- Paperback: 177 pages
- Publisher: Washington Square Pr (March 1992)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0671729179
- ISBN-13: 978-0671729172
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.2 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
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Product Description
From Kirkus Reviews
Dowdy Lewis, Jr., half owner of a Hollywood bookstore specializing in the Old West, is an alcoholic and self-pitying Vietnam vet, and has the misfortune to fall for a dish named Yvonna Lablaine, who works for a cheapo movie producer named Bird Cameron. Yvonna soon ends up charged with murder and then herself dead--and Dowdy plunges into the netherworld of heroin addiction, snuff films, and movie-biz greed in search of the truth. Ah, if only Hasford (The Short-Timers, 1979, etc.) had left this as the B-movie-treatment it has all the earmarks of having originally been. But he's gone ahead and prosed it out--and what prose! Says Dowdy to a bailbondsman: ```I'm not going to argue with you. I'd draw you a picture, but I don't have the time. Some people are like cheap television sets. Some people need to be thumped on the side of the head until they get the picture.''' And then there's Dowdy's ``wisdom'': ``The losing card is in all of our decks and sooner or later we have to lay it on the table. Just when you think your cold deck is getting warmer, fate starts dealing seconds from the bottom of a stacked deck of marked cards.'' And after being a one-man terminator at the book's pathologically gruesome revenge finale, Dowdy (who, me?) comes up for air at Yvonna's funeral to muse that ``one night of beauty shared gives you the strength to sleep one thousand nights alone.'' Where's Hasford's sharp talent, evidenced by The Short-Timers? Certainly not here, in this classically awful, unintentionally hilarious, hard-boiled rotten egg. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark vision, dark humor, highly successful on all counts, Nov 20 1998
By Jimmy Lin - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Gypsy Good Time (Paperback)
Mr. Hasford goes unrecognized in his own time as a literary genius. *A Gypsy Good Time* is cleverly disguised as a bad crime novel. The characters (aside from the protagonist and the inital antagonist, Yvonna) are all stereotypes that Hasford obviously has a beef with. The plot is fairly predictable, but what makes it so fascinating is the ride you take to get to the end.
In this black tale, Hasford waxes poetic about anger, rage, fear, and the morality that accompanies it. The narrator, Dowdy Lewis, Jr., is the modern-day ronin, a masterless warrior who is bound to a well-defined code of honor and loyalty but lacks anyone or anything deserving of either. Dowdy falls hard for Yvonna LaBlaine, who falls (as much as she can) for Dowdy. She ends up missing; Dowdy begins his quest to find and save her.
Throughout this compelling narrative are insights into contemporary American society, culture, and thought and the moneymen, powerbrokers, and dimestore Napoleons who bring it down in their quest to satiate their greed. Each stereotypical character is crafted to make a specific point. *AGGT* is an allegory, and the lessons that Hasford wishes to teach us are not pretty ones. Perhaps it is the stark, ugly truth of this novel that prevented it from selling well. However, I am pleased that Mr. Hasford has chosen to speak out as he has with this and his previous novels, rather than selling out.
*AGGT* is a compelling read, a fascinating tale, and a necessary book for the libraries of the individuals willing to think for themselves. It will offend liberals and conservatives alike, and I believe that that was part of the point. Reminiscent of Nabokov's *Lolita* in its blunt pointedness of its criticsims and the realism of the love story surrouding it, *AGGT* deserves to be treated with just as much respect and fame.
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