, and that's too bad: this book deserves better.

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