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Title: Boulevard: A Novel by Jim Grimsley ISBN: 1-56512-251-8 Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.04 (24 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Starts out great but fizzles; not as good as Dream Boy
Comment: Being a huge fan of Dream Boy, I was very excited to hear that Jim Grimsley had written a book about my hometown of New Orleans. However, I was disappointed overall and did not think it was as good as his earlier work.
The story starts out strong in portraying Newell as the naive country boy exploring a new city. The description of locations in New Orleans is dead-on, detailing the Bourbon Pub, Cafe Lafitte, Cafe du Monde, Clover Grille, etc. You can really get into his struggles in trying to hold down a job and get settled. You're hooked by the time he finds the job in the adult store.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the book goes off on this loooong tangent about Miss Sophie, the transgendered janitor of the store where Newell works. Who cares!? Page after page, nothing happens but her getting drunk and wandering the streets aimlessly.
I started to think that I was just reading a collection of short stories: first Newell, then Miss Sophie. By the time the story did come back to Newell, I had lost interest. He turned into a queeny whore who had taken a liking to wear dog collars at work and hooking up with drug addicts.
The story ends with a whimper in a tasteless scenario for Newell. It's like Mr. Grimsley had run out of adventures for Newell to go on so he wraps it up fast.
Hopefully his next novel, like Dream Boy, will be more focused...
Rating: 5
Summary: Great read, more for entertainment than anything else.
Comment: Grimsley is a beautifully gifted writer. This novel, Boulevard, lacks his previous explorations on the quiet desperation of true love. It does, however, keep the wonderfully constructed portraits of characters and the interesting plotline. The story traces an awkward, somewhat cliche, coming-of-age of a country boy who comes to the Big Easy. By the end of the novel, one is not sure if the boy has really changed, or if he has just become more 'experienced' in terms of cultural exchange/experience, etc. But perhaps Grimsley's finer point is made on that assumption: escape allows you to experience something new...but escaping will not change who or what you are.
His power lies in his vocabulary and the languid, melancholy descriptions of heartache. The twisted characters he introduces and the interesting plot twists are not to be missed. Ironically, it is one of the minor characters (who actually gets more presence than most minor characters would) that charmed me the most. An aging drag queen comments on the lives of the characters around her, on her own life, and the quiet damnation of being an older transgendered man.
Emotionally, I do not cling to this novel as I did Comfort and Joy, Winter Birds, and Dream Boy, but it did not seek out to make the reader cling to it. It is an expertly told story.
Rating: 1
Summary: Great Writer, Incredibly Weak Book
Comment: Was Jim Grimsley half-asleep when he wrote this novel? His fiction is usually powerful and moving, and I love his work, but Boulevard is a depiction of characters we don't care about in a plot that goes nowhere, but, thankfully ends eventually. A supreme disappointment. Read anything by him but this half-hearted effort.
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Title: Comfort and Joy by Jim Grimsley ISBN: 1565123964 Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: DREAM BOY: A Novel by Jim Grimsley ISBN: 0684829924 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: WINTER BIRDS: A Novel by Jim Grimsley ISBN: 0684829916 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: MY DROWNING by Jim Grimsley ISBN: 0684841231 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Desert Sons by Mark Kendrick ISBN: 0595191304 Publisher: iUniverse Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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