FREEWAY

by Deanne Barkley ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 1978

In these days of trash-publishing, when so many novels resemble made-for-TV movies, here's one straight from the horse's mouth--NBC's Vice-President of Programming. Presumably too gratuitously violent and sleazy to make it to the small screen, it's a sniper-on-the-freeway killathon, sort of a West Coast Son-of-Sam in which the cars are far more carefully characterized than the people (who bear TV vanilla-names like Dr. Clem Richards, Mary Devon, Terry Rogers, and Sunny Harper). Saving the real sniper for the last page, Barkley introduces us instead to victims before and during their snipings (a couple of druggy, horny teeners, a sex-crazed gas station attendant) and to possible suspects: a weirdo pool cleaner who's shot by his tormented wife (she thinks he's the sniper); the no-name lover who keeps showing up in nurse Sunny Harper's bed (she thinks he's the sniper). All these people's paths cross absurdly as they drive and drive and drive and leer and sometimes talk--""You know what TV does to people? You know what it does? It makes 'em crazy."" Yeah, but not crazy enough to mistake these tube out-takes for a real book.

Pub Date: March 3, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION