20 Authors You Should Read (Instead of Stephen King): Part Deux

I know what you are thinking (okay, maybe I don’t, but I am going to say so anyway): Sequels are normally about as entertaining as a high colonic (and with fewer pleasant aftereffects).

I agree. And there are no promises here, but I said that I would continue with my 20 Authors You Should Read (Instead of Stephen King) as filler when I was either too lazy or too busy to write anything else.

Since I have failed that charter miserably, I will say this to those of you who’ve read me before (you know who you are):

I hope you have long since realized:

1. That I understand that you are either family, friend, or some less obligated soul who happened across this blog and stopped for a moment, in all likelihood, accidentally, and could frankly not care less.
2. The phrase “Instead of Stephen King”, in addition to being my own private little well-placed uppercut to the solar plexus of the famous hack, is a metaphor in place of “any mainstream writer who would perhaps rather cash the absurdly humongous paycheck than actually write something original and GOOD.”
3. That these are writers who, talented as they are, may not wind up on the plate of many readers who stick to the bestseller list (readers who are, simply put, huge John Grisham and Dan Brown fans).
4. That I know my other posts could be (even politely) construed as “filler”.
5. That most days I am too lazy to write even backhanded backhands to SK. And…
6. If you happen to be Stephen King, I apologize not.
   

That said…

Please imagine an evolved, washed out ape of a private dick who’s, well, really an ape. Pique your curiosity? How about booze-swilling, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed babies and cliché gun-toting, lame-brained, mafia muscle in the form of a kangaroo in a dinner jacket? And as if this isn’t enough, how would you feel about a Government-issued drug called “make” that, in addition to being as common in the future as bottled water in 2005, is customizable at any corner pharmacy with personalized proportions of such additives as Forgettol, Regrettol, Believol and, the Government blend’s prime ingredient, Acceptol?

What if I told you I understand your trepidation, but set that apprehension aside and curl up with Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, With Occasional Music anyway because not only is it a page-turner with a great storyline, chock full of crisp, acerbic, original dialogue, but it is one of the most brilliant, well-written novels I’ve ever had the pleasure to pick up?

True, it’s a thinly-veiled homage to the late Sci Fi novelist Phillip K. Dick, but this is no parroted, mimeograph likeness. Nor is Lethem’s one of pick-pocketed style—whether you end up loathing Gun’s twisted, dystopian future, or end up falling in love with it for the same reason, there is one certainty: you won’t be able to say (with straight face anyway) that Jonathan Lethem isn’t an original.

For this reason alone I recommend him as an author you should be reading instead of Stephen King.

Lethem’s writing is an entrancing hybrid of brilliant genre and sleek noir much in the way Angelina Jolie is an entrancing hybrid of Oscar-winning father and beautiful (if not particularly famous) lesser actress: you can love Angelina in movies or you can hate Angelina in the movies, but you can hardly wrench your eyes away when she’s center scene. Like Lethem’s writing, she is a siren that commands your attention.

Fortunately, Lethem’s style is more than eye candy. His prose is gloriously pithy, devilishly original, and funny in a way that grabs you by the privates and says laugh, or the scrotum gets it.

Case in point, a comment regarding a single headlight following the gumshoe Conrad Metcalf in Gun:

…I was beginning to feel the proverbial breath on my neck, but I tried not to let it spook me into making a wrong move. A tail is like a pimple. It comes to a head in its own time. You can rush it, but it usually makes a mess if you do.

Nice.

I also found this tidbit in an Amazon.com book review of Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction:

“Pop quiz. Please complete the following sentence: "There are days when I get up in the morning and stagger into the bathroom and begin running water and then I look up and I don't even recognize my own ___." If you answered face, then your name is obviously not Jonathan Lethem. Instead of taking the easy out, the genre-busting novelist concludes this by-the-numbers string of words with toothbrush in the mirror.”

I have read two other Lethem books to date:

As She Climbed Across the Table, an engrossing tale of, among other well-written and entertaining characters, an awestruck physicist and her eventually amorous obsession with her mentor’s fickle singularity.

Also, The Disappointment Artist, a collection of Lethem essays on childhood and adult subjects ranging from a lifetime defending John Ford’s The Searchers to the title essay, inspired by letters from his Aunt Billie regarding her ruthless tutelage at the hands of the underground hero-author, Edward Dahlberg. Lethem also writes of his own obsession with comic books, Star Wars (the original, 21 viewings), his parents’ bohemian lifestyle, his mother’s death when he was only a teenager, and a lifetime grapple with his father’s “realist” art (I learned to think by watching my father paint, he begins).

(I am currently reading Men and Cartoons, a collection of short stories. Motherless Brooklyn is on deck.)

Yes, there is a lot of dreck out there—did I mention John Grisham and Dan Brown? You may not end up having the affinity I do for Lethem and his canon, but suffice to say that I believe him well worth the risk.

Do yourself a favor, pick up a copy of Gun, With Occasional Music, but do it on a Friday when you have the weekend free. You’ll more than likely need a couple days with this gem glued to your fingers.

The back seat is quiet.