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Say Nice Things About Detroit

by Scott Lasser (Goodreads Author)

3.29 of 5 stars 3.29 · rating details · 394 ratings · 118 reviews

Twenty-five years after his high school graduation, David Halpert returns to a place that most people flee. But David is making his own escape—from his divorce and the death of his son. In Detroit, David learns about the double shooting of his high school girlfriend Natalie and her black half-brother, Dirk. As David becomes involved with Natalie’s sister, he will discover...more

Hardcover, 272 pages

Published July 2nd 2012 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published January 1st 2012)

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Feb 20, 2013 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

I'm usually pretty generous when it comes to fiction that's explicitly trying evoke a city, especially if that city isn't New York. Unfortunately, this sappy love letter to Detroit just goes way too far in trying to resuscitate the city, and along the way invokes race in a way that is highly suspect. The plot revolves around David a 40-something lawyer who grew up outside Detroit, but has been living in Denver for the last twenty years or so. His mother's sliding into dementia, and his father as...more I'm usually pretty generous when it comes to fiction that's explicitly trying evoke a city, especially if that city isn't New York. Unfortunately, this sappy love letter to Detroit just goes way too far in trying to resuscitate the city, and along the way invokes race in a way that is highly suspect. The plot revolves around David a 40-something lawyer who grew up outside Detroit, but has been living in Denver for the last twenty years or so. His mother's sliding into dementia, and his father asks him to come home for a visit. When doing so, he learns of the recent murder of his high-school girlfriend and her half-brother and meets up with her younger sister.

It doesn't take much prodding for him to ditch Colorado to try and make a fresh start in Detroit, especially since he's fleeing his own demons, which include the death of his son and the subsequent end of his marriage. Quick as a blink, he's trading his Audi in for an American-made car, buying a historic house in a black neighborhood, wooing his former girlfriend's sister, and helping out the wayward nephew of the dead half-brother. I'm not quite sure I've come across a redemption story that's trying to hit so many different targets at the same time, and the effect is cloying and false.

Make no mistake, David is not redeeming himself so much as rescuing others in blatant ways. He's rescuing his father from loneliness, the sister from a dead marriage, the nephew from his poor past choices (and the thugs after him), the dead half-brother's mother from her unsalable house, and on and on. It all starts to feel like the David fantasy hour, and nowhere is it more of a fantasy than the depiction of gentrification -- or to be precise, a white fantasy. Over and over, his choice to buy a home in a black neighborhood is questioned by everyone he meets, allowing him to occupy the virtuous colorblind moral high ground. The house even comes with a built in fantasy neighbor - a retired judge (picture a Field of Dreams era James Earl Jones) who accepts him and invites him over for dinner, goes to a Tigers game with him, etc.

After I finished it, I checked out some of the media reviews and was shocked at how much praise it's gotten. Don't get me wrong, it's nicely paced and moves right along, and there's plenty of nice Detroit-specific detail, but the whole thing has the feel of a middle-age white divorcee's Hallmark movie. If you want an undemanding romantic story, this is a nice short one, but if you want the great Detroit fictional experience, stick with Middlesex or Elmore Leonard's Detroit-set crime capers.(less)

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Jul 15, 2012 Erin rated it 1 of 5 stars

I had to put this book down and walk away. I had high hopes for this book, being a Detroit area resident (I won't lie, I don't live within the city, but south of it.). Growing up, Detroit is the big city, the city my parent's used to go to, the one I started exploring when I got old enough to drive myself there, where I frequent now. It is the city my grandfather used to drive my four year old brother around, showing him the sights, especially Belle Isle. My husband is from the actual city, and...more

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Dec 02, 2012 Mike Tueros rated it 3 of 5 stars

A quick read, and with roots in hometown nostalgia, I would probably have given this book 3 1/2 stars if possible. Lasser weaves a story about David Halpert, a Denver lawyer who is pulled back to his hometown of Detroit to help his father with his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's. That's a lot in and of itself, but to pile on top of it, Halpert is divorced and his son was killed in an auto accident a few years prior...wait, not done yet. He gets involved with his high school girlfriends sist...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Larry Hoffer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Yes, you can go home again. But do you want to? Scott Lasser's new novel, Say Nice Things about Detroit, strives to answer those questions.

David Halpert hasn't really been back to his hometown of Detroit in more than 25 years. Most people flee that city and never come back, but trying to recover from a divorce and the death of his son, and help his father with his ailing mother, David decides to return. Shortly thereafter, he learns about the murder of his high school girlfriend, Natalie, and he...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Stephanie W rated it 4 of 5 stars

As someone also writing about Detroit and its suburbs, I felt I had to read SAY NICE THINGS ABOUT DETROIT. Lasser certainly knows his setting, and I loved the idea of these characters returning home after tragedy befalls them in more idyllic locales (Denver, Los Angeles). Lasser also shines light on the ongoing racial tension in the city; there is a black Detroit and a white (suburban) Detroit, and the two worlds rarely intersect. What gives weight and momentum to the novel are Lasser's characte...more As someone also writing about Detroit and its suburbs, I felt I had to read SAY NICE THINGS ABOUT DETROIT. Lasser certainly knows his setting, and I loved the idea of these characters returning home after tragedy befalls them in more idyllic locales (Denver, Los Angeles). Lasser also shines light on the ongoing racial tension in the city; there is a black Detroit and a white (suburban) Detroit, and the two worlds rarely intersect. What gives weight and momentum to the novel are Lasser's characters as they tread this boundary, with varying results. One character, Dirk, walks this tightrope his whole life: he has a white mother and black father, and as an adult works undercover for the FBI. For him, having a dual identity is more than just part of the job.

While I enjoyed the book, the prose sometimes fell flat, and the "in" references to Detroit, as well as some of the dialogue, felt too heavy-handed. Places and landmarks are named frequently, lest we forget where this book takes place: the People Mover, Greektown, the Ren Cen. When David, one of the main characters, invites his neighbor to a game at Tiger Stadium, he's reminded that it's "Comerica Park" now. It's a reminder the reader doesn't need, as a few chapters earlier, David helps a young man open an account at Comerica, "the bank that had naming rights to the new ballpark." (This is paraphrase, not a direct quote.) Then there's a moment at the end of the book, once David (white) has been living in a predominantly black neighborhood for a few months when he's questioned (for the umpteenth time) what he's doing living there. His (black) neighbor, the one who accompanied him to the Tigers' game, steps in, saying, "He belongs here." It was a bit of a cringe-worthy moment, I felt--an overstatement of a man "earning" his place in his neighborhood. Still, I'd recommend the book, to native Detroiters and to those curious about this much-maligned city. Detroit does need more people saying nice things, and I'm glad Lasser is one of them.

In the interest of social commentary, I found it telling that while Lasser's characters manage to find their homes in Detroit, he still lives out West. This is not a critique--I myself have made my home far away from the Motor City--but it makes me wonder if finding happiness in Detroit is still the stuff of fiction.(less)

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Oct 14, 2012 Jodi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-audiobooks, audiobook, ll12

David returns to Detroit, reluctantly, only to discover that maybe the city has more to offer than he expected. It isn't that life is a breeze. His mother dies unexpectedly. He decides to buy the house of the brother of a former girlfriend. Both were recently gunned down in an unsolved murder. The catch, the brother was black and David, white, will be moving into an all black neighborhood. He's also seeing the remaining sister. It's complicated and yet it isn't. Sometimes you can go home again....more

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Nov 03, 2012 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-novels

http://philadelphiareviewofbooks.com/...

Joshua Cohen, in his New Books column in the July issue of Harper's, cited a trio of novels as heralds of a new literature of disenchantment, "the spawn of Bush’s two terms of excruciating contractions—foreign invasions, environmental calamity, financial crisis." Cohen has admirably taken over the column after John Leonard's death - and a few overly lush attempts by Zadie Smith - and here he has attempted something even more ambitious, in a critical sense,...more http://philadelphiareviewofbooks.com/...

Joshua Cohen, in his New Books column in the July issue of Harper's, cited a trio of novels as heralds of a new literature of disenchantment, "the spawn of Bush’s two terms of excruciating contractions—foreign invasions, environmental calamity, financial crisis." Cohen has admirably taken over the column after John Leonard's death - and a few overly lush attempts by Zadie Smith - and here he has attempted something even more ambitious, in a critical sense, than Leonard ever did. Leonard, more interested in the narrative possibility of book reviews, never, at least in the confines of the brief column inches of New Books, attempted to define or promote a literary movement.

I have yet to read Wichita by Thad Ziolowski, but I reviewed Ben Fountain's masterful novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk in September for the Philadelphia Review of Books, and now I'll turn briefly to Scott Lasser's Say Nice Things About Detroit. Fountain's accomplishment in writing an emotionally powerful novel about soldiers in the Iraq war (albeit on a "victory tour" of the United States) without ever slipping into tear-jerking sentimentality cannot be overstated. Lasser does not accomplish the same feat in Say Nice Things About Detroit. While the message of his narrative, which can be summed up as "you can go home again and it's much easier than you think," makes an interesting antidote to stereotypes of urban decay and moral panic, the truth is much harder than it appears in this novel of second chances. Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again, because home does not wait for you to come. But in fiction all sorts of emotional magic is possible.

I'll admit I couldn't resist the gravity and subtlety of David and Carolyn's transformation from stilted castaways in the metropolises of the American West to comfortable gentrifiers in Detroit's suburbs, but too many of the plot points centered on stereotypical twists of fate and clashes of culture. It's all saccharine, and strong enough to make you cry, but not worthy of the company of Fountain's novel.

One thing Lasser excels at in Say Nice Things About Detroit is celebrating the American urban landscape in a city other than New York or Los Angeles. Too many mainstream novels take place in those coastal centers of publishing and the literary potential of smaller American cities has yet to be realized. Philadelphia is ripe for its novels of disenchantment.

Notes:

Lasser captures the Detroit milieu perfectly with his trim style and the lost, searching feeling of someone returning home to such a unique place makes for compelling bits of mundane dialogue. Instead of focusing on extremes of poverty or wealth, the narrative rides right down the middle, working class white and black families. Lasser gets the slow burn of grief, the pictures of Dirk, the memories David harbors of Natalie and experiences through his affair with Carolyn. The odd, subtle juxtapositions, like David's mother having an affair in a nursing home or Marlon smoking a joint with his cancer-ridden uptight dad, or Dirk's whole family situation, are unique but not unbelievable and not fantastic. Though peril is not necessarily an overriding presence in an overt way, the new equilibrium David and Carolyn head toward seems to hang from a delicate thread.

The physical impressions of things, the smell of sex, the tightening of pants, the baggy clothes Marlon wears and all the old rusty American cars, make Lasser's Detroit a full and rich place. The relationship between Dirk and Natalie is overly sweet, and the twist of fate conclusion of their deaths being caused by Marlon's problems as a dealer strike the first false note of the novel. After lives of tragedy and self-deception, David and Carolyn somehow find the cure for the modern condition in returning home, something Thomas Wolfe said you can never do. Thomas Wolfe didn't live in Detroit though. The novel is a little saccharine, but strong enough to make you cry. (less)

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Mar 04, 2013 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

For the first half of this novel about a returnee to the Motor City I kept thinking "Jeffrey Eugenides," because there were so many specific references to Detroit, Birmingham, Royal Oak and Grosse Pointe locales and minutia. By 2/3s I let that go and the experience improved.

Mr. Lasser has a pretty good story, though it took quite a while for me muster real interest and attention. Main character Denver estates and trusts lawyer David returns to Detroit and his failing parents, deciding to uproot...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Betsy rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: sentimental detroiters

White upper-middle class guy returns to Detroit - the "real" Detroit below 8 mile road, not the suburban Detroit to the north where he grew up - and has adventures, good and bad, with black people. That's the gist of this novel by someone who went to my suburban Detroit prep school - and I don't fault him for trying or for implying, if not outright saying, that there are nice things about Detroit. But the writing was a bit blunt and the novel plot-heavy, jerking from one character to the next, o...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Caryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

As an auto-industry and Detroit refugee who now lives in Denver, this book was an absolute must-read.

I have a friend whose annual gift to me is a trip to someplace in Detroit -- Belle Isle, Greektown, a Tiger Game, or even just an coney island hot dog from Lafayette Street. My friend loves Detroit, and always helps me see the beauty in this old and ravaged city..

And even though, I won't be migrating back any time soon, it was gratifying to see the city again through fresh eyes. Lasser has done...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Rick rated it 2 of 5 stars

Scott Lasser's novel is a quick and easy read perfect for an interminable flight from Newark to Charlotte. the book chronicles the ever popular cliche of the lost middle-aged white dude who finds love and happiness upon returning to inner city Detroit and builds a life with the adulterous sister of his former girlfriend who on page one has already been cutdown in a hail of gunfire with her black half brother. Coincidences I think not. Lasser writes better about Detroit then he does about people....more

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Nov 20, 2012 Allison Long rated it 4 of 5 stars

Besides having one of the best titles I've seen in years, 'Say Nice Things About Detroit' is a really good read. By really good read I mean that you don't want to put it down and that Scott Lasser ties everything together without making it seem cliche. He also makes Detroit sound, if not like paradise, definitely not like the washed up ghost town we've all come to associate with the city. I have to admit that I was a little scared after finishing the book, because this is not a sugar coated nove...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Scotchneat rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: family-fiction

David Halpert grew up in Detroit but left, like many others, for a better life. But when he returns home to help his father take care of his mother, he decides to stay for good and move back from Denver.

He finds out that his high school sweetheart and her half-brother, who happens to have been an FBI agent, and black, were gunned down a few days before. He gets in touch with her younger sister and they become involved.

This is a love story for the city of Detroit that nonetheless focused on its c...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Akeiisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

While this wasn't the suspenseful, tense novel I thought it would be, it was a nice character study focusing on what it means to start over when you think you've lost what matters. David is still recovering from the loss of his son, when his father asks him to come home to Detroit to help with his ailing mother. Carolyn has returned to Detroit following the murder of her sister and half-brother and finds herself confronting some hard truths. Marlon has lived his entire life in Detroit, made some...more

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May 15, 2013 Johnny rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Ehhh. I agree with most of the other reviewers: I wanted to like this book, really wanted to like it, and really, it was just ok. The references to areas my wife and I are currently discovering having moved to Detroit were interesting... but the storyline was pretty weak and predictable. It also painted race issues in Detroit in a very stereotypical light, and didn't really have anything to add to the discussion around those issues either. Just not really worth the read, unless you really like r...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Joan rated it 3 of 5 stars

David returns to Detroit from Denver after the death of his child and divorce to help his father with his mother's dementia. He sees that a former white girlfriend has been killed with her black brother. David reconnects with the girlfriend's younger sister. This is a happy ever after book within a mystery. Although, some parts of the story are extreme like the mother being tackled by the 80 year old football line backer in the nursing home resulting in her death. The real Detroit doesn't featur...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Naomi rated it 4 of 5 stars

David Halpert, a lawyer living in Denver is compelled to come home to Detroit to help his father take care of his aging mother. He finds he can not go back to Denver and leave his father without help. He meets Carolyn, the sister of his old sweetheart Natalie who has been shot to death along side of Dirk, their black brother. David immerses himself once again into the city of Detroit and tries to make a life for himself there. The flavor of Detroit and its hard times come through very vividly in...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Doreen Dickinson rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the book. i would have preferred 3.5 stars but without that option, i gave the 4. its a simple easy read about nice people trying to navigate the meaning in midlife. however, Detroit, race, and parenting are very interesting side characters. one review said it was a sad depiction of that city and is not a true representation. i don't know the city and cant answerthat. however, what i can say is that it is an accurate depiction of what's broken in the us, along with the hope and sorrow...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Diane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Actually, I would give this book 3 1/2 stars. I liked the characters and the plot kept me interested. The first half of the story, however, jumped around a like and I found it difficult to follow. The basic story line is about a man whose life is in shambles, he is divorced after having lost his son, and comes back to Detroit at the request of his dad because his mother has alzeheimers. And, surprise, moving back to Detroit, despite all the drug dealers and random killings, turns out to be a tur...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Patty rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: readin12

This was a good story. A bit of a mystery and suspense with interesting characters. I wasn't familiar with Scott Lasser but he wrote a couple more books, one about Battle Creek which I'd like to read.

Detroit is a place that most people don't have anything nice to say about it. Crime is easy to find and hard to get away from. The two main characters moved away as soon as they could but circumstances have changed and now they want to come back and take on the challenge and be happy in Detroit. So...more

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Mar 18, 2013 Peebee rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book a lot more than most other readers, it seems. I spent four years in Michigan, and while I never lived in Detroit, I did spend time there and many of my friends were Detroit-area natives. So it felt very familiar to me. So much so that I briefly had this insane fantasy of buying an extremely inexpensive house -- for cash or something close to it -- and spending some time there. Unlikely it will happen but it's no crazier than some other ideas that have crossed my mind in the las...more

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Nov 30, 2012 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is not Eminem's Detroit. Although the same issues are present in Scott Lasser's novel, the perspective is different. In 8 Mile, the character was angling for a way out of Detroit. In Say Nice Things..., the main character comes back to Detroit. It's a very human, multifaceted perspective and definitely worth the time to read. The characters are real and engaging and the matter of fact tone of the writing makes what could otherwise have been horrifying incidents accessible to people who were...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

LOOOVED this book. Best book of 2012 for me. The protagonist is exactly my age. He's writing about Detroit, a subject I find fascinating. I found it very well written - mesmerizing, almost. One of those books you just live inside of while you're reading it. The portrayal of Detroit, the idea of going home again to place where no one returns to once they escape, the family issues - all of it really resonated with me. I highly recommend this book. I plan to track down all of his books.

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Aug 26, 2012 Kim rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book. Being a native of Detroit, I was glad to read a book written by someone who truly knows the area and understands it. Scott Lasser really did a good job of bringing the characters of David and Carolyn to life. My quibbles are with the black characters, Dirk, Everett, and Marlon. I always felt like I was reading a white writer's interpretation of a black Detroiter when I read their points of view. When Marlon sees his father "puking" and refers to an old car as a "beater" I knew...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Lora rated it 4 of 5 stars

Still grieving over the death of his son, lawyer David Halpert decides to move back to Detroit from Denver to help his father as his mother descends into dementia. His decision coincides with the murder of his high school girlfriend, Natalie, and her African-American half brother, Dirk, who was an FBI agent. David connects with Natalie's younger sister, Carolyn, who's come back to Detroit because of the tragedy. They start seeing each other, even though Carolyn is married and lives in Los Angele...more

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May 07, 2012 Amy Rhodes rated it 4 of 5 stars

This novel snuck up on me; it's quite quiet and very unpretentious; just a contemporary story with a handful of well-drawn characters living fairly undramatic lives. In fact, in some ways, not so undramatic (a couple of offstage murders in the first chapter) but the author handles all this in such an evenhanded way that you never feel manipulated or played. I think this is a book that will continue to grow on me; the steady, calm storytelling is very impressive.

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Sep 06, 2012 E.D. Martin rated it 3 of 5 stars

It was a decent story, but I had a very hard time connecting with the characters in this book. Maybe it's because I'm not yet middle-aged, or because I haven't lost a close family member - child, parent, sibling. Or maybe it's because the story hopped so quickly between characters, not giving us much of anyone's thoughts.

I also thought the references to places and roads were overdone. Not having an familiarity with Detroit, I basically ignored them all.

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Mar 11, 2013 Mary Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Overall, I liked Say Nice Things About Detroit quite a bit. Probably due quite a bit to the fact that I grew up in Detroit (yes, in Detroit), now live next door to it and still spend a lot of time in it (including working two miles from where the main character bought his house). I didn't love the portrayal that ONLY african-american people live in Detroit and specifically in Palmer Woods (a neighborhood in Detroit). Not true! I know plenty of white folks who live in the city. Of course I loved...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Robyn Ancker rated it 4 of 5 stars

An engaging, well-written story about different people going through life crises at different ages. They find hope and a new beginning in each other, in that most unlikely of places: Detroit, Michigan. Maybe you can't go home again, but you can make anywhere a home, even Detroit. And for those of us who spent any portion of our lives there, there are enough local references and hangouts that it brings back fond memories. Yes, of Detroit.

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Nov 13, 2012 Vicki rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult

It's great to be able to say nice things about this book written about the largest city in my home state of Michigan. Loved the writing style of this author, this book was very easy to want to keep reading. The down side was there were a few times I wasn't sure who the characters were since some of the chapters alternated back and forth between time periods. I feel this story gives hope to the possibility of revival of this once great city.

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About Scott Lasser

Scott Lasser is the author of four novels: Battle Creek, All I Could Get, The Year That Follows, and Say Nice Things About Detroit. His non-fiction has appeared in magazines ranging from Dealmaker (for which he wrote a regular book column) to the New Yorker. He splits his time between Los Angeles and Colorado.

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