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70th out of 100 books
—
2 voters
Cutter and Bone
A thriller, and a whacking good thriller, too—shows how much can be done by a writer who knows his business—the best novel of its kind in ten years!—New York Times
First published in 1976, Cutter and Bone is the story of the obsession of Cutter, a scarred and crippled Vietnam veteran and his attempt to convince his buddy, Bone, that the latter witnessed a murder committed b...more
First published in 1976, Cutter and Bone is the story of the obsession of Cutter, a scarred and crippled Vietnam veteran and his attempt to convince his buddy, Bone, that the latter witnessed a murder committed b...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
March 1st 2001
by Serpent's Tail
(first published 1976)
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Fate is a heck of a thing, like an answerless question. It all happened because it couldn't possibly not have happened, the proof of which is : it happened. Thriller writers are in love with fate. Things are meant to turn out in a particular way, their books seem to whisper, in order to demonstrate either moral principles (if written from the point of view of the Party of God) or to demonstrate that life is just messy like that, with wires hanging out, and no neat ends anywhere to be had not for...more
i am stingy with my stars, i admit it. but i read this book twice in a row on first reading, and that means one of two things: i'm not sure how i feel, and i need another go, or i love the book so unabashedly that there is nothing for it but to read it again right away. in this case, cutter and bone kicked my ass, and i'm still sort of reeling.
i read this book a year ago, in june 2010. it's not in my possession anymore, and i gave back my borrowed copy reluctantly. i need to buy it and read it...more
i read this book a year ago, in june 2010. it's not in my possession anymore, and i gave back my borrowed copy reluctantly. i need to buy it and read it...more
10 likes · like · see review
This story is very tragic, but not in a boohoo sort of way. Alex Cutter is a Vietnam vet who is badly damaged both physically and psychologically by his war and post-war experiences. Richard Bone is a former corporate exec who reached his "psychological menopause" ten years earlier than most businessmen do. He dropped out of that life and moved to Santa Barbara and became friends with Cutter. The story takes place around 1975, and shows a lot about the culture of Southern Cal and the nation in g...more
A rather good thriller come buddy novel come "road movie" come description of a descent into despair. Difficult to rate because in patches it was brilliant and in patches very much not; with a strong streak of nihilism running through the middle.
The novel centres on two friends and is set in the mid 1970s.Alex Cutter is a Vietnam veteran who is emotionally and physically scarred; missing part of two limbs and one eye; he is the driving force in the book sometimes malevolent, sometimes tender an...more
The novel centres on two friends and is set in the mid 1970s.Alex Cutter is a Vietnam veteran who is emotionally and physically scarred; missing part of two limbs and one eye; he is the driving force in the book sometimes malevolent, sometimes tender an...more
May 04, 2013
Joe Noir
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
favorite-mystery-crime,
my-favorite-books
Superlatives fail me. Startlingly original, with awe inspiring characterization. Cutter is a severely wounded Vietnam veteran (he lost one eye, one arm, and one leg), and may or may not be insane. He tries to convince his friend Bone that the strange scene Bone witnessed was actually a murder. Bone is skeptical, but ultimately needs little convincing. The suspect is a corporate fat cat who is rich enough not to be bothered by Cutter and Bone. As Bone falls deeper into Cutter's plan to expose the...more
This should be mandatory reading for those who say they don't like crime/mystery novels. This should also be mandatory reading for those who say they do. No one does it better. Like George P. Pelecanos, much of his books are almost identical in structure and style. Unlike Pelecanos, each of his characters is a fully realized individual that you meet as you read. There is extreme attention to things an author must consider when writing through a character---"Would my character say this? Would my...more
Feb 04, 2012
Frank
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-books-you-must-read,
thrillers-mystery
Very powerful novel of the post-Vietnam 70s. The story is basically about two dropouts from society - Cutter, a scarred and maimed Vietnam vet and Bone who abandoned his family to drift around California as a gigolo. A very unlikely pair who get involved in a potential blackmail plot of an Arkansas industrialist who may have killed and dumped a young girl in the trash as possibly witnessed by Bone. The novel is full of unforgettable characters and dialog and takes you along a twisted path to a v...more
An interesting look at America in the post-Vietnam, empty 1970's. I think I read somewhere that it reads like a big hangover - the party of the 60's is over, the country has lost its innocence and someone's got to pay. The book concerns two friends apparently bent on self-destruction; Cutter is back from Vietnam minus a couple of limbs and on the verge of insanity, and Bone has dropped out of corporate America, left his wife and child and is floating around California as a gigolo. The story begi...more
A powerful book that needs to be rediscovered. The depth and originality of the characters is truly remarkable.
While often categorized as a crime novel (which it is), that is a far too simplistic classification for the book. Crime drives the story in a number of different ways, but that is true with plenty of "literature" that isn't grouped in the slums of genre work.
The moral questions and gray areas of life that give the crime novel its greatest thematic potential (and so often fall short in e...more
While often categorized as a crime novel (which it is), that is a far too simplistic classification for the book. Crime drives the story in a number of different ways, but that is true with plenty of "literature" that isn't grouped in the slums of genre work.
The moral questions and gray areas of life that give the crime novel its greatest thematic potential (and so often fall short in e...more
1 like · like · see review
I read the first 29 pages because this book was highly recommended, but I was wary because I know the book has a cult following. It reminds me a LOT of Elmore Leonard, with a similar plain style and it is about losers. I find the style too familiar and unengaging, I don't like any of the people, and the scene in which Cutter enters and induces vomiting was the final straw so I put it down. I can see the potential for a brilliant story if a brilliant story can be told in a plain style, but I find...more
Great book!
This is a downbeat mystery-thriller-whodunit with a lot of very cool anti-Establishment and counterculture touches. Sort of a combination of Ross MacDonald, Elmore Leonard, and "Easy Rider", if you ask me.
There's a movie version of this book, released in 1981 with the title "Cutter's Way". The film follows the basic plot of the book but I would recommend watching it first, for two reasons: First, the movie won't "spoil" the book because the villain, the ending action, and the fates o...more
This is a downbeat mystery-thriller-whodunit with a lot of very cool anti-Establishment and counterculture touches. Sort of a combination of Ross MacDonald, Elmore Leonard, and "Easy Rider", if you ask me.
There's a movie version of this book, released in 1981 with the title "Cutter's Way". The film follows the basic plot of the book but I would recommend watching it first, for two reasons: First, the movie won't "spoil" the book because the villain, the ending action, and the fates o...more
"Cutter and Bone" (in italiano "la strana vita di Cutter e Bone"), non è un giallo, né tanto meno un thriller. E' un libro sulla depressione, la paranoia, la fuga dalle responsabilità, gli effetti della guerra e quelli dell'amore. E' un libro emozionante, comico, ma allo stesso tempo tragico e grottesco. Consigliato? Non so, dipende dal lettore. Non vi è molta azione, anzi, quasi niente. I protagonisti non sono affatto personaggi positivi: sono spesso vigliacchi, meschini, estremamente egoisti....more
I finished this two weeks ago and I can't get it out of my head. The blunt-force terror of the abrupt ending haunts me, the characters and their miseries and their desperation and their awful milieu imprinted on my brain. Newton Thornburg's Cutter and Bone is a bleak masterpiece and I can't recommend it more highly to those of you who are predisposed to love bleak masterpieces. Anyone who doesn't love heroic bleakness, just fuck off.
The cineastes among my GR circle may have seen the 1981 film Cu...more
The cineastes among my GR circle may have seen the 1981 film Cu...more
10 likes · like · see review
One of the most riveting things I've ever read. The movie is one of my favorites, so that was what led me to it; this is every bit as brilliant, and in certain ways better in the differences of its story. It had me somehow guessing until the last page even though I was essentially spoiled as to how it ended. If you're interested at all in noir or neo-noir, not just as a genre but a philosophy, you need to read this.
A forgotten classic. You realize how good this book is right away, and then you think it can't be that good because the characters are so dark, and then you realize that this is the work of a master. Talk about raw humanity, torn from the pages of pulp hallucinations.
Read it for the dialogue alone. Really well drawn characters, but the plot is a little thin. I know there's a lot to appreciate insofar as its place in the American literary canon goes, but I just couldn't get there with it.
Possibly my favourite noir novel. This one manages to grab onto a weird brand of post-vietnam American malaise, which brings an extra dimension to the unfolding crime drama.
Very 1970s, but such a great movie was based on it that I went back to the book (movie was "Cutter's Way" with Jeff Bridges and John Heard). A bit dated but interesting.
This novel's closing line is unmatched in my reading experience. (And the rest of the book is damned good too!)
The book on which Ivan Passer's marvellous film, Cutter's Way, is based. The book is just as good.
This one was pretty good. Not a great classic, but still good.
Weird...I thought it was interesting, but yet it was a slow read....Basis for the movie Cutter's Way....
Don't miss the last page!
Even better than the film, which was amazing.
Sep 19, 2011
Rachel Stevenson
added it
Imagine Philip Marlowe, 30 years on, a part-time gigolo rather than a PI, still mildly misogynistic and rather racist, still hanging with the low lives and partying with the right set in SoCal, almost accidentally solving a mystery along the way whilst taking beatings and falling for the right women and sleeping with the wrong ones. Still cynical and disgusted by modern life but set against the aftermath of Vietnam and the '70s oil criss rather than the aftermath of the depression and the war,
Lucky all the rings were little/quick reads, so got to this fairly quickly after all of that. Having read comment about the last line, I was quite tempted to have a look, but I resisted! It was a good book with two characters that were not particularly likable, but there was something about them that made you keep reading. A good ending, that at first made me think 'is that it', but could not stop thinking about it after.
One of the best books I've read all year. This is a very engaging story about a manic/depressive Vietnam Veteran (Alex Cutter) and his free-loading/playboy friend (Richard Bone). Bone thinks he recognizes a corporate bigwig as the murderer of a high school girl, and Cutter takes the idea from there, trying blackmail to procure a confession. Good, realistic dialogue and an exciting plot kept me reading this one to its finale all day today!
This was a little tedious and depressing. I remember liking the movie based on this book, Cutter's Way, although I had no recollection of the story. I need to see it again after having read the book.
Cracking thriller with some surprising twists and turns. When Bone witnesses a body dump late one night he tells Cutter, a Vietnam vet crippled during the war. Bone doesn't see the face only a silhouette, but later when he thinks he recognises the person in a paper Cutter comes up with a plan.
The result is a book at times funny, at times sad but a great read.
The result is a book at times funny, at times sad but a great read.
Reminds me a lot of Bukowski or Kerouac as the writing is the seedy side of the American dream. This is set in the early 70's when drug use and alcohol was prevalent. Although I don't have a lot of sympathy for any of the characters it is still a compelling book. I understand why Thornburg is important to American literature.
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Newton Thornburg (b. 1929) is an American novelist
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