<![CDATA[Hard Feelings]]>

false <![CDATA[Hard Feelings]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176833097m/657517.jpg 657517 5 Penzler Pick, March 2002: Perverse as she was, I think Patricia Highsmith would approve. With his fourth novel, Jason Starr stakes his claim on the claustrophobic territory that she carved out so brilliantly for the four decades of her writing career. And the people at Vintage/Black Lizard, the publishers of Hard Feelings as their first-ever original paperback--who have a number of Highsmith titles on their classic-noir list--know it. They are also invoking the name of another darkly unsettling and equally legendary American writer. The editor-in-chief of Black Lizard, Edward Kastenmeier, says, "Reading Hard Feelings was like the first time I read The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson: eerie, disturbing and blackly comic." Richie Segal, the increasingly strung-out narrator of Hard Feelings, is a yuppie New Yorker with a co-op in an East Side high-rise, an executive wife who's just received a promotion, and credit card bills to the tune of $20,000. He's failing at his job--selling computer networks to midsized companies--and has just seen on the street, out of the blue, a man who was his neighbor when they were teenagers. There's something painful about this fellow, Michael Rudnick, now a successful lawyer, that Richie has suppressed for more than two decades. And now that he has begun to remember it, the awful unfairness of their shared shadow history begins to pervade his life, haunting his waking hours... and his dreams. Hard Feelings does a nearly faultless job of building tension and following Richie's descent into a world that resembles the one in which he has previously lived, in the same way a grimace resembles a grin. Fans of Donald E. Westlake's The Ax and Scott Phillips's The Ice Harvest will love it. It may also be the first "take-out" noir novel, since in typical New York fashion, Richie and Paula, his wife, possess a stack of menus rather than a batterie de cuisine. You can almost taste the chicken chow fun, the boxed pizza, the sushi-to-go, and other bicycled-over delicacies. The ending may be a too-convenient cutting away from even the slightest glimpse of a crucial moment in Richie's final deterioration. Others may disagree. But, ultimately, this minor lapse doesn't keep it from being a terrific--and terrifying--book. --Otto Penzler 643605 2002 Hard Feelings total:40|5:13|4:12|3:9|2:5|1:1| 40 151 47 5 4 0 false false Thu Jul 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 09:00:57 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 09:11:00 -0700 2009
Richie Segal is going through a rough patch in his life. He's a computer network salesman, and his recent job change has seen him hit a terrible sales slump. His wife, Paula, is an MBA with a new promotion. Richie and Paula are arguing alot, and are $20,000 in debt thanks...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Oct 20 14:09:55 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 20 14:12:35 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Apr 03 13:01:12 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 03 13:02:37 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 08 11:05:33 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 08 11:09:18 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Tue Feb 05 14:48:57 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 05 14:49:17 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Thu Nov 26 12:34:40 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 26 12:34:40 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Wed Nov 04 04:36:40 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 04 04:36:40 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Mon Oct 19 09:48:20 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 09:48:20 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Mon Sep 21 10:13:36 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 10:13:43 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Sep 11 16:45:45 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 11 16:45:45 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sat Jul 11 07:51:46 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 07:51:46 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Jul 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 18:57:41 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 18:58:37 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Jun 11 14:26:35 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 11 14:26:35 -0700 2009 1 0 false false Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Tue Apr 28 12:33:11 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 28 12:33:11 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Apr 25 12:58:49 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 25 12:58:49 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Apr 21 09:02:53 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 09:02:53 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Apr 08 23:51:40 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 23:51:40 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Mar 20 07:46:48 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 20 07:46:48 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Mar 03 09:20:57 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 09:20:57 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Tue Feb 24 18:45:50 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 24 18:45:50 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=657517