SWEET GOGARTY

by Matthew Hochberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1981

Sam Gogarty--the hero of this shifty little mix of offbeat romance and urban-mayhem satire--is a 47-year-old police captain with a beloved pet cat, an athlete's body, and a heap of woe. His fat cruel wife and despised son (a homosexual rapist) have both perished in a car accident, you see, but also killed was Gogarty's dear mother--and he is plagued by guilt for having laughed with joy at this ""good bargain"" calamity: in fact, he's convinced that someone is planning to crucify him (literally) for his sin. Meanwhile, however, he has a new, rough assignment: to put an end to the doings of two blots on the city--a nco-Nazi group and a black-militant orator who preaches violence. And Gogarty's other complication is schoolteacher Charlotte (""Charlie"") Rosenthal, young daughter of Gogarty's old cop pal Dave; she's determined to seduce him (with her poppa's blessing), despite Gogarty's horror of this quasi-incest. So Hochberg bounces around among these handful of subplots, all of which get sorted out more or less as you'd expect: Charlie breaks down Gogarty's resistance; the cops get evidence that the near-retarded Nazis urinated on a boy they thought was Jewish; and Gogarty, after trying to talk sense to the black militant, blackmails him (photos of the militant in homosexual action)--which leads to a hostage-taking finale, with Charlie shooting the blacks to save her Gogarty. Frequently vulgar, occasionally offensive, sometimes dullish--but also oddly amusing at times, with a few bizarrely intriguing touches.

Pub Date: April 1, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Beaufort--dist. by Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1981

Categories: FICTION