Reviewed by Allan Guthrie
More than most authors, Jason Starr
uses the workplace as a setting to fuel tensions. It’s no surprise that Tough
Luck opens in Vincent’s Fish Market, a fish shop, with likeable Mickey
Prada, an innocent kid with moderate ambitions and an ailing father to support,
serving Angelo Santoro, who Mickey’s friend Chris suspects is a wise-guy.
When Angelo starts asking Mickey to
place bets with for him we can be forgiven for imagining we have the makings of
a caper novel. But very quickly we realise that Mickey’s situation is too
dangerous for that.
Jason Starr enjoys playing with his
readers. Protagonists of previous novels start out as likeable enough guys, but throughout
the course of the book they turn into psychopaths, by which point you’ve grown
fond enough of them to still care what happens to them. The typical Jason Starr
protagonist is amoral. He doesn’t manifest any overt psychological
abnormalities if his life is running smoothly, but when problems arise, as they
surely will, he has a tendency to revert to his primal state of psychopathology.
With Mickey, Jason Starr has taken a
slightly different approach. Mickey’s no psychopath. He’s an innocent. What
makes me say that?
Well, he’s a virgin, for a start. Chris likes to
keep reminding him of the fact. Chris pulls a stunt on him one drunken night
with a hooker, which is extremely cruel.
He’s suggestible. Having been told
"Your friend Angelo’s a wise-guy", Mickey sees "a Mafia way
about him…half-smiling and walking with a strut." And he likes to please:
"he couldn’t think of a way to say no."
He lacks confidence and self-esteem.
This is reinforced by many of those around him, from his exploitative boss,
Harry ("just a fuckin’ asshole and he treats us like we the shit that
comes outta it") to his friends (or more accurately, the gang he hangs out
with), who refer to him as "loser", "sucker" and, in the
case of Filippo: "so fuckin’ stupid."
When Mickey meets Rhonda, the girl of
his dreams, it’s no surprise that he’s pessimistic about the outcome. Having
plucked up the courage to invite her to dinner, instead of being delighted that
she accepts, he starts imagining "sitting across from her at the restaurant
on Friday with nothing to say. It would probably be the worst night of his
life." Later, he continues in the same vein, "Mickey knew he didn’t
have to worry about feeling embarrassed around her tonight because of the way he
was dressed or smelled; he had no chance with her, anyway."
Mickey has dreams, though. He wants to
go to college and become an accountant. He’s been saving for a while now,
despite the drain on his resources caused by looking after his
Alzheimer-afflicted father.
You have to feel sorry for him when he’s
forced to dip into his savings. And you have to understand when he’s offered a
role in a robbery. And when things go wrong, as they inevitably have to, you
have to wonder how events could have turned out any differently.
Mickey Prada is a nice guy, an innocent
in a disingenuous world. He doesn’t deserve all that grief. That’s why Tough
Luck is so compelling.
Copyright© 200
3 Allan
Guthrie
***
ALLAN
GUTHRIE was born two years before David Goodis died. Allan lives in
Edinburgh with his inspirational and extremely supportive wife, Donna. His as
yet unpublished noir crime novel Kiss Her Goodbye was short-listed
for the CWA Debut Dagger award. His second novel Joe Hope is now complete
and is coming to a publisher near you soon. A number of Allan's short stories
have been (or will be) published this year in e-zines (Hardluck Stories, The Murder Hole, Plots With
Guns, Shred of Evidence), Cyber-Pulp (electronic and, latterly, print)
anthologies (Down These Dark Streets, Grave Possessions, Historical
Hardboiled, Dark Streets After Hours and Be Mine), and UK print
magazine Bullet. Allan is the editor/webmaster of Noir
Originals.
Contact Allan
Read
an extract from Jason Starr's Tough Luck