Paul's review of The Delivery Man: A Novel
The Delivery Man: A Novel by Joe McGinniss Jr.
sorry but i did not love this book. it's full of tortured, pitiful characters whom i mostly hated. i also felt like i was reading the same twenty pages over and over....the characters are stuck in their own muck but did i have to be too? yes, it reminds me of early brett easton ellis but in this case, that's not a good thing. the characters are souless and so is the story....
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"i also felt like i was reading the same twenty pages over and over"---well said, well said. whenever one is reading a book & one wants to yell at the main character, "So GO already. Get the hell out of this book, good lord," you know either you forgot to take your anti-anxiety pill or the book is a waste of time.
since I love this book so much and since you two are going bananas -- still talking about a book you "hate" -- here are some other opinions (since I'm a little bananas myself!)
"Put on your blinders at Borders and head right to this gem... The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr. It's sex, drugs, and a slew of lost souls in this engrossing story of a 25-year-old known only as Chase. An out-of-luck wannabe artist, he retreats to his hometown -- that being Vegas, a downward spiral ensues, thanks to madams and more. Since no less a connoisseur of depraved excess than Bret Easton Ellis helped McGinniss Jr. score a publisher,could The Delivery Man be this decade's Less Than Zero?"
--Marie Claire
"A razor sharp portrait of a generation that has completely gone off the rails...Pretty damn good."
--Ain't It Cool News
"This debut novel from the son of the famed true-crime reporter is a searing portrait of young wastrels adrift in a vacuous Las Vegas. Chase couldn't cut it as an NYU art student and now finds himself mired in old, self-destructive patterns. Fired from his high-school teaching job following a fistfight with one of his students, he falls into a job chauffeuring a ring of teenage call girls to clients' homes. The ring is run by an old friend, an acquisitive Salvadoran immigrant who longs to buy a home in one of the ubiquitous new housing developments springing up in the desert. Although Chase is engaged to an ambitious business grad student and is himself struggling to finish a group of paintings for a gallery opening, he finds his sense of purpose draining away. Unsavory business partners and old vendettas soon come into fast and furious play. McGinniss never wavers from his ruthless portrayal of the morally bankrupt, and some readers may be put off by the unlikable characters, but this atmospheric page-turner gains increasing depth as it barrels toward a gut-wrenching conclusion."
--Booklist
New York Times "Editor's Choice"
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Las Vegas seems the perfect setting for Joe McGinniss Jr.'s first novel: a portrait of teens and 20-somethings who value sheen over substance, sell out long-term potential for short-term perks, and gamble with their lives on hopes that are unlikely to materialize.
An art school drop-out, 25-year-old Chase is biding time as a high school teacher until he can meet up in California with girlfriend Julia, who is completing her MBA and already on the fast-track to success. But Chase is also hung-up on his childhood crush, Michele, now a Vegas call girl. When she and another childhood pal, Bailey, organize a teen prostitution ring in a Vegas suite, Chase finds himself the "delivery man," running girls to and from appointments -- some of them the girls he's taught in art class.
Though banally depraved, Chase's world isn't too far from everyday American culture, where sex and youth are major marketing commodities. These girls aspire to the glitz and glamour around them -- Audi convertibles and bigger breasts. If sex sells, why not just sell it? In one scene, teens giving each other manicures discuss how one girl "did it around the holidays so she could buy people really good presents."
But nothing is easy -- and not just because of the bleak amorality of teens selling themselves. Michele is running tricks off the books, courting serious payback. Chase is dodging one hooker's ill-tempered boyfriend and also trying to outrun an anguished past -- "eight years ago, the gray early morning, July, Bailey's bedroom, the body on the lawn." And his girlfriend choices carry high stakes. As a ubiquitous billboard reminds him: "What Kind of Man Are You?"
Remarkably, amid the schoolgirl sex and looming violence, the double-crossing and life-changing decisions, The Delivery Man often feels static. McGinnis, who inherited not just the name but the skill of his father, a bestselling true crime writer, keeps tensions mounting in small ways: Julia and Michele squaring off on first meeting, Michele fumbling through business talk with the MBA crowd, and those heartbreaking flashbacks. But Chase is just going around in circles -- his Mustang ferrying teens back and forth, his mind returning to that painful past and unpromising future -- and it's sometimes hard to separate his inertia from the story's. Still, the novel is, after all, about a group of people destined to go nowhere. And McGinnis charts that aimlessness with insight and dexterity. Dare I say it? The Delivery Man really delivers: grim, convincing and compelling.
that's nice. i just don't agree. at all. i thought the characters were empty and the writing redundant. and you should not dismiss the fact that it just might have received positive reviews because of who the author's father is....sorry to bring that up but i think some reviewers get off on admiring 'this year's model.'
funny, when i wrote to the author (kudos to joe mcginniss jr for responding so quickly and taking the time to really answer my questions) he also sent me reviews of people who liked it. NOT everybody has to like it.
i agree w/ paul and think it got all the acclaim it did for (maybe) other reasons.
Bottom line: why is Becca pushing this DOWN our throats? (she really lit into me for my opinion) geeeeez
I'm not pushing it down your throats. Sorry if I came off like that. Mcginnis really did something different with this book and i was moved by it and respect it. so many books seem the same and this one didn't do all those typical things. I think the characters are like paul says, soulless. But on purpose. Like, that's the point. This is what happens when things go really, really wrong in our culture and there's no better place to show all of that than las vegas (where i lived until i was seventeen btw).
so sorry for going a little bananas on this book. I've read very few books so raw and real as this one. I know it's selling well because i've got a friend at barnes and noble who says its flying off the shelves! and the good reviews being because his dad is a writer seems like a stretch. but who cares?? i love this book! you guys HATE it! oh well. Can't wait to see the movie though!
