What We Salvage

by David Baillie

Skinheads. Drug dealers. Cops. For two brothers-of-circumstance navigating the violent streets of this industrial wasteland, every urban tribe is a potential threat. Yet it is amongst the denizens of these unforgiving alleys, dangerous squat houses, and underground nightclubs that the brothers and the small street tribe to which they belong forge the bonds that will see them through senseless minor cruelties, the slow and constant grind of poverty, and savage boot culture violence. Friendship. Understanding. Affinity. For two brothers, these fragile ties are the only hope they have for salvation in the wake of a mutual girlfriend's suicide, an event so devastating that it drives one to seek solace far from his steel city roots, and the other to a tragic yet miraculous transformation, a heartbreaking metamorphosis from poet and musician to street prophet, emerging from a self-imposed cocoon an urban shaman, mad-eyed shaper of (t)ruthless reality. What We Salvage is a reckless, gritty, and unapologetic journey, a novel that seizes the poignant fragility of Catcher in the Rye and throws it into a merciless world reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. It is a work that author James Morrow dubbed "postmodern punk," a term that befits Baillie's poetry-as-street-prose style."

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

291 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 2015

Reviews

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

I really don't know what to say about this novel. It was not what I expected. I got drawn in by the cover that got my attention and the prose is really quite nice. But after a while even that gets old and the question that remains is: what else is there?

The story (I guess I should call it a story, just because it's a book?) features two 'brothers' and some of their friends living not really easy in Canada.

What I really missed was a plot, a direction for the story to go to. It was a collection of things they did, but I never learnt what they had to do with each other, except that they were all about the same gang. The suicide that is mentioned in the summary didn't even feel like such a key point in the story because it takes place near the end of the story and the way it's mentioned is rather weird.

I suppose there are people out there who will love this story, and the writing I thought was really good, but for me in order to be a good book there has to be a good story (or at least an identifiable plot).

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

[HannahC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this novel as a gift from a Canadian friend because I love James Morrow and he blurbed it. James Morrow it isn't! Still, I couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting (almost). I highly HIGHLY recommend this book.

This is Baillie's debut novel. The author delivers his poetic style of prose with reckless disregard for conventions while layering the narrative in a way reminiscent Modernists like William Faulkner. The nameless narrator is pretty richly developed, both lovable in a careless teenage boy way but also pitiable because of his glaring flaws and unconscious misogyny. In fact this last trait fuels the story line wonderfully. The fact that he just doesn't get women, no matter how hard he tries, might get lost under the beautiful poetry of the character's thoughts. He's a tortured soul, like a not-evil version of Alex from Clockwork Orange.

The novel's 5 parts take their names from lines of T.S. Eliot's poems and I loved how the narrator's stream of consciousness often drifts from one allusion to another like Eliot's Wasteland does. It seems a bit heavy handed at times, but I really found it part of his charm in the end, an unconscious arrogance-turned-fatal-flaw.

Beautiful, tragic, violent, raw ... it really needs to be in a college English class somewhere.

[Steven Buechler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an honest, gritty and sometimes brutal coming-of-age novel that is frank and honest in its language and descriptions. Baillie has documented a reality that may be shocking to many English teachers but is reflective to many of us who struggled with our youth. His use of Hamilton, Canada as a setting is brilliant and unique yet also very familiar to many readers.

http://tinyurl.com/gl9bzx8

[Sue Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this as an arc from net galley in exchange for an honest review.
Skinheads, Drug dealers, cops. For two brothers - of - circumstance navigating the violent streets of this industrial wasteland, every urban tribe is a potential threat.

Wow. OMG. Wow.
Absolutely amazing read.
CNPID.
I loved the story and the characters.
What characters.
Knew this would be a page Turner right up to the last page.
Highly recommended.
Definitely worth more than 5 *.

[Jean Labrador · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book pre-publication from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The author , David Baillie is a new author, and I found his writing poetic, enchanting, and disturbing. There were phrases and sentences that I read over and over trying to figure out how he could turn mere words into such gorgeous, and often brutal, visual images. And even with all of this wonderful writing, I found myself wondering by page 64 if there was any plot to this story besides repeated skirmishes between Doc Martined gangs composed of severely deprived kids, and between gangs and cops. This plot-less element was summarized by the un-named main character's musings, "Tribal, me, Dereck, Tina-all of us. (Sic) We try not to think of anything too deeply, sticking to cause and effect only. Because beyond the simple day to day victories in the midst of overwhelming injustices is Consequence." Plot-less or no, I could not put this book down.

This is a story of two brothers who chose each other, Jimmy, aka Catfish, the street source and shamanic and deeply creative magic man, and the unnamed protagonist whose favourite secret place is a corner in the library where he reads just about anything. Their years together reveal deep rivers of caring and emotion that one carelessly wrapped gift in a travel brochure sets into motion grief, heart break, and growth.

One of my favourite characters in the book is Yvonne the librarian. The protagonist and she strike up a most unusual friendship that further reveals deep kind roots in his character. This character repeatedly shows this kindness at most surprising times, whether rescuing a girl who is severely attacked, to quiet kindness to other strangers, one cannot help but like him, as well as be frustrated by him.

I highly recommend this first novel of David Baillie's and will probably read it again at some point in the future.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed the first third or so of this book when it was presenting the boot culture and the ins & outs of inner city Hamilton. Then it turned into a poor attempt at a coming of age novel that had no flow. I cared little about most of the characters other than the protagonist and his brother, and even with those two I kept wondering why they were so interesting that they would have their own novel. Turns out, they really didn't have anything interesting to do. I was so lost the last 80 pages that I just put my brain on auto-pilot to finish (I'm stubborn and would never quit a book when I'm so close to being done).

The author appears to have a very good grasp on the English language and often times puts together words to paint a beautiful picture, but that's lost on me. It felt forced most of the time and I read to enjoy a good story, not to be impressed by perfectly flowing sentences with words hardly used outside of novels.

I was rooting for this to be good because the author is local and the boot culture/music scene is something extremely interesting to me, but I can't bring myself to give this book more than 2 stars.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!
This book is based on the author's hometown of Hamilton, ON, just 10 minutes from where I live. Which was why I choose to read this book.
Bailles' book is all about the dark subculture of gangs and skinheads during the '80. The boot culture - Doc Martens... Brit and Mod regalia, the number of holes on the boot, whether you laced them ladder or crisscross, the lace and boot colour...you didn't dare cross the street for fear of a turf war with a rival gang.
His characters are real and I had a real and deep affiliation with them. The street language the authors writing style was fresh and intuitive, you can hear the authors affection for his home town in his references to certain areas of the city - Gage and Gore Park, Jackson Square, King St.
I have recommended this book to several friends and peers - all of which have given this book 4.5-5 stars.
A must read! I can't wait to read the next book from this trilogy, "Sons of the Hammer."

[Josef Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange yet entertaining and thought-provoking novel

For a full review, please go to http://www.examiner.com/review/what-w... or http://areviewerdarkly.blogspot.com/2... and follow me on Twitter @josenher

[Goldiegolfer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the gritty poetic prose of this interesting story of the city of Hamilton.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed reading this book, but there were some things that didn't really work for me.

In the first half of the book, the characters are a part of the boot subculture in Canada and are living on the fringes of society. I think it did a good job portraying what these characters' lives would be like and how they would think. A lot of this has to do with the way they describe other characters they interact with and how they look and what they're wearing. I could see the descriptions of what all the characters are wearing getting annoying, but for me I think it helped to understand how they would view and assess the people they come across in their world.

I also think the male characters are well-written for the most part. They all felt distinct from one another and I could easily remember who everyone was when they reappeared in the story. That's a fairly low bar, but it's one a lot of books haven't been able to meet for me lately.

On the other hand, I feel like the female characters were not very well-written. They all felt a little samey and unimportant in the story. For the most part they just enter and exit the male characters' lives with little fanfare or importance to the goings on of the plot. Until they die or something, then they suddenly matter.

There also isn't a whole lot of plot in this in general. It feels more like short stories or vignettes in a character's life rather than a novel. The little plot it does have is centered around the female characters too, which didn't really work for me because their characters' were so weak to begin with. It was also a little hard to understand what I was supposed to feel when these female characters would leave or die because the main character always seemed to not care about them at first, but then a little after he would talk about it like it was devastating to him.

Also, in the second half of the book the main character has grown up and grown out of the subculture he was a part of in the first half which I think made it lose a bit of the intrigue it had for me in the beginning.

[Dave Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5*

[Theyellowdart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me think back to 90s boot culture. It was mostly the documentation of experience, the narrative was fairly loose.

[Lenore · Rating 2 out of 5]

All about the writing and not enough about the story or the characters. I found this to be a hard book to read and I wanted to love it so much because it was based in Hamilton, Ontario.

[Lenny Hilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. I grew up and love in Hamilton. I can picture the exact spots talked about in this book. Really good characters and a great story.

[Danny Brzozowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastating, primal, and unapologetically real. Baillie will slice you open with a boot razor to display the ephemeral beauty of humanity making life, joy, and art out of desperation.

[Lucile Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

28. What we Salvage by David Baillie
This is the first of a trilogy and the first book is mostly set in Hamilton, Ontario, a city I have a love/hate relationship with. The narrator is a Scottish born teen who is transplanted with his alcoholic mother, and one year younger brother after the death of their little sister. The two boys hate school, their mother’s increasing promiscuity and authority in general. They sink into gang life, couch surfing, and drug use, but they both are in an evolving band. They become involved with a near mystic songwriter, Jimmy, and several girls, none of whom last. I found myself wanting to shake these kids. The narrator is saved by the public library and his own musical ambition, and a scam. The attitude to the neighborhood I grew up in was mystifying. It was another world to them, where they never felt comfortable. I really wanted to like it a lot more!

[Clementine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

*Actual rating: 1.5 stars*

This book is unfortunately a gigantic mess of gratuitous violence and gore aimed at "showing the grittiness of this world". It's just drama mashed together, violent scenes in succession without any plot tying everything together. The whole book reads like the summary: a scattered beautiful prose. I normally compare this type of books-- the ones that forgo the whole important plot thing in favour of a poetic writing style-- to a pompous unicorn in a sparkling gown, but considering the grittiness of this novel, I will have to adapt and speak of a punk unicorn living on the streets. And saying fuck a lot. I curse like a butcher, so I wasn't offended, but even if some sentences were well crafted, others just felt unedited because they were beautiful but totally unnecessary to the story.

Okay, but seriously what plot? What story??

I can already imagine people shaking their heads at cocktail parties and telling me I didn't get it. There is a message behind the gore and violence. I'm just not "enlightened" enough to see it. This is a character driven book, really, I didn't get it. Well, I'm sorry to have to crash these little imaginary cocktail parties but good prose is just one piece of a good book and even character driven books need to have a plot. But the girlfriend killed herself!! How tragic! At the fucking end and I don't call that character development, because it's just a cheap way of getting the characters to realize something about death. Hell, every day they see blood and suddenly, the girlfriend's suicide is what does it for these two gents? Yeah... No.

And skin hanging on trucks??? And what's with the Nazi/Hitler Youth references when it's happening in Canada? Unless Lake Ontario has moved over a continent or something. WHAT'S WITH THE UNEXPLAINED WORLDBUILDING?! FUCK!

Even the structure of the book is messy. There back and forth between events, the names thrown in there are either the names of places or people. Reading this book is like watching a ping pong match during which you have to imagine the ball because there's no purpose to the back and forth. I'm not even sure the author's idea was clear in his own head. I feel like the main character listed all the things his brother and he have salvaged pun intended and forgot to bind the events together. Everything feels so disjointed, from the writing to the structure. I would mention the plot, but again what plot?

Then why, why wouldn't you give this book one star if it were such a mess, Clem? Because I'm a pompous snob when it comes to prose. That's right, I've just thrown a pleonasm in there to make my point.

[Israel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The style of the narrative and the grit in the teeth had me captivated for a while, but those qualities weren't enough for the duration. The plot has that juicy flavor of a really fantastically long and evolutionary run-on sentence, but it unfortunately turns grisly and tasteless just when a subtle dissonance should be triggering the next wave of anticipatory salivating. To analyze the fading of my initial enthusiasm, I sat the main character in a torn and dusty armchair next to Caulfield. Neither would speak to the other, of course, so we just had to sit there for some minutes, the latter staring out of the cracked and almost opaque window while the former crushed bits of fallen plaster with his boot. Then it hit me. The guy with the boots and jacket, I just didn't love him. Perhaps the author did, maybe even as much as his own family. But I didn't. The writing, however styled and artistically profound, could not induce me to give a whit what that guy did next or who he ended up becoming by page 249. After squinting at him a few moments longer, just to avoid any rash conclusions, I realized I had forgotten his name. Two thirds of the way through the book, Caulfield shambled out of the room.

[zoë · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was fortunate enough to obtain an advanced copy of this novel in ebook format from NetGalley.com. The cover caught my eye and the description grabbed my attention. So did the first chapter - albeit not an easy read. After that, though, my interest in this book went up and down. Packed with more adjectives than a dictionary, complicated lingo and too many names of people, places and things grouped together than I could keep track of, I really struggled through this book. Often skimming over pages, I think I would enjoy this book more if I'd studied it in a class, re-read it, or had an explanation of what was going on through some parts, and I found myself constantly thinking that perhaps this book was aimed or suited to someone older than me. However, this book was different, raw, and felt real. The parts that captured my attention and found easiest to follow along were like memories, dynamic and emotional. I both appreciated and struggled with this book - perhaps I'll enjoy it more as I get older, and wouldn't say no to a re-read a few years down the line.

[𝕁𝕒𝕕𝕖 (_𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕜𝕚𝕤𝕙_𝕘𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕣_) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was given this book from Netgallery in exchange for an honest review

I've given this book 2 and a half stars.

I'm going to be honest here, i have no idea where to start with this review. Throughout this book i had no idea what the plot was, even when i had to re-read the description to get a sense, but that could be because for the past month i have been non stop reading about Colour for my dissertation. The suicide of a mutual girlfriend that was supposed to get this whole plot moving didn't actually happen til about 75/80% through the book, which for me seems like a pointless thing to do because there is no way for you to understand what Jimmy and the Main character were feeling in that last 25%.

I might have enjoyed the book a little more if i haven't been busy with my university art theory/Reflective Case Study stuff but i started the book at the wrong time and was too far through it to consider stopping reading.

I may consider buying the book and giving it a re-read in the future.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like a contemplative John King novel, with touches of Silk and Lost Souls. Initially I couldn't decide if this was a dystopia (surely the street scene in Canada wasn't this intense!), and got a little bored of fight scenes and descriptions of people's footwear, but the introspective focus the book gradually took on gave it a few more layers. There's a lot of lovely prose and interesting characters, although what those aforementioned authors have that this lacked was a sense of direction. A book doesn't have to have plot, but a reader needs some kind of suspense or reason to hang in there and stay with the characters til the end. In this case, I felt a little bogged down in the stream of consciousness and needed a little more action.
Interested to see how the series continues.

[The Master · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of an anonymous young man looking back on his formative years in 1980s Hamilton. Surrounded by violence and poverty, he survives with his wits in one fist, and the support of a tightly-knit circle of friends and family in the other.

The narrator acknowledges that his story comes out of a very particular time and place, already gone by the time he’s reached the final page. The past is a foreign country and all that. The setting will have a special resonance for readers from the Hammer, but the content will be accessible to most: music and drugs, cops and colleagues, sex and relationships -- all navigated in poetic prose that makes for a compelling read.

There’s a loose flow to the narrative, occasionally skipping backwards and forwards in time, and never dwelling too long before jumping ahead weeks or even months at a time. It reads more like an autobiography than a novel. Unique and memorable. I loved it.

[Bill Lamont · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it. I saw many correlations to my own life, of similar age to the main character in the same time period. It read like a first novel, there were a few hiccups and awkward moments, but I very much look forward to what Baillie will come up with next. Great quick read.