What do you think?
Rate this book
Street Legal
A righteously satisfying read of a thriller, metaphysical novel, and screwball comedy, from the author of The Bear Comes Home .
With the twists, turns, and smash-ups of a thriller, the sudden depths of a metaphysical novel, and the fizz of a screwball comedy, Street Legal is high entertainment and a righteously satisfying read, from the author of the greatest novel ever written about a saxophone-playing bear.
Street Legal features an old-time skunk dealer, sniffing the new breezes, wants to open an Old-Time Grass Business Theme Park with rides and a disco. His foot soldier, a strapping, confused kid who might be on the spectrum. A frustrated cop who isn't allowed to collar anyone important because the town needs the business who consoles himself by trying to make a last-chance bust and grab some of the action. A slick, unsettling stranger buying up properties under cover for a major tobacco company but really out for himself. A Tibetan Buddhist lama from New Jersey who sounds like Tony Soprano when discoursing on the dharma who finds his disciple, a wry, reticently sexy earth mother wracked with concern for the wayward young man who is her son.
With the twists, turns, and smash-ups of a thriller, the sudden depths of a metaphysical novel, and the fizz of a screwball comedy, Street Legal is high entertainment and a righteously satisfying read, from the author of the greatest novel ever written about a saxophone-playing bear.
Street Legal features an old-time skunk dealer, sniffing the new breezes, wants to open an Old-Time Grass Business Theme Park with rides and a disco. His foot soldier, a strapping, confused kid who might be on the spectrum. A frustrated cop who isn't allowed to collar anyone important because the town needs the business who consoles himself by trying to make a last-chance bust and grab some of the action. A slick, unsettling stranger buying up properties under cover for a major tobacco company but really out for himself. A Tibetan Buddhist lama from New Jersey who sounds like Tony Soprano when discoursing on the dharma who finds his disciple, a wry, reticently sexy earth mother wracked with concern for the wayward young man who is her son.
296 pages, Paperback
First published December 8, 2014
About the author
Rafi Zabor
6 books17 followersRafi Zabor (born Joel Zaborovsky, August 22, 1946) is a Brooklyn, New York–based music journalist - and musician-turned-novelist.
Rafi Zabor was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He has worked and recorded as a jazz drummer and written about music for Musician, Playboy, and the Village Voice, and about dervishes in Istanbul for Harper's. His novel, The Bear Comes Home, won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1998 and was voted one of the Los Angeles Times's Best Books of the Year. He still lives in Brooklyn, where he is finishing the second volume of I, Wabenzi.
Rafi Zabor was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He has worked and recorded as a jazz drummer and written about music for Musician, Playboy, and the Village Voice, and about dervishes in Istanbul for Harper's. His novel, The Bear Comes Home, won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1998 and was voted one of the Los Angeles Times's Best Books of the Year. He still lives in Brooklyn, where he is finishing the second volume of I, Wabenzi.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
March 24, 2022
I just finished Rafi Zabor’s new novel, and I recommended it unreservedly. Taking place on the West Coast during 2012 as the marijuana trade prepares to become legal, this exciting novel takes some interesting characters through some twists and turns. It has nice musical and spiritual touches as the very believable people in the book struggle to find their place in a deadly world.
I really enjoyed Rafi’s earlier two books The Bear Comes Home and I, Wabenzi, and reading this book makes me want to reread them. It also makes me want to reread Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. In some ways Street Legal seems like a not too distant cousin of that novel also largely set in Northern California. I suspect those like myself who love Vineland will love Street Legal, but I suspect that those who have reservations about that unusual Pynchon novel will find Street Legal more to their liking. Zabor’s writing seems more spiritually grounded, and the silly stoner humor here belongs to the characters and not to the narrative voice.
In any event, I hope you will check out this terrific crime novel. I suspect you will thank me later. The novel has interesting discussions of pregnancy, parenthood, murder, guard dogs, chamber music, very large mobile homes and love, among many other topics.
I really enjoyed Rafi’s earlier two books The Bear Comes Home and I, Wabenzi, and reading this book makes me want to reread them. It also makes me want to reread Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. In some ways Street Legal seems like a not too distant cousin of that novel also largely set in Northern California. I suspect those like myself who love Vineland will love Street Legal, but I suspect that those who have reservations about that unusual Pynchon novel will find Street Legal more to their liking. Zabor’s writing seems more spiritually grounded, and the silly stoner humor here belongs to the characters and not to the narrative voice.
In any event, I hope you will check out this terrific crime novel. I suspect you will thank me later. The novel has interesting discussions of pregnancy, parenthood, murder, guard dogs, chamber music, very large mobile homes and love, among many other topics.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review