Baby Got Books

Nobody Move

Denis Johnson won the National Book Award for his doorstop/novel Tree of Smoke. I meant to get around to reading ToS, I really did, but it never happened. Then along came Johnson’s new novel Nobody Move, and it seemed as good a place as any to check out the author’s work.

As you might gather from the cover, Nobody Move is a by-the-numbers crime noir. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. Johnson is known for weighty “important” novels, but here he appears to be having fun and experimenting with genre.

The novel begins with this passage:

Jimmy Luntz has never been to war, but this was the sensation, he was sure of that–eighteen guys shoulder to shoulder, moving out on the orders of their leader to do what they’ve been training day and night to do.

Jimmy is thinking, of course, about a regional men’s chorus competition. He is met after the performance by a goon intent on taking him “for a ride” due to gambling debts owed to the wrong person.

Meanwhile, the femme fatale of our story is Anita Desilverio, a politician’s wife and alcoholic. Anita has been framed for embezzling cash from the State and is not happy about it.

The two hapless losers join forces as the world around them grows steadily more grim. There are surprise plot twists, double-crosses, a shot-up Caddy, gay bikers – but at least they have a plan:

I said we had ten percent of a plan. It’s more like two percent. I gotta get some smokes.

Or not. You can be certain that the story is headed towards a showdown of epic proportions.

I read Nobody Move on the heels of finishing Elmore Leonard’s Road Dogs (review). Leonard is undeniably a master of the gritty-noir-crime-drama form, but Johnson more than holds his own in a back-to-back comparison. Road Dogs has more comic relief, and Nobody Move is a little darker/edgier. Both are action-packed and loaded with charm and grit. The two novels together pack an excellent beach side one-two punch.