Crumbtown, Joe Connelly's second novel (following 1998's
Bringing Out the Dead), is a satirical romp through a neighborhood filled with inept criminals, reality television crews, and urban squalor. Once across the Dodgeport Bridge into Crumbtown, cobblestones are replaced with potholes, and buildings are "numbered not in sequence but according to color." Crumbtown native Don Reedy led a life of crime until he was caught: he stole and vandalized vehicles, and robbed banks until caught while throwing cash to the locals. Rob Landetta, struggling to stay afloat in the entertainment industry, seizes upon Reedy's tale and obtains early parole for Reedy in order to have him act as a consultant on his own life story. Reedy's botched bank job is recreated, complete with his bungling former partners, the twins Tim and Tom. When the actors are slipped real guns, Reedy decides to do the job right this time, and sets to rob the television show and its "fake" bank.
Connelly creates much room for satire in Crumbtown, but the book contains too many cheap laughs (naming places "Snob Gardens" and "Felony Street") and has an off-putting sheen of bizarreness. For instance, when Reedy's old friends find out he's out of prison, they throw a party: "Uncle Billy, whom Don wasn't related to, was the first one to punch him. He said he heard Don had died and he cried so violently it took three people to pull him away. Iron Heinz danced through the door with a case of beer on his head, and Father Sunshine walked in and wrestled with his hair." Nevertheless, Crumbtown is an entertaining neighborhood, and Connelly shows us where a preoccupation with reality television could lead. --Michael Ferch
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