Country: USA
Genre: Literary/Crime
Pages: 467 kb (eExclusive)
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Chuck Dukowski, of the Black Flag legacy, often worried about the state of art that became "defanged" and "declawed". Art that was once mean, should never lose the anger and the aggression that made it what it first was, but rather build on it. CHOKE ON YOUR LIES not only has fangs and claws, but they are sharper and deadlier than ever. Anthony Neil Smith is known to write brutal novels and his latest offering is the sickest, most twisted and brutal he's ever written. That Smith guy is like a good bottle of booze, he gets better with age. CHOKE ON YOUR LIES is somewhat of a departure from his recurring themes though. The more classic noir approach of gangsters, guns, drugs and over-the-top violence don't apply to this novel. It's more subtle and more courageous than this. CHOKE ON YOUR LIES is a novel about human mediocrity and its destructive power. It's a cold, hard look in the mirror for every reader. A deforming mirror, with larger-than-life reflections and echoes of universal truths. Not only it's Anthony Neil Smith's best novel so far, it's also one of the best novels of the year.
A lot of fuss was made around CHOKE ON YOUR LIES' female protagonist Octavia VanderPlaats. She charmed, shocked, insulted and bewildered the readership, but she didn't leave anybody indifferent. But even if Octavia is the main attraction of the novel, she's not the main protagonist. The narrator is a frail poetry teacher named Mick Thooft. His life is in shambles after his wife Frances leaves him for the college's Provost and his only barrier against oblivion is his old friend Octavia. She's quite a number. She's about three hundred pounds, has an IQ WAY above average and made a fortune being the victim in discrimination cases. She used to be a lobbyist in Washington, but she got bored with it. Octavia likes Mick, because he stuck with her over time and sees the human in her, not just the weight. When Mick goes to her, looking for a shoulder to cry on, she proposes him an aggressive retaliation program against Frances. "Let's punish the bitch" she said and Octavia is true to her word, every step of the way.
Mick Thooft might feel like a Nick Carraway and CHOKE ON YOUR LIES feels like a very dark update to THE GREAT GATSBY, but he's way more involved in the story and he can't accept it. Mick sucks. He is weak, pathetic and he cannot, for the love of him, face who he became. Once a promising poet, he caught himself in the middle-class trap. He became lazy, content and he started taking his life for granted. His creativity dwindled. The Mick that crawled back to Octavia after the inevitable happened is a shell of a human being. He cannot accept being played by smarter, meaner people and yet he refuses to take responsibility for anything. Frances is trying to con him into keeping the house, yet he keeps running back to her like a pet hamster whenever she looks broken or in need. Not everybody can stomach a main character that's not a model to them, but the appeal of Mick Thooft is his very weakness. He will resonate within you , within the darkest parts of your mind. He's your worst side, your self-preservation instincts gone out of control.
The dialogs in CHOKE ON YOUR LIES are so vivid and truthful, I sometimes felt physically bad when reading them. They made my stomach hurt. I recognized myself and every moment where I failed to answer to unchecked aggression in them. Frances and Carl are two incredible, driven villains with a natural talent for manipulation. They are beautiful, controlling and predatory. All those bad people surrounding Octavia only makes her shining brighter as you get to know her and understand her motivations. CHOKE ON YOUR LIES is off-putting, awkward, disturbing and really, really brilliant. It's only available through electronic distribution and that might put some people off, but if there's a novel (shit, a WRITER) that would make the purchase of an eReader worthwhile, CHOKE ON YOUR LIES and the novels of Anthony Neil Smith are a sure bet. You can get one of the best novels of the year for ninety-nine cents only, so it's somewhat of a no-brainer. CHOKE ON YOUR LIES will choke the life out of you, beat the shit out of your corpse and put your remains in a wood-chipper. That's what the best crime novels do. They make you hurt and expose you to difficult things.
A lot of fuss was made around CHOKE ON YOUR LIES' female protagonist Octavia VanderPlaats. She charmed, shocked, insulted and bewildered the readership, but she didn't leave anybody indifferent. But even if Octavia is the main attraction of the novel, she's not the main protagonist. The narrator is a frail poetry teacher named Mick Thooft. His life is in shambles after his wife Frances leaves him for the college's Provost and his only barrier against oblivion is his old friend Octavia. She's quite a number. She's about three hundred pounds, has an IQ WAY above average and made a fortune being the victim in discrimination cases. She used to be a lobbyist in Washington, but she got bored with it. Octavia likes Mick, because he stuck with her over time and sees the human in her, not just the weight. When Mick goes to her, looking for a shoulder to cry on, she proposes him an aggressive retaliation program against Frances. "Let's punish the bitch" she said and Octavia is true to her word, every step of the way.
Mick Thooft might feel like a Nick Carraway and CHOKE ON YOUR LIES feels like a very dark update to THE GREAT GATSBY, but he's way more involved in the story and he can't accept it. Mick sucks. He is weak, pathetic and he cannot, for the love of him, face who he became. Once a promising poet, he caught himself in the middle-class trap. He became lazy, content and he started taking his life for granted. His creativity dwindled. The Mick that crawled back to Octavia after the inevitable happened is a shell of a human being. He cannot accept being played by smarter, meaner people and yet he refuses to take responsibility for anything. Frances is trying to con him into keeping the house, yet he keeps running back to her like a pet hamster whenever she looks broken or in need. Not everybody can stomach a main character that's not a model to them, but the appeal of Mick Thooft is his very weakness. He will resonate within you , within the darkest parts of your mind. He's your worst side, your self-preservation instincts gone out of control.
The dialogs in CHOKE ON YOUR LIES are so vivid and truthful, I sometimes felt physically bad when reading them. They made my stomach hurt. I recognized myself and every moment where I failed to answer to unchecked aggression in them. Frances and Carl are two incredible, driven villains with a natural talent for manipulation. They are beautiful, controlling and predatory. All those bad people surrounding Octavia only makes her shining brighter as you get to know her and understand her motivations. CHOKE ON YOUR LIES is off-putting, awkward, disturbing and really, really brilliant. It's only available through electronic distribution and that might put some people off, but if there's a novel (shit, a WRITER) that would make the purchase of an eReader worthwhile, CHOKE ON YOUR LIES and the novels of Anthony Neil Smith are a sure bet. You can get one of the best novels of the year for ninety-nine cents only, so it's somewhat of a no-brainer. CHOKE ON YOUR LIES will choke the life out of you, beat the shit out of your corpse and put your remains in a wood-chipper. That's what the best crime novels do. They make you hurt and expose you to difficult things.