Drama City

There is something about a Pelecanos book that is like sitting in a classroom, making dreamy eyes at your favorite professor as he lectures about your favorite topic while you wear your favorite clothes on your favorite day of the best year of your life.

Not that Pelecanos is expository. Or dry. Or anything remotely like listening to a lecture, in the slightest.

But reading him, I learn. I learn so much about Washington, DC. About people. About crime and violence and struggling and living.

Drama City is nominally about Lorenzo Brown, ex-offender, now working for the Humane Society, and Rachel Lopez, his parol officer. Lorenzo and Rachel gets caught up in the spiraling violence between two local gangs— one led by Lorenzo’s longtime show more friend, the man he went to prison for, Nigel.

But, not to spoil this book before you read it (and you really, really should read it), the violence, the mayhem which the book blurb makes you think is the whole plot? Doesn’t happen almost until the last quarter of the book. What you really get with Pelecanos is a story about a whole city, how it is now, how it was, how people end up where they are, and why.

It’s a slow book, with a whole host of secondary characters and sub plots. I never got confused though, never got lost. Each new person or story was interesting, fascinating. Sometimes I felt a little voyeuristic- middle class suburban white girl peeking in on a predominantly black, inner-city experience. But that is my hang-up, not something the book imposed on me. I felt no judgement in the text, nor was there a sense of Pelecanos distancing the reader from the characters in order to teach some greater moral lesson.

I honestly do not know if these books would resonate with me as much if I didn’t live in DC. It is something amazing to read a book set on my streets, in my neighborhood even, that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the President and Secret Service foiling terrorist hijackers by landing Air Force one on the tip of the Washington Monument. And even though this is a crime book, the next time someone looks at me askance for living in the “murder capital of the United States” (actually, it’s DETROIT) or makes a joke about crack-smoking mayors, I’m gonna hand them this book.

Here, here is my city. Here is the heat in summer, and the smells, and the noise, and yes the terrible violence, the corruption, the loss. But here too are the people in my city, good and bad, and in all the choices they make, see the profundity of average life.

Five of five stars. show less

Wow! This is his best so far and probably the closest in sensibility to The Wire. Yet there are no cops in it. Well, a few glimpses of them but they're not the protagonists. The POVs most of the time belong to 1) Lorenzo, still on parole, working diligently for a pet rescue organization and pretty close to never going back to prison, and to 2) Rachel Lopez, his parole officer, who is privately struggling with an alcohol and possible sex addiction. Female POV is not George's strong point, which is why I give this 4 stars.

Otherwise, this is pretty damn good, better than a mere airport time killer. I'd emphasize that this isn't a police procedural or a mystery; the murders of and by drug dealers unfold before us. The second shoot-out was show more so well done; I was figuratively on the edge of my seat!

I spotted private eye Derek Strange once but he never appears by name. Although of course it takes place in DC, Drama City reminds me of The Wire because of the fullness of most of the bad guys' characters: They could have gone another way. Because of their broken homes, parents in jail, the temptations and material attractions, they didn't.

As in his other books, Pelecanos frequently rounds back to the turning point age for boys: that's high school, especially early high school. Maybe there was an attraction to sports, a book, a career: these boys could have gone another way or they still can but ... the odds are not so great. At near the last moment, Pelecanos even sketches how the most unredeemable character, Rico. turned so bad. He was constantly abused by his mother as a child.

Pelecanos isn't the profound pessimist that The Wire's producer and sometime writer David Simon is. OK, I haven't seen the entire TV series by a long shot but from what I've seen and heard, when you start feeling for a particular young character on the TV show, chances are good he or she will be killed or off to jail for a very long spell.

Not only Pelecanos but even some of his characters (Lorenzo and perhaps even his old drug lord buddy Nigel) see glimmers of hope and possibility. The high-school drop-out girl knocked up by her no-good boyfriend--with the help of her mother or grandmother--might go back to school, even college, and raise a good kid.

Moreover, we're seeing the world of the ex-cons in this book. Some, like Lorenzo, have vowed never to go back. You might say that prison has worked for them. Lorenzo and some of his cohorts at Narcotics Anonymous are moving to a place where they might be able to help a kid go the right way or help another ex-con. I would like to know more about those who, still "on paper", intentionally "violate" so they can go back in the can; they feel they aren't ready to do the straight world yet, so better to go back in before they do something far worse.

This book answered a question I've long wondered about: who would knowingly hire an ex-con? Well, ex-cons themselves are apparently big employers. Construction work and hairdressers, maybe restaurants and mechanics. As for the work of dogcatchers, animal rescue and pet shelters ... I never thought much about it before but I learned something. Good research, George. Of course, some dogs are like some people: because of what's been done to them, they're unredeemable and have to be put down. But the author doesn't hit you over the head with the parallels. show less

It's not bad, it's just not as good of some of Pelecanos' other books. Don't get me wrong, I love George Pelecanos' book, writing style, characters, etc., but I was a little disappointed by this one. Maybe part of my frustration was that I didn't find any of the characters particularly engaging. Lorenzo Brown, the ex-con animal control officer, and his parole officer, Rachel Lopez, are Pelecanos' new protagonists of the book. I thought they were only loosely sketched out, and they didn't end up seeming as "human" or sympathetic as some of his other characters in previous works. Because of that, I was somewhat bored with the novel's pacing; it seems to plod along more than most of Pelecanos' other books.

I won't go over the plot or main show more characters in great detail, as you can find other reviews that do so at great length. The reader is presented with an almost inevitable outcome for the book -- doom. But that's clearly appropriate for Pelecanos' modern noir style. The book is written in Pelecanos' gritty, street-smart style, and his knowledge and portrayal of DC is as good as ever. He certainly can't be criticized on those accounts.

Having criticized the book at the start, however, I should note that it was an enjoyable read (significantly better than most modern crime fiction on the market) and I fully intend to read Mr. Pelecanos' future efforts. I'd recommend the book to any die-hard fans of Pelecanos or modern crime / noir fiction. Casual readers might be better advised to read some of Pelecanos' other books first in order to truly see how engaging of a writer he can be. I think if I'd simply liked the protagonists a bit more, I'd have rated this one higher; as is, I just didn't care about them enough.

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers show less

Wow, a quick read, barely over 3 hours. Almost put it down at the start as it had very tough material, animal cruelty, dog fighting in particular. However sticking with it wasn't so bad. Pelecanos used it just enough to make the point needed without it being gratuitous. It was a riveting storyline that kept me rooting for the good guy to hang in there and though things didn't turn out perfectly for all, it did have a whew, that's good ending.

The author writes about the parts of D.C. that no tourist buses ever visit: the ghettos in which the drug trade is the only path to advancement. Everyone who participates knows its an ephemeral life: sooner or later you go to prison or you die. Yet, its street cred, its riches, its macho violence seems to be as addictive as the drugs being sold. Occasionally, however, someone breaks away and rejoins the parallel universe most of us inhabit. This is the story of one of those men, and the people who help him, tempt him, threaten him, uplift him. The dialogue rings incredibly true, a fly on the wall experience. This one will stay with you.

This was a pretty decent crime story.

It's hard for me to talk about this book without talking about the Wire. I'd never have heard of the author if it wasn't for the Wire, after all. I think the Wire was a great TV show because it had details and interesting nuggets, not because the main narrative was particularly intriguing. I watched the Wire waiting for my favorite characters (who, with the exception of Omar, were always the minor ones, if not the outright marginal: Bodie, Slim, Brother Mouzone...), and the subtlety (and the familiarity) of the city.

This story probably gave the same % of interesting nuggets, but because it was a 6 hour book-on-CD and not a 6 season, 13 episode per season, hour per episode epic, I can't say it was show more particularly great. The main reason I kept listening was because I live where all these events took place.

New York city has such a cultural hegemony that every goddamn book, TV show and movie are supposed to take place there. When I saw the Wire, it was so refreshing to not have to look at NYC (or Toronto, NYC's screen lookalike) or think about the culture of NYC. But it's a true pleasure to read about DC, and to have my neighborhood's landmarks be the backdrop to a narrative was a primary factor in my finishing this book. show less

A guy who likes dogs and kids - who wouldn't like him? I liked this book better than The Night Gardener - characters were more sympathetic. Lorenzo Brown is an ex-offender now working for the Humane Society. As in other Pelecanos books, the black man Brown works with a white man, Mark Christianson, which gives the author the opportunity to explore black-white relations in the course of his story. But this book is more than that. As Brown and Christianson interact with the world of dog-fights and hardened criminals, the stories of the dogs they save (and don't) is woven in. Through the analogy of the dogs and their treatment by cruel, greedy, ignorant, or liberal owners, Pelecanos tells the story of blacks in the city today, in show more particular the young boys he describes in the book who hang out with the older criminals, the ones with "empty eyes." In consoling Mark about his treatment by Lincoln, a damaged pitbull, Brown says: "It's not your fault ... You can't trust him. I mean, he don't trust nobody himself, after what got done to him" "I know it" (Mark replied) "I was trying to get through [to him], is all." Lorenzo: "Some animals just got to be put down, Mark. Not every one of 'em can be saved." Interesting, if "gritty" book, with complex characters who seem real. (JAF) show less