Hard feelings by jason starr

Reviewed by Dave Zeltserman

Jason Starr has been compared in my opinion rather carelessly to Jim Thompson and James M. Cain. While all of them have written dark noir novels, thematically and structurally their books are quite a bit different. In Thompson’s fierce world, his protagonists are born broken without a chance of redemption and perversely play out the hands they’re dealt. James M. Cain’s novels are more classic noir. His protagonists are usually tempted by both women and money (and maybe the challenge of getting away with the crime), and when they cross the line and commit murder, they’re doomed. Jason Starr has a uniquely different vision for the noir genre. His protagonists are average, educated men, trying to live normal lives. They’re not lured into their doom by the temptation to get away with murder. Their unraveling is caused by a combination of reasons. In Hard Feelings, ego and the stress of the modern workplace are the major factors.

Richie Segal, the yuppie protagonist in Hard Feelings is having a rough go of things. He switched jobs seven months earlier and is now trying to sell network consulting services for Midtown Solutions. At his previous company he had been a star, at his current job he can’t break the ice and close his first sale. He’s worried about being fired and having to find a lower paying job – or maybe never being able to work again in sales, period. If he were to lose his job his upper-middle class existence would crumble away. He would have to sell his co-op in Manhattan and God knows how he’d be able to face his wife. But there’s more to it than just that. His psyche, and really his whole being, is wrapped up tightly in his work life. The slights he suffers at work strike him deeply. As bad as things are getting at work, they’re not much better at home. A distance has been growing between him and his wife, Paula. She has just received a promotion at her job and Richie now has to deal with the fact that not only is she now making more money than him, but that while her career is moving steadily upward his own is falling apart.

The tenuous grip Richie has on his world comes undone when he spots Michael Rudnick on the streets of Manhattan. Rudnick used to live across from him when he was growing up, and something happened in Rudnick’s basement when Richie was eleven and Rudnick was fifteen. Richie had blocked out the memories of the incident, but now there’s no stopping them. The humiliation of that incident, mixed with the humiliation he’s feeling both at work and at home are too much for him. He may not be able to do anything about what’s going on at work, but he can do something about Rudnick. He’s not sure what, all he knows is that he has to do something and that ultimately leads to complete psychic disintegration.

A major theme of this book is the intertwining of work and image of self, and the helplessness the average person feels in today’s world as job security has become a thing of the past and more and more white-collar jobs are moved to other countries. We’re all at risk of being obsoleted and helpless to do anything about it. Hard Feelings touches a nerve that makes it a highly relevant vision of noir for today’s white-collar professionals.

Copyright© 2003 Dave Zeltserman

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DAVE ZELTSERMAN lives in the Boston area and has had a number of crime stories published both in print and on the web. A new crime story of his will be showing up later this year in Hot Blood 12. His first crime novel In His Shadow, which is scheduled to be translated later this year to Italian by Meridiano Zero, has been called among other things “a noir keeper”, “an impudent triumph”, “a wild ride on the darkest noir side of the street”, and “hard-boiled fiction at its best”. For information concerning Small Crimes, please contact either Dave or his agent, Bob Mecoy.

Read an extract from Jason Starr's Hard Feelings