Gone baby gone av Dennis Lehane är en av de bästa böcker jag läst. Faktum är att alla Lehanes böcker faller inom ramarna av "det bästa jag läst". Shutter Island, Prayers for rain, Darkness take my hand, A drink before the war. Till och med novellsamlingen Coronado som på originalspråk är ren sammet för det litterära sinnet, om det nu fanns ett. Den första novellen i boken, Running out of dog, kan jag läsa hur många gånger som helst. För att den är bitterljuv, handlingen sådär svidande smärtsam och språket som en smekning.
Det enda han skrivit som inte fallit mig helt i smaken är Mystic River. Kanske för att jag såg filmen först och den orkade jag inte ens se klart.
Men nog om det. Gone baby gone. Aldrig har jag nog ryst och kräkhulkat och grinat så hårt till något jag läst. Och jag vet att jag har skrivit om det här förut. När Ben Affleck just börjat regissera inspelningen av filmen och jag ifrågasatte proffessionaliteten i att casta sin brorsa i huvudrollen. Nu verkar det ha gått rätt bra med den saken. Jag har inte läst annat än goda recensioner när det gäller Casey Afflecks tolkning av PI Patrick Kenzie. Idag släpptes den på dvd och snart finns den i en brevlåda helt nära mig. Och det här är stället där ni kan läsa om min besvikelse efteråt. Det räknar jag med då inget kan toppa en sådan bok.
Ur Running out of dogs:
THE PROBLEM WITH dogs in Eden, South Carolina, was that the owners who bred them bred a lot of them. Or they allowed them to run free where they met up with other dogs of opposite gender and achieved the same result. This wouldn't have been so bad if Eden weren't so close to I-95, and if the dogs weren't in the habit of bolting into traffic and fucking up the bumpers of potentional tourists.
The mayor, Big Bobby Vargas, went to a mayoral conference up in Beaufort, where the governor made a surprise appearance to tell everyone how pissed off he was about this dog thing. Lot of money being poured into Eden these days, the governor said, lot of steps being taken to change her image, and he for one would be goddamned if a bunch of misbehaved canines was going to mess all that up.
"Boys," he'd said, looking Big Bobby Vargas dead in the eye, "they're staring to call this state the Devil's Kennel 'cause of them pooch corpses along the interstate. And I don't know about you all, but I don't think that's a real pretty name."
Big Bobby told Elgin and Blue he'd never heard anyone call it the Devil's Kennel in his life. Heard a lot worse, sure, but never that. Big Bobby said the governor was full of shit. But, being the governor and all, he was sort of entitled.
The dogs in Eden had been a problem going back to the twenties and a part-time breeder named J. Mallon Ellenburg who, if his arms weren't up to their elbows in the guts of the tractors and combines he repaired for a living, was usually lashing out at something - his family when they weren't quick enough, his dogs when the family was. J. Mallon Ellenburg's dogs were mixed breeds and mongrels and they ran in packs, as did their offspring, and several generations later, those packs still moved through the Eden night like wolves, their bodies stripped to muscle and gristle, tense and angry, growling in the dark at J. Mallon Ellenburg's ghost.
Big Bobby went to the trouble of measuring exactly how much of 95 crossed through Eden, and he came up with 2.8 miles. Not much really, but still an average of .74 dog a day or 4.9 dogs a week. Big Bobby wanted the rest of the state funds the governor was going to be doling out at year's end, and if that meant getting rid of five dogs a week, give or take, then that's what was going to get done.
"On the QT," he said to Elgin and Blue, "on the QT, what we goin to do, boys, is set up in some trees and shoot every canine who gets whitin barking distance of that interstate."
Elgin didn't much like this "we" stuff. First place, Big Bobby'd said "we" that time in Double O's four years ago. This was before he'd become mayor, when he was nothing more than a county tax assessor who shot pool at Double O's every other night, same as Elgin and Blue. But one night, after Harlan and Chub Uke had roughed him up over a matter of some pocket change, and knowing that either Elgin nor Blue was too fond of the Uke family either, Big Bobby'd said, "We going to settle those boys' asses tonight," and started running his mouth the minute the brothers entered the bar.
Time the smoke cleared, Blue had a broken hand, Harlan and Chub were curled up on the floor, and Elgin's lip was busted. Big Bobby, meanwhile, was hiding under the pool table, and Cal Sears was asking who was going to pay for the pool stick Elgin had snapped across the back of Chub's head.
So Elgin heard Mayor Big Bobby saying "we" and remembered the ten dollars it had cost him for that pool stick, and he said, "No, sir, you can count me out this particular enterprise."
Big Bobby looked disappointed. Elgin was a veteran of a foreign war, former Marine, a marksman.
"Shit," Big Bobby said, "what good are you, you don't use the skills Uncle Sam spent good money teaching you?"
Elgin shrugged. "Damn, Bobby. I guess not much."
But Blue kept his hand in, as both Big Bobby and Elgin knew he would. All the job required was a guy didn't mind sitting in a tree who liked to shoot things. Hell, Blue was home.
Det enda han skrivit som inte fallit mig helt i smaken är Mystic River. Kanske för att jag såg filmen först och den orkade jag inte ens se klart.
Men nog om det. Gone baby gone. Aldrig har jag nog ryst och kräkhulkat och grinat så hårt till något jag läst. Och jag vet att jag har skrivit om det här förut. När Ben Affleck just börjat regissera inspelningen av filmen och jag ifrågasatte proffessionaliteten i att casta sin brorsa i huvudrollen. Nu verkar det ha gått rätt bra med den saken. Jag har inte läst annat än goda recensioner när det gäller Casey Afflecks tolkning av PI Patrick Kenzie. Idag släpptes den på dvd och snart finns den i en brevlåda helt nära mig. Och det här är stället där ni kan läsa om min besvikelse efteråt. Det räknar jag med då inget kan toppa en sådan bok.
Ur Running out of dogs:
THE PROBLEM WITH dogs in Eden, South Carolina, was that the owners who bred them bred a lot of them. Or they allowed them to run free where they met up with other dogs of opposite gender and achieved the same result. This wouldn't have been so bad if Eden weren't so close to I-95, and if the dogs weren't in the habit of bolting into traffic and fucking up the bumpers of potentional tourists.
The mayor, Big Bobby Vargas, went to a mayoral conference up in Beaufort, where the governor made a surprise appearance to tell everyone how pissed off he was about this dog thing. Lot of money being poured into Eden these days, the governor said, lot of steps being taken to change her image, and he for one would be goddamned if a bunch of misbehaved canines was going to mess all that up.
"Boys," he'd said, looking Big Bobby Vargas dead in the eye, "they're staring to call this state the Devil's Kennel 'cause of them pooch corpses along the interstate. And I don't know about you all, but I don't think that's a real pretty name."
Big Bobby told Elgin and Blue he'd never heard anyone call it the Devil's Kennel in his life. Heard a lot worse, sure, but never that. Big Bobby said the governor was full of shit. But, being the governor and all, he was sort of entitled.
The dogs in Eden had been a problem going back to the twenties and a part-time breeder named J. Mallon Ellenburg who, if his arms weren't up to their elbows in the guts of the tractors and combines he repaired for a living, was usually lashing out at something - his family when they weren't quick enough, his dogs when the family was. J. Mallon Ellenburg's dogs were mixed breeds and mongrels and they ran in packs, as did their offspring, and several generations later, those packs still moved through the Eden night like wolves, their bodies stripped to muscle and gristle, tense and angry, growling in the dark at J. Mallon Ellenburg's ghost.
Big Bobby went to the trouble of measuring exactly how much of 95 crossed through Eden, and he came up with 2.8 miles. Not much really, but still an average of .74 dog a day or 4.9 dogs a week. Big Bobby wanted the rest of the state funds the governor was going to be doling out at year's end, and if that meant getting rid of five dogs a week, give or take, then that's what was going to get done.
"On the QT," he said to Elgin and Blue, "on the QT, what we goin to do, boys, is set up in some trees and shoot every canine who gets whitin barking distance of that interstate."
Elgin didn't much like this "we" stuff. First place, Big Bobby'd said "we" that time in Double O's four years ago. This was before he'd become mayor, when he was nothing more than a county tax assessor who shot pool at Double O's every other night, same as Elgin and Blue. But one night, after Harlan and Chub Uke had roughed him up over a matter of some pocket change, and knowing that either Elgin nor Blue was too fond of the Uke family either, Big Bobby'd said, "We going to settle those boys' asses tonight," and started running his mouth the minute the brothers entered the bar.
Time the smoke cleared, Blue had a broken hand, Harlan and Chub were curled up on the floor, and Elgin's lip was busted. Big Bobby, meanwhile, was hiding under the pool table, and Cal Sears was asking who was going to pay for the pool stick Elgin had snapped across the back of Chub's head.
So Elgin heard Mayor Big Bobby saying "we" and remembered the ten dollars it had cost him for that pool stick, and he said, "No, sir, you can count me out this particular enterprise."
Big Bobby looked disappointed. Elgin was a veteran of a foreign war, former Marine, a marksman.
"Shit," Big Bobby said, "what good are you, you don't use the skills Uncle Sam spent good money teaching you?"
Elgin shrugged. "Damn, Bobby. I guess not much."
But Blue kept his hand in, as both Big Bobby and Elgin knew he would. All the job required was a guy didn't mind sitting in a tree who liked to shoot things. Hell, Blue was home.
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