Hard Rain Falling

Jan 19, 2010 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: misery-loves-company

Okay. You can go ahead and believe the hype. This thing is pretty great. Initially, based on a few hot steaming barely-legal facials this book has been given on this very website, I was all ready to step up on Hard Rain Falling, throw my hands up in the air, and say, 'What you got, bitch? I di'n't think so.' Or, alternately, serve up the ever-effective 'You ain't bad! You ain't nothin'! You ain't nothin'!' -- in which scenario Hard Rain Falling is played by Wesley Snipes, and my black combat jum...more

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Jun 13, 2013 Garima rated it 3 of 5 stars

When a book starts with a line which is immediately reminiscent of Infinite Jest, then it’s alright to have some unrestrained expectations from it.

They can kill you, but they can’t eat you.

But with Hard Rain Falling I had to keep a lot many things in mind before letting my expectations go out of hand and to eventually give what I may immodestly pronounce as a fair reaction. The fact that this book was written in 1960’s was something I constantly reminded myself. It helped when I came across l...more
When a book starts with a line which is immediately reminiscent of Infinite Jest, then it’s alright to have some unrestrained expectations from it.

They can kill you, but they can’t eat you.

But with Hard Rain Falling I had to keep a lot many things in mind before letting my expectations go out of hand and to eventually give what I may immodestly pronounce as a fair reaction. The fact that this book was written in 1960’s was something I constantly reminded myself. It helped when I came across lines like: Nobody ever escaped from The Rock. Sean Connery? I digressed and I had to Focus. This went on for almost halfway through the novel because I was coming across one thing or the other I have either read or seen before. So what kept me going? Don Carpenter’s writing is one of the most honest narrative voices I have ever come across. There’s almost a childlike innocence in his account of some of the events that I even let out a corny awww on certain occasions.

This book is all Americana and a little more. It has orphanages, reform homes and Jack Levitt. It has pool-halls, runaway children and Billy Lancing. It has petty crimes, prisons, paroling and philosophy. And since it’s so huge in scope, the elements within are described in moderation. Nothing is over the top, nothing is under the bottom. Everything is there and that’s it. Except one or two instances, this novel failed to excite me as a reader. It takes a long straight road stretching over a period of three decades, hardly takes any interesting turns and the episodic stops at the road side joints a.k.a philosophizing usually serves the same old existential food. It’s like watching a documentary where the chronicles of a lonely person moves you in some inexplicable way but the same when written on a piece of paper doesn’t deliver the same kind of impact. But I better give this book its due where it deserves. The scenes dealing with homosexuality are handled beautifully and if nothing else this book can be read for that part only. The internal monologues are good, again thanks to the honesty of Don’s writing but at times most of the things read like the paraphrasing of the same ideas.

So what was his life? Look out there at all the ten million things life can be, and tell yourself which are yours, and which you will never do. And there was the agony of it; so much he wanted to do, and so little he could do.

The above sentence sums the whole book pretty well. Just replace few words with freedom, sex and money. Considering it was Don’s debut novel evoked some sensitivity in me but I’m afraid it doesn’t seem to have the power to leave an ever lasting impression.

3 Stars averaging out on I really liked it, I liked it and It was Ok because the rain must be falling hard but all I felt was a mild drizzle.
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Dec 29, 2009 D. Pow rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: noir-crime-murder

Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling is the best novel I’ve read this year. Originally published in 1966, and long out of print, it has been brought back to readers in a handsome trade paperback edition by the New York Review Books Classics imprint, with a thoughtful introduction by current crime writing doyen George Pelecanos.

The book is epic in scope, covering over three decades of eventful action, from late 1920’s subsistence horse ranches to the San Francisco of the early ‘60’s, on the cusp of...more Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling is the best novel I’ve read this year. Originally published in 1966, and long out of print, it has been brought back to readers in a handsome trade paperback edition by the New York Review Books Classics imprint, with a thoughtful introduction by current crime writing doyen George Pelecanos.

The book is epic in scope, covering over three decades of eventful action, from late 1920’s subsistence horse ranches to the San Francisco of the early ‘60’s, on the cusp of the sexual revolution, but still in thrall to more repressive mores. The book is mainly set in the Pacific Northwest and in Frisco. Its main protagonist is Jack Levitt- who when we first meet him, is a hard-bitten reform school thug with no talent other than fighting and a capacity to endure physical pain. Levitt’s parents are the subject of a heartbreaking opening chapter where they meet, mate and part, in a collision as ultimately as destructive for its principals as two asteroids colliding in the silent abyss of space, one that leaves you little hope for little Jack’s life trajectory.
The book follows Jack through low-end working class postwar America, the pool halls of Portland and flop houses of Frisco, thorough tortuous episodes in reform school and an arc of ascending criminal activity until Levitt finds himself in San Quentin doing hard time.

Jack’s life intertwines with Billy Lancing, whom we first meet as a young, talented pool hustler in Portland when both Jack and Billy are teenagers. Billy is black and a runaway. One of the unique strengths of Hard Rain Falling, especially in comparison to its ostensible genre and other major novels published in the same era, is the clear eye and lucid prose it casts on race in America, post WWII. Carpenter poignantly captures Billy’s hurt core of being, when he recognizes his skin color makes him outcast among outcasts. There is none of the hipster jive Mailer tossed out at blacks, nor the muddled glorification some of the beats viewed blacks with.

Sexuality too is displayed in a mature, thought-provoking manner. Levitt begins his life in an orphanage because of an `itch’ his parents couldn’t help but scratch. And that same itch hounds Jack and befuddles him throughout the book, makes him feel one moment gloriously alive, one moment less than human. Carpenter’s compassion and empathy in this arena of life extends to homosexual love when it is encountered in San Quentin. It is neither viewed with contempt like latter-day tough guy scribes like Tarentino or Guillermo Arriaga nor fetishized into absurdity as in Genet. It merely is.

When Jack and Billy meet again in San Quentin, after equally heartbreaking paths, Jack further into crime and violence, Billy with an aborted attempt to maintain a family, the relationship takes on a searing intimacy and naked vulnerability that is found nowhere else in the book and that is unlike anything else I’ve read in 1960’s American Literature.

If Hard Rain Falling was merely a prison/coming of age novel it would be a wonderful success-it is a model of clarity, brevity and precise observation. But what sets it apart is the wonderful interior ramblings of Jack Levitt as he tries to make sense of the brutally senseless world he lives in, of his own rabid dog impulses, the nature of power and powerlessness, and the labyrinth and often self-lacerating ways of the human heart.It is not merely about prisons made of concrete and steel, but of the prisons of failed relationships, the odious lock-ups of diminished and dying expectations, the unforgiving solitary confinement of our own screaming skulls. NYRB on the back cover has dared to compare the novel to Dostoevsky. I don’t think it’s hyperbole. Levitt’s journey from violent thug, through the bowels of the prison system and out the other side with something like wisdom and grace touching him, easily echoes Raskolnikov or the narrator of Memoirs from the House of The Dead in its capacity to evoke redemption in the face of brutality.

Hard Rain Falling is a great American novel that NYRB deserves lasting credit for pulling from the bonfire of oblivion, even if for a short time. Carpenter deserves to be read into posterity for his technique and for his genuinely wise and empathic take on the marginals of this society, the society that marginalizes them thoughtlessly, and the tenderness, sacrifice and love that can blossom in the most heartless places imaginable.

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Jan 12, 2010 brian rated it 5 of 5 stars

eighth grade i had an economics teacher called dr. cole.
first day of class he gave us a list of qualities we'd potentially possess as adults.
wanted us to rank them from 1 - 20 in order of importance.
some of the stuff on the list:

rich
healthy
happy
married
employed
famous
intelligent
powerful

cole was a strange bird. a thin meticulous type; kind of a well-toned george will with a contemptuous sneer. he watched as we scored the rankings and held them up to be collected. he didn't want them. he stoo...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Con McVeety rated it 5 of 5 stars

Never before have I read a novel that was so true, so raw and so heartbreaking, I was often filled with dread and anxiety for the characters in Hard Rain Falling, because they are flawed and can’t escape who and what they are no matter how hopeful they are, they keep failing in life and it’s as if their doomed from the start. All of this is pretty depressing but I feel Don Carpenter was writing about as realistic as possible, the American Dream simply doesn’t include everyone, and some are far...more

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Jul 01, 2010 Newengland rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished-in-2010

Where has THIS oddity been hiding since its inception in the 60's? NYRB is certainly to be commended for doing all the hard work and finding gold chips in the salsa for us. Not that I found it Nirvana. Just nervy for its day. It's a pool (billiards, I mean) book, a prison book, and an echoes-of-Hemingway book all in one. Let's start with the hustling.

Carpenter has done some time in a pool hall or two. With the character of Billy Lancing, he captures the thrill of the kill (as in, killing suckers...more Where has THIS oddity been hiding since its inception in the 60's? NYRB is certainly to be commended for doing all the hard work and finding gold chips in the salsa for us. Not that I found it Nirvana. Just nervy for its day. It's a pool (billiards, I mean) book, a prison book, and an echoes-of-Hemingway book all in one. Let's start with the hustling.

Carpenter has done some time in a pool hall or two. With the character of Billy Lancing, he captures the thrill of the kill (as in, killing suckers and separating them from their money) as well as the edgy sass and mind games that go into a hustler's talk. This being the 60s and Billy being black (albeit a light-skinned one), race is in the hall, too. Billy utilizes his "handicap" to perfection, using it to gall and taunt his white challengers. End result of these color games? Green. For Billy.

But the main character is Jack Levitt, an orphan from practically the get-go. A 20-something tough guy without a job, he's to fistfights what Billy is to pool -- only fistfights pay considerably less. He also likes booze and women (until he hits prison -- more on that later). This book HAD to do time not just in prison but on Bukowski's night stand. Meaning? If riding shotgun with the lowlifes is your thrill, HARD RAIN FALLING might be your book.

Eventually Jack lands in San Quentin. Oh, he's in a few other prisons beforehand and it looks like Carpenter did time in the Big House, too -- or so the precise description of Jack's time in the complete darkness of solitary would indicate. It's uncannily real, or what passes for real, given that few readers can compare notes. Billy winds up in prison, too, where he becomes Jack's cellmate. Here Carpenter takes on homosexuality about as frankly as a 60s writer could be expected to. It's three choices, according to him: celibacy, secret masturbation in a place with little privacy, or another guy. The way it's described here, Billy and Jack take a long time to come to it, but they're both in their 20s and feeling the heat, so Door Number 3 it is!

Carpenter describes it like so: "It was an arrangement, coldly conceived for sexual satisfaction, without even words that first time, but limited by coldly precise and rational language from there on out. The terms were that they would use each other's bodies for that ornate form of masturbation called Making Love, but there was to be no question of emotional involvement, or prying into one another's soul. This, they decided coldly, would keep them from going crazy or queer." I loved that bit: "an ornate form of masturbation." I don't think the word "ornate" has ever carried such an onerous weight! And note how "cold" that ~~love~~ sex is! "Coldly" has three cameos in one paragraph!

After they get out of prison comes the part of the book I like best. On parole, Jack gets a job in a bakery and one day a bunch of rich drunks straight out of Fitzgerald come in, running into this ex-con straight out of Hemingway (well, if Hem's homophobia were unleashed). Jack falls for Sally, a rich girl with a penchant for sex and money (now THERE'S a familiar combo). They try to make a go of it, and the mismatch of this educated spoiled girl and this trying-to-learn ne'er do well (she has him reading ULYSSES, for chrissakes!) is reminiscent of some of the Hemingway mismatched couples we've read in the past. (Note: Jack finds Joyce to be horse crap and prefers FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. Jim Jones fans, take a rare victory!). Anyway, they wed. No kidding. And you get a front row scene to the train wreck. Choo-choo interrupted, and all that!

Interesting writing. Not consistent, but certainly good more often than not. This is for the minimalists among us. If you like fancy Henry James and Wee Willie Faulkner sentences longer than a boa before it constricts her, take a pass. Otherwise, get your rain gear and give HARD RAIN FALLING a rip. It may just be the anti-chick lit pill you've been looking for.(less)

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Jan 12, 2010 Alan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, read-in-2010

Xmas present from my youngest daughter - boy she really listens - I only mentioned this in passing after reading a review in the Guardian, something like 'that sounds good' and a couple of weeks later here it is...
I've abandoned 'Day' for it, and read the first 50 pages today waiting to get in the bathroom (it's my eldest's 20th and we're all going out). Hard and fast stuff. Excellent.

Now read about 90 pages and it just gets better and better, it is almost miraculously good..

SPOILER ALERT...

Thi...more Xmas present from my youngest daughter - boy she really listens - I only mentioned this in passing after reading a review in the Guardian, something like 'that sounds good' and a couple of weeks later here it is...
I've abandoned 'Day' for it, and read the first 50 pages today waiting to get in the bathroom (it's my eldest's 20th and we're all going out). Hard and fast stuff. Excellent.

Now read about 90 pages and it just gets better and better, it is almost miraculously good..

SPOILER ALERT...

This is how I experienced this book: read up to page 60 thinking yes this is good stuff, appreciating it, the set up, the characters 'hardboiled' and petty criminals, a lot about pool about which I know little, then Billy a black newcomer to the scene is invited to a party and waits for a lift, after standing at a big smelly urinal trying to pee, near to tears and thinking he is unwanted and left, and then the car arrives. For some reason from this moment, I was absolutely there, something about the unflashy prose had worked its way into me, it was more than just a good book, it was great, I was getting in the crowded car with them, Billy sitting on Jack Levitt's lap - the only place he could sit - he said, 'now every time we go over a bump, you owe me a dollar'. I was at the party, held in a place they break into and wreck, where Jack falls asleep drunk. He is awakened by two big plainsclothesmen, fights them, gets coshed, ends up in reform school where his urge to kill (not the result of a process of brutalization) lands him in solitary confinement. Here after a while time ceased to exist. Time slipped in a strange way. First he was aware there was no present, no such thing as a moment.. At first he could not see because there was no light in his cell; then that became a delusion, and he could not see because he could not see, and then even that lost its reality, he could not see because there was nothing to see and never had been - his mind had tricked him into believing there were colors and shapes and he knew there were no such things..

..But then there would be a clank and a rattle at the door, followed by the smell of food and everything would rush back into him as the smell of food hit him and aroused him and he would begin to tremble and slather and giggle.

The book goes on to follow Jack and Billy's lives and they meet again in prison, in San Quentin where they have a sexual relationship. There are some moving moments here, one especially 'Brokeback Mountain' moment later but I don't want to spoil it too much for prospective readers. (I do wonder if Annie Proulx read this though before she wrote BM).

Jack goes on to marry a rich girl (or so he thinks), and the book broadens out to include meditations on marriage and fatherhood. The book is wide ranging, and will frequently break off to consider questions of existence and race and relationships which sounds pretentious, and not normally something I like, but it grows naturally out of the story.

It is hard to quote a passage that will show you why this book is so good, because it is the cumulative effect of the story and the simple prose, the clear eyed view of the author which makes it so, it might take you a little while to feel it but by page 60 you will be away.

I read it over new year and had to interrupt it frequently for family commitments etc. If I could I would have sat in a corner and read it straight from cover to cover. What a great start to 2010.
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May 11, 2010 RandomAnthony rated it 3 of 5 stars

How much emotional strength does a man have, and does it matter?

Hard Rain Falling might be as stark and uncompromising a novel as I’ve ever read. The story focuses on Jack, raised in an orphanage and proficient in petty crime and bad decisions, and Billy, a pool hustler who starts losing his touch at the tables and makes his own harrowing mistakes. The two meet in Portland as teenagers and reconnect years later in a California prison. Jack’s post-incarceration search for meaning comprise the nov...more How much emotional strength does a man have, and does it matter?

Hard Rain Falling might be as stark and uncompromising a novel as I’ve ever read. The story focuses on Jack, raised in an orphanage and proficient in petty crime and bad decisions, and Billy, a pool hustler who starts losing his touch at the tables and makes his own harrowing mistakes. The two meet in Portland as teenagers and reconnect years later in a California prison. Jack’s post-incarceration search for meaning comprise the novel’s last third.

Carpenter’s talents lie in his psychological analysis of desperate, dead-end characters; his reference to Jack reading classic Russian novels is no accident. Both Jack and Billy are too smart to engage in self-pity, but when they face the world without it, their clear-eyed perceptions don’t leave much on which to hang meaning. Physical and emotional hunger can be sated but not for long, and neither hold much substance. And while a man with a very slim margin of error and no status can stay out of trouble for a stretch, under duress, one mistake and he’s totally fucked. No one is inviting Jack or Billy up the social ladder. There is no relative to bail them out. They find a small measure love and significance in both their own relationship and, later, Jack’s relationship with his son. Still, the terror of losing both, along with the fear of the effect they’ll have on each other and their children, leads to sacrifice of the saddest nature.

Holy hell, if I’m going to be straight, Hard Rain Falling is 99% fucking depressing, but I felt like if I didn’t finish I would be A) missing out on some deep, honest writing, and B) I would be a big wuss. Some passages are mesmerizing. Carpenter’s description, for example, of Jack helplessness when his son is sick, is brilliant. This is a brave book, and you better be in damn good mental health to tackle this sucker. Joy Division has nothing on Don Carpenter. I’m not surprised this novel is respected but not popular. Read Hard Rain Falling when you’re ready to explore the darkness of prison, isolation, and the unfairness of existence.

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Jun 16, 2009 Walter marked it as to-read

This guy wrote the script to the most intriguing movie about music and Americana called PAYDAY; it has a ribald and glorious Rip Torn performance that would not be possible without the words of Mr. Carpenter. So, hell, this book should be pretty good.

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Jun 01, 2013 AC rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels-english-american-writers

Many of these NYRB's are wonderful, but the truth is that not infrequently one gets the sense that they are scraping not the bottom of the barrel, of course... but not the cream either -- and that what they are republishing often are the second and third level books... of first-rate writers or first-rate books of second (or third-rate) writers... interesting books that are... certainly 'good'.... but not always great. The books look great, though -- and so I buy them... but they don't always liv...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Rick Skwiot rated it 4 of 5 stars

Now I’ve had the deep pleasure of discovering a quintessentially American NYRB Classic, Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter, originally published in 1966.

Set largely in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and California penal institutions in the fifties and early sixties, the gritty and sporadically violent novel traces the coming of age of Jack Levitt, from his breakout from the hellish orphanage where he grew up to Northwest pool halls to San Quentin. While it gives an inside view of these dubious...more Now I’ve had the deep pleasure of discovering a quintessentially American NYRB Classic, Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter, originally published in 1966.

Set largely in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and California penal institutions in the fifties and early sixties, the gritty and sporadically violent novel traces the coming of age of Jack Levitt, from his breakout from the hellish orphanage where he grew up to Northwest pool halls to San Quentin. While it gives an inside view of these dubious venues (including a convincing tale of prison love life), the book also goes deep inside Levitt, an introspective, violent and mercurial young man. And it does so sympathetically and at times humorously.

As in the scene where Levitt, uneducated, broke, and a recent jailbird without prospects, goes a lonely three-day drunk in a seedy hotel room, swilling whiskey from quart bottles, regurgitating and drinking more. He has recently broken the jaw of his only “friend,” thrown out an under-aged girl smitten with him after having his pleasure with her, and faces arrest on capital kidnapping charges. Cold and sick, he drifts in and out of consciousness, examining his hopeless situation, seeing has nothing to live for, contemplating suicide. Yet his drunken introspection finally leads to an epiphany of sorts:
“Bullshit,” he said aloud. “Bullshit. I’m just in a bad mood.”

But while we see Levitt grow intellectual and morally we also glimpse his philosophical nature, his struggle to divine the power of love, loyalty, knowledge and freedom. He’s smart enough to recognize the force of institutions as he moves through them—the orphanage, the billiard hall, the jail, the prison, the government and ultimately marriage. He finds that it’s not just the people—you could kill all of them, he suggests, and nothing would change—but the rules, both written and unwritten, i.e., culture, that matter most, intangible yet potent. He also muses on individual crime, for which powerless people like Levitt get punished, and the crimes of society and the powerful, which get applauded or ignored.

But most compelling for me about the novel was the time-traveling back to the American fifties, the rough-edged, convincing dialogue and a view of the gritty underside of West Coast life a half century past—including the sordid life inside orphanages and prisons. Like most all literature, according to Arthur Miller, it tries to answer the question, in this case for Jack Levitt, “How do you make for yourself a home?” While Levitt doesn’t come to a solid answer, he rules out a few things, and the reader is left with the feeling that he just may figure it out some day.

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Apr 23, 2012 Eugene rated it 5 of 5 stars

who knew macho came in so many delicate colors? evidently don carpenter did. and displayed the entire spectrum in his great brutal HARD RAIN FALLING... with a palpable adherence to some unsaid code of defiant honesty, carpenter's first novel anchors itself in a historically determined idea of manhood that dates itself much less than one might at first assume.

three very different eras in one man's life:a raging early hoodlum boyhood of poolhalls and not-so-petty crimes; then stints at prison incl...more

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Jul 30, 2010 Literary Feline rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hard Rain Falling reminds me of American Rust by Philipp Meyer in some ways. The overall mood of the book is dark and, well, sad. Too, there is that immoral ambiguity which runs through it. There is a hopelessness there but also a sense of hope. The characters always seemed to be seeking redemption or a better life only to be dragged down by circumstance or their own choices. The major and minor characters in the novel all felt trapped and longed to be free.

Jack was not a character I liked all t...more Hard Rain Falling reminds me of American Rust by Philipp Meyer in some ways. The overall mood of the book is dark and, well, sad. Too, there is that immoral ambiguity which runs through it. There is a hopelessness there but also a sense of hope. The characters always seemed to be seeking redemption or a better life only to be dragged down by circumstance or their own choices. The major and minor characters in the novel all felt trapped and longed to be free.

Jack was not a character I liked all that much, I confess. I felt sorry for him, but I had a difficult time relating to him. He was tough and angry, a product of his environment and the lack of love he received as a child, having grown up in an orphanage. He was quick to temper and egocentric. Not really surprising given his young age throughout most of the book. He does grow as a person over the course of the book, looking inward and trying to find the meaning in life--in his life. From Carpenter's words, the sense of longing and frustration Jack often felt was palpable.

Billy Lancing, on the other hand, was a different story. I liked him from the start. He was sharp and honest. He had an uphill road to travel most of his life, facing prejudice and being out on his own. His story, especially, was heartbreaking, seeing him succeed only to land in prison.

Then there was Sally, a woman full of ambition and life, who began spiraling downward at breakneck speed. It was hard to watch that happen.

I was swept up in the story immediately, caught up in the story of Jack's parents, but the story began to wan for me in part three. While Jack was struggling with big questions, I grew a little weary of his inner monologues and longed to get back to the "action" of the novel.

Don Carpenter's novel takes the reader into the pool halls of Portland, Oregon to the streets of California and into the jail and prison system. He paints a harsh reality of life and society, both human nature and systematic. I can see why Hard Rain Falling is thought to be a novel of its time, capturing the feel of the 1960's so well. While some of the ideas and language used is clearly dated, the novel is still just as relevant today.
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Jul 28, 2010 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a pretty amazing book, and as near as I can tell, an honest attempt to write "the great American novel," one of those sweeping, significant books that tries to get at what it means to be alive in "our" time. I don't read very many of these kinds of books anymore (who is writing them that's not half-crouched in self-conscious shame?), but this one actually works, which is a revealing surprise.

It's status as an NYRB reprint dates, I suspect, to the book's genre origins-- it's got elements...more

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Jun 06, 2010 Nancy Oakes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorite, fiction

A tough novel to categorize, Hard Rain Falling isn’t going to do it for you if you need a book that offers warm fuzzies and a happy, feel-good ending. It is dark, gritty and real, a no-holds barred kind of novel that goes well beyond the much overdone “angry young man” trope to become a story that is intrepidly honest. Considering its initial publication date of 1966, it’s also a novel much ahead of its time in the way that the author deals with racism, homosexuality and the harshness of unreaso...more A tough novel to categorize, Hard Rain Falling isn’t going to do it for you if you need a book that offers warm fuzzies and a happy, feel-good ending. It is dark, gritty and real, a no-holds barred kind of novel that goes well beyond the much overdone “angry young man” trope to become a story that is intrepidly honest. Considering its initial publication date of 1966, it’s also a novel much ahead of its time in the way that the author deals with racism, homosexuality and the harshness of unreasoned authority.

The main character is Jack Levitt, whose parents were young and stupid when he was born, leaving him in a hellhole of an orphanage. Jack runs away from there when he is older, lands in Portland, Oregon.

There he meets Billy Lancing, a young black man from Seattle who gets by as a pool hustler, and with whom Jack finds friendship. But Jack can't stay out of trouble, and eventually lands in a reform school, where he spent much of his time in a dark cell in solitary confinement after nearly killing one of the guards. There

"At times, all his senses deserted him, and he could not feel the coldness of the concrete or smell his excrement, and the small sounds he made and the sounds that filtered in through the door gradually dimmed, and he was left alone inside his mind, without a past to envision, since his inner vision was gone, too, and without a future to dream, because there was nothing but this emptiness and himself. It was not uncomfortable, not comfortable. These things this did not exist. It was colorless, senseless, mindless, and he sometimes just disappeared into it." (81)

This feeling of utter isolation pervades Jack Levitt's character throughout the novel. Eventually Jack finds himself in San Quentin on a trumped-up charge. It is there he meets up again with Billy Lancing, who maneuvers things so that he and Levitt become cell mates, and what starts out as just prison sex turns into something else, a human and feeling connection between the two, although Jack can't bring himself to admit it until it's too late and Jack is once more in the depths of loneliness. And even though Jack is eventually somewhat transformed after his release, when he marries and has a kid, the freedom he envisioned in the past continues to escape him.

Hard Rain Falling is a book that is raw in emotion. Every character is real and feels. This in itself is an incredible achievement - I can't think of another book in which the characters are so powerfully alive, especially Jack. And while so many novelists are into the game of blaming society for an individual's lifelong ills, that's really not the case here. As George Pelecanos notes in the introduction to this story, "the damage done to Jack at his very core can never truly be healed (xi)," and Jack notes that underneath it all, it wasn't really society that had abandoned him, but his parents.

Truly an amazing novel that I can recommend wholeheartedly. (less)

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May 01, 2010 James Thane rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was initially published in 1966, but was resurrected by George Pelecanos and published anew in 2009 by New York Review Books as part of its Classics series. In his introduction, Pelecanos suggests that it "might be the most unheralded important American novel of the 1960s."

I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but it is a very good book with brilliantly drawn characters. The main protagonist is Jack Levitt, an orphan whom we first meet on the streets of Portland, Oregon, in 1947. Jack is...more This book was initially published in 1966, but was resurrected by George Pelecanos and published anew in 2009 by New York Review Books as part of its Classics series. In his introduction, Pelecanos suggests that it "might be the most unheralded important American novel of the 1960s."

I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but it is a very good book with brilliantly drawn characters. The main protagonist is Jack Levitt, an orphan whom we first meet on the streets of Portland, Oregon, in 1947. Jack is 17 at the time and has fallen in with a gang of rough boys who live by their wits on the margins of society.

The book follows Jack's life until 1960, and it's not a pretty picture. Jack is in and out of trouble and, as a consequence, is also in and out of jail through most of this time. Some of the prison scenes are harrowing but, for that matter, so are many of the scenes when Jack is out on the streets, technically a "free" man.

Early on, Jack meets Billy Lancing, a young black pool hustler from Seattle. Jack, who has no special skills or talents, envies Billy who has a great natural gift as a pool player. Initially, Jack targets Billy as a mark, but the two form a bond that will carry them as they cross paths through the years.

Jack and Billy both spend a great deal of time contemplating their own lives and the nature of life in general, and there are times when Carpenter extends these ruminations for a bit longer than he should. But that is really the only flaw in this book whose principal strength lies in its characters, even the most minor of whom are fully realized and unforgettable.

There is not a single phony or contrived moment in "Hard Rain Falling," and from start to finish, the reader is immersed into a universe that seems completely real and that is totally compelling. This is not a pretty world, but once Carpenter has grabbed hold of you, you can't turn away from watching it.

This is very much a book of the early 1960s, and the universe that Carpenter has recreated here is long since gone. He serves up a slice of American life that few of us would want to experience first hand. But readers will be grateful to George Pelecanos and New York Review Books for giving them the opportunity to visit it from a safe distance.(less)

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Apr 10, 2010 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Carpenter, Don. HARD RAIN FALLING. (1966). ***. This novel by Carpenter, his first, has been reissued by New York Review of Books publishers after being out of print for many years. Carpenter has a limited following among writers today, but there is always a reason a book goes out of print – it’s not selling. This novel follows in the footsteps if Lanny Budd and other cardboard figures of literature who use the page as their pulpit for airing their pretty basic philosophical beliefs. The main ch...more Carpenter, Don. HARD RAIN FALLING. (1966). ***. This novel by Carpenter, his first, has been reissued by New York Review of Books publishers after being out of print for many years. Carpenter has a limited following among writers today, but there is always a reason a book goes out of print – it’s not selling. This novel follows in the footsteps if Lanny Budd and other cardboard figures of literature who use the page as their pulpit for airing their pretty basic philosophical beliefs. The main character, Jack Levitt, is a magnet for all the ills of the world. He is born to mis-matched parents who realize that he was a mistake, and is raised in a foster home. After escaping from the home, he takes up life on the streets of Portland and migrates to the sections where he can meet others of his type. He is attracted to the pool halls, and meets Billy Lancing, a high-yellow black boy who has a natural talent for pool – especially one-pocket games. Billy has his own set of problems, the main one being to gain acceptance in the white world where all the money is. These two become fast friends and ultimately end up in prison together – though for different reasons. It is at San Quentin that the two realize that they are more than friends and develop a sexual relationship that forms the core of their existence. Billy is killed in the yard tryng to protect his relationship with Jack from the hard-core population, and Jack is bereft. When he is released, Jack – now on probation – meets Sally, a recently divorced and now wealthy young woman, who he now marries. The marriage starts off well, but problems arise when Jack wants to start a family and Sally doesn’t. All of these events give Jack a chance to spout off his various views on the evils that beset society and how he would go about fixing them. The style of writing is what you would expect from a high school student. The characters are all cardboard cutouts playing their anticipated roles in front of backgrounds on rolled up canvas that slowly move as you turn the pages. This edition has an introduction by George Pelicanos and a respectable number of blurbs by other writers, but this still – in my mind – remains an overblown Horatio Alger book in reverse by a writer who was still learning his craft.(less)

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Feb 06, 2010 Erik Simon rated it 5 of 5 stars

On rare occasions, I read a novel that makes me think, "This is exactly what a good novel is supposed to be." The protagonist in these books isn't quirky or cute in some way that makes more palatable the world's pain (see AND THEN WE CAME TO THE END or OSCAR WAO). The character doesn't have some precious name (see Edgar Sawtelle, Edgar Mint, et. al.). The narrative voice isn't hiply distant and ironic and always cool, always in control, as if above our foolish little humanness. All the books tha...more

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Oct 19, 2009 Hood rated it 5 of 5 stars

HARD PRINT

http://theleadmiamibeach.com/2009/101...

A Lonely Life
Don Carpenter’s Brutal Hard Rain Falling Could’ve Been about Himself

By John Hood

Maybe it was his name. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, mind you. It’s as strong and as sensible an American name as any other that springs from the Scottish practice of employing a person’s occupation. But (a certain cinematic superstar withstanding) it’s hardly the kinda moniker one would choose if they wanted to be noticed. And in the writing...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Keith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Don Carpenter's debut work is the best novel you have never heard of. First penned in 1964, "Hard Rain Falling" was far ahead of its time in tackling issues as diverse as race, homosexuality, divorce, the injustices of our penal system, and the tediousness of daily life for women stuck in the normative requirements of mid- sixties society. In his foreword for the 2009 reprint, George Pelecanos wrote, "Hard Rain Falling is populist fiction at its best. It is not just a good novel. It might be the...more

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May 27, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: big-white-square

I loved this for the prisons and the pool halls. Absolutely fantastic. Thrilling action, enjoyable dialogue ... and interior monologues that felt incredibly special.

The canter through the marriage weakened it, however. Something was lost after San Quentin and, whilst there were certainly flashes of the earlier brilliance ... going back to find Billy's cue! ..., the last third lost focus.

But I'm still giving it five stars.

Who knew Americans played snooker?

"Jack and Denny had ditched the Cadilla...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Saxon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Taking place in Portland and San Francisco, Hard Rain Falling unfolds as a kind of updated, re-telling of An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. Much like the protagonist in Dreiser's epic novel, Carpenter follows around a down and out young man who has never really been given a break. Along the 30 or so years of the characters life that Carpenter follows, everything under the sun gets addressed and questioned: crime, society, class, race, homosexuality, sex, penal system, court system, alcoho...more

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Jan 23, 2010 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the straight stuff; the sort of hard, beautiful book about losers losing, where you know people are going to get hurt and hurt others because that is life in America. The book is hard, but not cold: you feel desperately for the doomed hero, Jack Levitt, born to a father kicked to death by a horse and a mother who took her own life, set on his crooked path after busting out of an orphanage and falling in with a rough set. Drinking, committing less and less petty crimes, Jack matriculates...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Cody rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: pacific-northwest

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Strangely enough, about two-thirds in, the epigram from *Howards End*—“Only connect…”—began to crowd my thoughts as I attempted to sort out Don Carpenter’s wonderful novel. *Hard Rain Falling* is, at the core, about Jack, an orphan nearly from birth, and Billy, an orphan by choice, and the connection they forge as cellmates. The hard lives that lead Billy and Jack to San Quentin are, arguably, a result of being unwilling to connect—with others, with society, with themselves—an unwillingness that...more Strangely enough, about two-thirds in, the epigram from *Howards End*—“Only connect…”—began to crowd my thoughts as I attempted to sort out Don Carpenter’s wonderful novel. *Hard Rain Falling* is, at the core, about Jack, an orphan nearly from birth, and Billy, an orphan by choice, and the connection they forge as cellmates. The hard lives that lead Billy and Jack to San Quentin are, arguably, a result of being unwilling to connect—with others, with society, with themselves—an unwillingness that is, ultimately, rooted in their inability to cope with the transient, un-lasting nature of human connections. In a moment of passion and realization, Billy proclaims:

“You and me now…We’re connected. That’s good. And when the connection breaks, it’s over, that’s too bad, but it’s finished and a man would be a fool to try to make it go on when it’s all over. We got it, you don’t even have to admit it, but when we think of each other, we feel good, and that’s it. But when it busts, it’s busted, and that’s the end. Nothin happens twice.”

What makes Billy and Jack’s connection truly meaningful is that it doesn’t bust. Rather, it is the only lasting connection that either has ever made—and, in fact, will ever make. But, like everything in *Hard Rain Falling,* any meaningful realization comes at a price, and sacrifices have to be made. Yet, for Carpenter, even such a grand and violent sacrifice as Billy's death is not enough. Throughout the final third of the novel, I couldn’t shake the feeling that, perhaps, Billy and Jack’s connection is only lasting because Billy dies—literally sacrifices himself—at the height of his connection with Jack, thus, forgoing any risk that the connection might disintegrate over time. Carpenter seems to spend the last hundred pages of the novel asking: “is this as lasting as it gets? Is this the most we can hope for?”

*Hard Rain Falling* is a really wonderful text, not least because of the moving relationship that Billy and Jack forge, which, in many ways, transcends the doubts that Carpenter sows in the final two sections of the novel. Carpenter’s writing is exacting and powerful, in just the way good realist prose should be. The clearest example of Carpenter’s skill is the prologue, which is one of the more devastating fistful of pages I’ve read in a long while. Additionally, *Hard Rain Falling* examines, in many ways, the same America that the Beats tapped into, but Carpenter’s characters are humbler, more legitimately down-and-out. Thus, in this sense, *Hard Rain Falling* is an even truer piece of Americana—more telling of post-war America than the manic effusions of Kerouac or the desolation of Burroughs’ *Junky.*
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May 07, 2012 Laura Leaney rated it 5 of 5 stars

I found this a deeply affecting novel. The book blurb says it's a "Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption," but Jack Levitt, the protagonist, is far from feeling the psychological guilt of Raskolnikov in "Crime and Punishment." Abandoned in an orphanage in Portland, Oregon, he pursues a life of crime and ends up naked in an isolation cell for four months and three days without light (in a scene so eerie that I doubt I'll ever forget it). There is n...more I found this a deeply affecting novel. The book blurb says it's a "Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption," but Jack Levitt, the protagonist, is far from feeling the psychological guilt of Raskolnikov in "Crime and Punishment." Abandoned in an orphanage in Portland, Oregon, he pursues a life of crime and ends up naked in an isolation cell for four months and three days without light (in a scene so eerie that I doubt I'll ever forget it). There is no sentimentality in this book. Jack's amorality is purely human, completely understandable, and has nothing to do with God, the devil, or the possibility of the afterlife.

As the novel progresses, Jack's awakening - intellectual and emotional - is produced so realistically that there is nowhere I can point to say "this, or this, or this, does not seem believable." Don Carpenter's writing is astounding. The third-person narrative, which is so close to Jack, expresses his heart's deepest knowledge without ever feeling false or over-intellectualized. At the beginning of the novel, Jack thinks: "If he got caught, he accepted his punishment. He had always known that what he had wanted most was freedom, escape from the orphanage, and when he was ready, he escaped. That was all. Then he no longer wanted his freedom, because he had it." By the end of the novel there is this: "Later, after it was all over [. . .] he would realize that the freedom he had always yearned for and never understood was beyond his or any man's reach, and that all men must yearn for it equally." This is not doing justice to his thoughts about freedom, but the depth of his final understanding is inspired. Early in his life, there was not much to love about Jack Levitt, but by the final scene I feel nothing but hope and compassion for him.

His time in San Quentin is brilliantly done. The loneliness, the dangerous social systems, race, work details, prison sex - it's all here, written without contrivance. The wardens and guards are not evil. The prisoners are not caricatures. The sex isn't funny or gross. But the social commentary is tremendously interesting. As here: "The perfect convict, the man who lived entirely by the rules set down for him, was not a man but a vegetable. And the constant troublemaker, no matter how sick he was inside, was actually doing just what the State expected of him, therefore justifying the existence of the prison. So it was a matter of delicate balance between defiance and obedience."

Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" focuses most intently on "punishment," but Don Carpenter's book shows, in all its nuance, HOW redemption might be achieved. It's not through God's salvation. Jack Levitt earns it through his very human efforts, and I am damn proud of him.(less)

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Jul 29, 2011 Marcos rated it 5 of 5 stars

A near perfect book=a well crafted, executed tale of two men, Billy Lansing and Jack Leavitt, who meet as youths in a small Oregon town only to reunite some years later as adults in the San Quentin penitentiary. Their relationship and unlikely friendship has been one of the most haunting, sad, and bittersweet relationships I have read in fiction in a very long time. These two men will definitely stay with me. The clean, nonchalant prose is deceptively effective in capturing our attention and in...more

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Apr 23, 2010 Ralph rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: m-r-shelf

I would have given this book three and a half stars if that were possible.
Carpenter takes an uncompromising, in-depth, look at the downtrodden in "Hard Rain Falling". The life of the main character, Jack Levitt, is followed from his conception by Annemarie - a young female runaway excited by the rough and tumble and Harmon, a street fighter and thief in East Oregon. Jack is born in a home for unwed mothers and raised in reform school.
This sets the stage for Jack's lonely, brutal life in which h...more I would have given this book three and a half stars if that were possible.
Carpenter takes an uncompromising, in-depth, look at the downtrodden in "Hard Rain Falling". The life of the main character, Jack Levitt, is followed from his conception by Annemarie - a young female runaway excited by the rough and tumble and Harmon, a street fighter and thief in East Oregon. Jack is born in a home for unwed mothers and raised in reform school.
This sets the stage for Jack's lonely, brutal life in which he finds himself declaring war against a society that hasn't shown him love. In fact, the only true love he finds is in a homosexual prison relationship with Billy, another small-time hood. Through this relationship, Jack finds love, but never the dignity of his own worth as a human being.
Overall, this book is an interesting read in terms of a look at the lives of the downtrodden, criminal class in the poolrooms of Portland, and in terms of its main character, who refuses to pity himself, or to blame specific individuals for his lot in life. Unfortunately, Jack also does not feel entitled to basic human dignity or respect. It seems to me that this inability, coupled with the absence of a greater moral code or belief in God, proves to be the force which keeps Jack down, even in the face of his heroic efforts to find love and redemption through culture, education, family life and relationships.
Jack's ill-fated marriage to Sally, a hard-drinking, strong-headed woman reminiscent of the mother he never knew, and the birth of their child bring the story full circle, as Jack's life results in a similar arc to that of his mother and father, despite his best efforts to educate himself and to improve as a person.
While this book is very interesting, and much of it rings true, the author's prose in the last third of the book at times devolves into preaching of Jack's philosophy on love and relationships(presumably that of the author's), resulting into an unwanted insight into the way the character of Jack was created to give voice to the author's opinions and resulting in the realization that one is reading fiction.
Overall, however, it is easy to see that the book has something to say, and that the author successfully brings the reader into the dark corners of society (and the minds of those that inhabit them) in a unique way, making this book a worthwhile, interesting read. The story's cyclical nature and the terrible tragedy that is Jack's life are compelling, and I recommend it for those seeking to feed their pathos and desiring a different perspective through a hard-nose tragedy. And if you look hard enough, you can see that all of Jack's efforts, and his discovery of love through Billy, do result in the manifestation of something better.

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Jan 23, 2010 Johnny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reminiscent of Nelson Algren in its setting, characters and use of the back alleys and poolhalls of the time as social commentary.

Frank and gritty, the book never shies away from any subject. Raw language, homosexuality, violence, and racism are all covered, retaining its realism without the levels of brutality that you may find in Hubert Selby's work (although just as effective in its different approach).

While I wouldn't describe the entire novel as a crime novel, the first half skirts in and...more

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Sep 02, 2009 Melanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

e most interesting book I read this summer was "Hard Rain Falling" by Don Carpenter. Ken had sold a photo to the publisher for the front cover so they sent us a copy when it was released and so it came into our home accidentally. It is a re-issue of his novel from 1966 and it is a very dark, but very interesting story about a young man born of drifters who tries to pull it together. Prison plays a big part of the story and it is considered a precursor to "ONe Flew over the Cuckoo's nest". I woul...more

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Jul 03, 2012 William Ramsay rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm told this book is a Beat classic - one critic even compared it to One The Road. The critic must have been smoking something in a Beat sort of way, because this book is the opposite of Kerouac's. What makes On The Road so enchanting is the enthusiasm it shows for life. Hard Rain shows the misery of life. In fact, this has to be one of the most depressing books imaginable. Granted, the protagonist has a hard life. An orphan who never knows his parents, he grows up to be a petty their, goes to...more

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