by John Ridley ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 12, 1997
A high-concept hybrid mixes The Postman Always Rings Twice with Pulp Fiction, though the result bears none of the brilliant originality of those masterpieces. Newcomer Ridley, now 30, wrote this at 24, and eventually sold a screenplay based on the novel to Oliver Stone. But a reading of this vulgar, unsurprising debut fiction doesn't clarify what attracted Stone to the project in the first place. John Stewart, a wandering gambler who needs $13,000 to save his life from a Vegas hood, stops in the tiny town of Sierra in the boiling Nevada desert to get his ancient Mustang repaired. Sierra, it turns out, is a no-exit hell whose inhabitants are stuck to its environs like flies to flypaper. Everyone suffers from the same agonizing need to escape, as does Stewart, who discovers that once you enter the town, it's almost impossible to leave. Each time he tries to get out of Sierra he ends up even worse off, more battered, bloody, and desperate than before. Jake, a local realtor, offers him a way out--if Stewart will kill Jake's wife Grace and it look like an accident so that Jake can collect on her double-indemnity insurance policy. Then Grace in turn asks Stewart to murder Jake, offering to split with him the money Jake's stashed under the floorboards of his house. Meanwhile, the Vegas hood dispatches two gunmen to kill Stewart, with orders to do so even if he does repay his gambling losses. Sierra's population consists largely of violent, not-very-bright, sullen losers, all working their own scams of one kind or another, as well as a lustful nymphet and the lascivious Grace. Double cross follows double cross until the deadly fadeout. Stunning drivel. But sell, once the movie is out? You bet.
Pub Date: May 12, 1997
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: N/A
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
Categories: FICTION
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