Review - "Boston Lust" by Wol-vriey

[CactusSmasher]

I was given a copy of this book to review by the author. Bizarro fiction is something that's very difficult to get right. You have to balance the disparate elements of comedy, horror, and surrealism to keep it from devolving into eye-rolling ridiculousness. Unfortunately, Wol-vriey's third novel in his Bud Malone cycle falls deeply into this pit. The idea of subverting hard-boiled detective stories through the lens of the bizarro genre is a pretty good one, but Wol-vriey isn't up to the task. The plot is paper-thin, as well as the characters. The dialogue is tin-eared and overly expository. The prose is shaky and incredibly rudimentary in certain parts. And Bud Malone's love interests die off quicker than a pack of crane flies, to the point where it becomes ridiculous, and I don't think in the way the author intended. In fact, the entire book just feels a bit ridiculous and amateurish. In the hands of some bizarro writers, they can take thoroughly ridiculous concepts and, if not make them feel believable (it is bizarro, after all), at least they imbue them with a sense of style and a kind of twisted dream logic to make it work. Wol-vriey, conversely, just kind of throws everything at the kitchen sink in the hopes that it will stick. Oh, some of it does, don't get me wrong. There are little passages and turns of phrase here and there that briefly gleam with the kind of surreal poetry that the best bizarro stories offer, and some of the concepts that he dreams up are genuinely imaginative and interesting (my favorite being the golems made of meat). But the author's constant, unending sex scenes grow tiring very fast, and his few attempts at poop humor and blasphemous offensiveness come off more like a teenager trying to be cool and transgressive rather than something genuinely insane and subversive. Overall, it wasn't the worst book I've ever read. The author could turn a phrase well enough and keep the story moving fast enough that I was able to get through it quickly. But the bottom line is, if you want great bizarro, there's better stuff out there. This one didn't do it for me.