Clockers
by Richard Price
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Crack-dealers known as "Clockers" are at the bottom of the drug-dealing ladder, and they must commit murder to rise higher.Tags
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Dig down. Dig beneath the slang and bravado and you will find a gritty story about two very different human beings trying to survive the poverty stricken streets of New Jersey and New York. Rocco Klein has been a homicide detective for too long. He has seen it all and maybe he is too jaded because, as of late, the drug deaths he encounters inch him closer and closer to a yawning apathy. It might be time to retire. That is, until he meets young, barely out of his teens, Victor Dunham. Victor seems to be too innocent to be readily and eagerly confessing to a murder. Klein knows better. Who is Vincent covering for? Could it be his always in trouble drug-dealing brother? The cat and mouse game cops and crook play makes for an adventure show more (albeit a little long).
As an aside: Clockers is code for drug runners. Cocaine dealers, to be more specific show less
As an aside: Clockers is code for drug runners. Cocaine dealers, to be more specific show less
This 550+ page novel is simply brilliant from beginning to end. At first, you'll be struck by the similarities to HBO's The Wire--and no wonder, since Price worked (many years later) on the Wire with David Simon. There is a scene in Clockers, for instance, where the drug dealers and off duty cops meet at a movie theater and are amazed to see that each other have lives outside of their opposing businesses. This scene was echoed in The Wire. But fairly early on, the stories diverge quite a bit. Unlike the sprawling multiple story lines that The Wire followed, Clockers focuses its alternating chapters on two characters--Strike, the boss of the "clockers" (small-time drug dealers who sell to people on the corner). Strike is the one who gets show more to sit in the middle of things on a bench as the overseer, working for the scary but shrewd Rodney Little. The police chapters focus on Rocco Klein, a tough but honest homicide cop who is the investigator of a murder that Strike's brother has confessed to--but he knows something doesn't make sense. As the story proceeds, the two characters come into more frequent contact, and the ending of the book--which is not what you might expect--is excellent. Price apparently spent fives years researching on the streets before he wrote this book, and it shows. The heart of this book is not the crimes, but the people, and we are introduced to some extraordinary characters who run the gamut of the scale from honest to dishonest. Price's writing is colorful but never obtuse or difficult to understand. You'll feel like you're on the streets or at the station house, liquor store, or corner store with Strike and Rocco. All in all, it isn't nearly as violent as The Wire, which couldn't resist the sudden gun-to-the-head wasting of some of its more memorable characters. But the murders in Clockers, especially the last one, bring the story home in a visceral manner to any reader with a heart and soul. Highly highly recommended. This is a pretty flawless book and well worth the investment of your time. show less
I could toss around plenty of "gritty, unblinking, raw" dust-jacket adjectives, but it was excellent in a way that's tough to summarize. I've only been a crime fiction reader since I saw The Wire (which Price also wrote for and even snuck some scenes from this book into), and this is the closest I've seen aside from David Simon's own works to recreating the show on the page. The two main characters – smart but nervous dealer Ronald "Strike" Dunham and aging, celebrity-obsessed cop Rocco Klein – are rendered so well that they leap straight out of the book. Strike in particular is really interesting; his formless need to leave the projects' tedious drug grind is balanced so perfectly with his despair at thinking that he would have no show more idea what to do once he left. The police are pretty great characters too, with strong echoes of Carver and Herc (keep an eye out for hilarious moments like the "sideways hat" bit) and their somewhat "relaxed" attitude towards most of their police work. The main plot of the book centers around Klein's investigation of a murder that Strike's brother may or may not have committed, and I found the suspense over whether Strike would be blamed for it riveting, in addition to the fascinating details of the corrosive damage the drug war has had on everyone's moral fiber. Such a great story, such great characters, such great moments; this was exactly the "Dickensian aspect" I was hoping for. I'm definitely grabbing Lush Life to read next. show less
I can almost guarantee that when I pick up a book by Richard Price that I am going to love it, and Clockers is no exception. Richard Price's characters are real, flesh and blood humans, no excuses made. With Rocco, the detective, there is no, "Rocco knew in his gut that the kid was lying; his intuition had never let him down." With Strike there is no, "Strike was misunderstood; behind all the criminal bluster there was a heart of gold." Of course Price would have phrased it a lot better than I, not being a writer! I love that they are flawed; there is no message, no underlying morals, it just is what it is, a look of humanity at its most bleak and at its most beautiful.
Obwohl dieser 800-Seiten-Wälzer ausschließlich im Drogenmilieu spielt, ist es kein Krimi oder Thriller im klassischen Sinn. Die beiden Hauptfiguren sind Rocco, Detective, und Strike, ein 'leitender' Clocker, einer der schwarzer Dealer die rund um die Uhr ihren Stoff verkaufen. Als sich in Strikes Umfeld ein Mord ereignet, gerät er in Roccos Visier.
Um einen solchen Plot herum einen 800-Seiten-Roman aufzubauen, würde sicherlich etwas langatmig ausfallen. Doch der Schwerpunkt dieser Geschichte liegt bei der Darstellung der beiden Protagonisten.
Strike, gerade 19 Jahre alt, ist nicht glücklich mit dem was er tut. Immer wieder macht er sich vor, dass er sofort aufhören würde, hätte er genügend Geld beisammen. Doch wann ist genug? show more Es ist die Furcht vor dem was danach kommt, die Unsicherheit wie er nach dem Drogenjob sein Geld verdienen soll, die ihn daran hindert eine entgültige Entscheidung zu treffen. Und die Angst vor seinem Boss Rodney, der offenbar völlig skrupellos ist.
Rocco, Anfang/Mitte 40, seit 20 Jahren im Dienst, plant ebenfalls auszusteigen, jedoch aus völlig anderen Gründen. Verheiratet mit einer vermögenden Frau und seit kurzem Vater, will er diesen 'Drecksjob' an den Nagel hängen. Doch immer wieder wird ihm klar, dass dieser Job sein Leben ist: das Aufklären von Morden, das Kämpfen für eine bessere Gesellschaft, die gemeinsamen Zeiten mit seinen Kollegen. Und als ein offensichtlich Unschuldiger des Mordes verdächtigt wird, setzt er alles daran, den wahren Täter herauszufinden.
Auch die weiteren Personen in diesem Roman sind überzeugend dargestellt: Strikes Bruder, der unter allen Umständen versucht, in dieser kriminellen Umgebung anständig zu bleiben und beinahe daran zugrunde geht; ihre Mutter, die mit ihren Möglichkeiten versucht, ihre Jungen zu anständigen Bürgern zu erziehen; die Kollegen Roccos, die an (fast) nichts mehr Gutes glauben. Nichtzuletzt ist es der rauhen, teils eher schlichten Sprache zu verdanken, die dem Ganzen einen unglaublich realistischen Klang gibt. Price gelingt es zum einen, das Bild eines Teils der Gesellschaft zu vermitteln, in der es einem dort Hineingeboren fast unmöglich gemacht wird, zu einem anständigen Bürger zu werden. Und zum andern den alltäglichen Kampf der Polizei gegen diese Kriminalität darzustellen, wie auch deren immer wiederkehrendes Scheitern.
Obwohl dieses Buch bereits 20 Jahre alt ist, ist ihm dies zu keiner Zeit anzumerken. Eine noch immer aktuelle und überaus spannende sowie vermutlich realistische Abbildung eines Teils unserer Gesellschaft, den die meisten von uns glücklicherweise wohl nicht kennen. show less
Um einen solchen Plot herum einen 800-Seiten-Roman aufzubauen, würde sicherlich etwas langatmig ausfallen. Doch der Schwerpunkt dieser Geschichte liegt bei der Darstellung der beiden Protagonisten.
Strike, gerade 19 Jahre alt, ist nicht glücklich mit dem was er tut. Immer wieder macht er sich vor, dass er sofort aufhören würde, hätte er genügend Geld beisammen. Doch wann ist genug? show more Es ist die Furcht vor dem was danach kommt, die Unsicherheit wie er nach dem Drogenjob sein Geld verdienen soll, die ihn daran hindert eine entgültige Entscheidung zu treffen. Und die Angst vor seinem Boss Rodney, der offenbar völlig skrupellos ist.
Rocco, Anfang/Mitte 40, seit 20 Jahren im Dienst, plant ebenfalls auszusteigen, jedoch aus völlig anderen Gründen. Verheiratet mit einer vermögenden Frau und seit kurzem Vater, will er diesen 'Drecksjob' an den Nagel hängen. Doch immer wieder wird ihm klar, dass dieser Job sein Leben ist: das Aufklären von Morden, das Kämpfen für eine bessere Gesellschaft, die gemeinsamen Zeiten mit seinen Kollegen. Und als ein offensichtlich Unschuldiger des Mordes verdächtigt wird, setzt er alles daran, den wahren Täter herauszufinden.
Auch die weiteren Personen in diesem Roman sind überzeugend dargestellt: Strikes Bruder, der unter allen Umständen versucht, in dieser kriminellen Umgebung anständig zu bleiben und beinahe daran zugrunde geht; ihre Mutter, die mit ihren Möglichkeiten versucht, ihre Jungen zu anständigen Bürgern zu erziehen; die Kollegen Roccos, die an (fast) nichts mehr Gutes glauben. Nichtzuletzt ist es der rauhen, teils eher schlichten Sprache zu verdanken, die dem Ganzen einen unglaublich realistischen Klang gibt. Price gelingt es zum einen, das Bild eines Teils der Gesellschaft zu vermitteln, in der es einem dort Hineingeboren fast unmöglich gemacht wird, zu einem anständigen Bürger zu werden. Und zum andern den alltäglichen Kampf der Polizei gegen diese Kriminalität darzustellen, wie auch deren immer wiederkehrendes Scheitern.
Obwohl dieses Buch bereits 20 Jahre alt ist, ist ihm dies zu keiner Zeit anzumerken. Eine noch immer aktuelle und überaus spannende sowie vermutlich realistische Abbildung eines Teils unserer Gesellschaft, den die meisten von uns glücklicherweise wohl nicht kennen. show less
When I read Richard Price’s new crime novel The Whites earlier this year, I knew I needed to loop around and read this 1992 novel, widely considered his “best.” It really is knock-your-socks-off. In alternating chapters, it adopts the point of view of Strike, a young drug-dealer in housing projects of fictional Dempsy, New Jersey, across the river from Manhattan, and homicide detective Rocco Klein.
Strike is a lower-level dealer who wants to get out of it, but without even a high school education, he can’t see any other path forward. Rocco is a seen-it-all investigator working in the county prosecutor’s office. What brings these two together is the murder confession by Strike’s straight-arrow brother Victor. Strike was show more supposed to make the hit, and didn’t, but he doesn’t think Victor did it either, and he wants to save his brother whatever way he can. Rocco figures Strike for the shooter, but can’t get Victor to change his story.
It’s a story about poor people, mostly black, and lost fathers, in which a few heroic mothers struggle to maintain family order. Strike’s cocaine- and crack-fueled world (he himself never uses the product) is under constant yet ineffectual harassment by federal, state, and local police, housing police, and narcotics officers. The homicide detectives, who are a little higher on the law enforcement pecking order, are less frequent visitors to this milieu. They have their own agenda and sometimes cooperate with the other authorities, and sometimes not. Strike can never be sure where loyalties lie, even those of his own runners, who may ally with rival drug lords at any time. He certainly can’t trust Rocco, who is always playing games of his own.
What makes the book so powerful are the deep portraits of the characters. Both the main players are both strong and weak, the reader likes and loathes them in almost equal measure. Supporting characters—Rocco’s partner Mazilli and Strike’s boss Rodney, especially—are fully drawn and absolutely believable. The writing, including the characters’ dialog, is pitch-perfect.
Price was one of the writers for the best-tv-ever series [!!], The Wire, and reading this book after seeing the show, I certainly saw echoes of some of its notable characters: D’Angelo sitting on his perch in the projects, managing a team of young runners; Omar, the invincible hit-man cut down by a child; Officer Thomas Hauc, the violent and racist enforcer.
Even though the narcotics picture has changed in the past 23 years, this remains a riveting book because of the strength of its story and the social dysfunctions it lays bare, which are still, by and large, unresolved. show less
Strike is a lower-level dealer who wants to get out of it, but without even a high school education, he can’t see any other path forward. Rocco is a seen-it-all investigator working in the county prosecutor’s office. What brings these two together is the murder confession by Strike’s straight-arrow brother Victor. Strike was show more supposed to make the hit, and didn’t, but he doesn’t think Victor did it either, and he wants to save his brother whatever way he can. Rocco figures Strike for the shooter, but can’t get Victor to change his story.
It’s a story about poor people, mostly black, and lost fathers, in which a few heroic mothers struggle to maintain family order. Strike’s cocaine- and crack-fueled world (he himself never uses the product) is under constant yet ineffectual harassment by federal, state, and local police, housing police, and narcotics officers. The homicide detectives, who are a little higher on the law enforcement pecking order, are less frequent visitors to this milieu. They have their own agenda and sometimes cooperate with the other authorities, and sometimes not. Strike can never be sure where loyalties lie, even those of his own runners, who may ally with rival drug lords at any time. He certainly can’t trust Rocco, who is always playing games of his own.
What makes the book so powerful are the deep portraits of the characters. Both the main players are both strong and weak, the reader likes and loathes them in almost equal measure. Supporting characters—Rocco’s partner Mazilli and Strike’s boss Rodney, especially—are fully drawn and absolutely believable. The writing, including the characters’ dialog, is pitch-perfect.
Price was one of the writers for the best-tv-ever series [!!], The Wire, and reading this book after seeing the show, I certainly saw echoes of some of its notable characters: D’Angelo sitting on his perch in the projects, managing a team of young runners; Omar, the invincible hit-man cut down by a child; Officer Thomas Hauc, the violent and racist enforcer.
Even though the narcotics picture has changed in the past 23 years, this remains a riveting book because of the strength of its story and the social dysfunctions it lays bare, which are still, by and large, unresolved. show less
Strike is a black teeneager in Dempsey, New Jersey, a “crew chief” for a major drug distributor. He runs a group of “clockers”, young teenagers who sell bottles of cocaine, although he himself doesn’t touch the stuff--he has enough trouble with his ulcer.
Rocco is a Dempsey Homicide detective, who is a borderline alcoholic. He becomes obsessed with Strike when Strike’s brother Victor turns himself in for killing another drug dealer; Rocco is convinced that Victor is lying to cover for his brother.
These are the two main protagonists, and for 593 pages, we read of life on the streets for both drug dealers and users, of “dirty” cops, of drug raids and everyday harassment, of racial profiling, of lines of cars filled mostly show more with whites picking up their bottles from the clockers on the streets.
This is neither an edifying nor particularly uplifting story, although there is a surprise ending. It’s mostly a matter-of-fact, very well written detailed account of life on the streets and of too many cops who bend or break the rules in their efforts to deal with the impossible problem of drugs. The characters are not particularly likable; it’s hard to feel any empathy for any of them, even Victor. Strike and his boss Rodney are the most believable, the best drawn, but Rodney is scum, no matter how he pictures himself as a businessman who tries to teach his young charges a better way of living through drug dealing.
The story line is really a documentary--a well-written and well-produced documentary, but having the emotional distance and impersonality of a documentary. I have no doubt of the reality of Price’s scene, but it did not move me. In particular, I am pretty sick of boozy, well-meaning quasi-dirty cops in literature, and Rocco is a totally unsympathetic character as far as I’m concerned.
Well written, well told, but somehow lacking in any kind of passion--it just simply failed to engage me. show less
Rocco is a Dempsey Homicide detective, who is a borderline alcoholic. He becomes obsessed with Strike when Strike’s brother Victor turns himself in for killing another drug dealer; Rocco is convinced that Victor is lying to cover for his brother.
These are the two main protagonists, and for 593 pages, we read of life on the streets for both drug dealers and users, of “dirty” cops, of drug raids and everyday harassment, of racial profiling, of lines of cars filled mostly show more with whites picking up their bottles from the clockers on the streets.
This is neither an edifying nor particularly uplifting story, although there is a surprise ending. It’s mostly a matter-of-fact, very well written detailed account of life on the streets and of too many cops who bend or break the rules in their efforts to deal with the impossible problem of drugs. The characters are not particularly likable; it’s hard to feel any empathy for any of them, even Victor. Strike and his boss Rodney are the most believable, the best drawn, but Rodney is scum, no matter how he pictures himself as a businessman who tries to teach his young charges a better way of living through drug dealing.
The story line is really a documentary--a well-written and well-produced documentary, but having the emotional distance and impersonality of a documentary. I have no doubt of the reality of Price’s scene, but it did not move me. In particular, I am pretty sick of boozy, well-meaning quasi-dirty cops in literature, and Rocco is a totally unsympathetic character as far as I’m concerned.
Well written, well told, but somehow lacking in any kind of passion--it just simply failed to engage me. show less
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Author Information
Author and screenwriter Richard Price was born in the Bronx, New York on October 12, 1949. He received a BS degree from Cornell University, an MFA from Columbia University, and a Mirillees Fellowship in fiction at Stanford University. His first novel, The Wanderers, was published in 1974 and was adapted into a film by director Philip Kaufman in show more 1979. His novel Clockers was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was made into a movie by Spike Lee in 1994. His screenwriting credits include The Color of Money (1986), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), and Ransom (1996). Price won several awards for his writing on the television series The Wire. He has written for numerous publications including The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, the Village Voice, and Rolling Stone. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. In 2015, Price published his bestselling novel, The Whites, under the pseudonym Harry Brandt. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Has as a student's study guide
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Clockers
- Original title
- Clockers
- Alternate titles*
- Söhne der Nacht
- Original publication date
- 1992
- People/Characters
- Ray Mitchell; Nerese Ammons
- Important places
- Dempsy, New Jersey, USA
- Related movies
- Clockers (1995)
- Epigraph
- And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of the land of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and ... (show all)all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
-- Numbers 13: 32-33 - Dedication
- With deepest love for my wife, Judy Hudson, and my daughters, Annie and Gen
- First words
- Strike spotted her: baby fat, baby face: Shanelle or Shanette, fourteen years ond maybe, standing there with that queasy smile, trying to work up the nerve.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Who the hell would want to shoot him?"
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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