JERSEY LUCK

by Tom De Haven ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 26, 1980

Happily, De Haven (Freak's Amour) has jettisoned his first novel's future-grotesque mode; this time he wraps a Jersey City blue-collar and shady-dealing atmosphere around him and forges ahead with the ill-starred tale of Jacky Peek. Jacky, a high-school grad of no great ambition, delivers newspapers and stolen goods to selected customers in middle Jersey--a result of his brief, electrifying meeting with blithe crime-lover Catherine Cashman, who couldn't persuade Jacky to join her in bank-robbing but did (before going on the lam) introduce him to her uncle Saul, a fence. Then, when he's supposed to bring a young battered wife a gun, Jacky finds himself drawn to this woman, whose name is Neetsy (Anita); he also becomes the immediate target of her bully husband, Ant (Anthony). And De Haven spends the rest of the story detailing Jacky's dumbly jaw-forward courting of Neetsy, the frequent beatings at the hands of Ant and his friends, and finally a set-up that queers the stolen-goods ring. So the ""luck"" of the title is slippery, like the story itself; De Haven starts the book off on the wrong foot by introducing the daring Catherine, then whisking her off lickety-split, never to reappear. Still, the working-class accents here are all on the right notes (best is a young woman, Neetsy's friend, who cheers herself up with the philosophical pearls found in rock-and-roll lyrics). And De Haven's comfort with his material is definitely cozy. Agreeable work, then, somewhat in the Richard Price low-life manner--but imperfectly shaped and raggedly paced.

Pub Date: Nov. 26, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION