SEE THE KID RUN

by Bob Ottum ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1978

There's another kind of life. I don't know where it is, bat I know it's there."" If that reminds you of a lyric from West Side Story, you have an idea of the phony sentimental streak running, incongruously through this latest formless festival of pillage and gore from the author of The Tuesday Blade. ""The Kid"" is a Manhattan teenage sneak-thief whom we're supposed to adore because he has this dream of a Fifth-Avenue lifestyle, because he has a terrific profile (""Hawklike. The Look of Eagles""), because he's not quite as violent as the teenage murderers he hangs out with, and because everybody's so mean to him. Like his hooker mother. Like the gross social worker who stuffs herself with oreos, lusts after The Kid, and is using him to break into print (The Kid, miffed, carves his initials into her behind). Or like the brutal, hideous youth cop who gets killed by promiscuous eleven-year-old Jewel Rodriguez. Only super-gross ""Icepick Sally"" is nice to The Kid; she eventually burns the gross social worker to death with boiling water. And so it goes. No plot--just a series of grisly murders (mostly of old people), stuck together with labored street talk and crude/pretentious mudpuddle-of-consciousness writing (Gertrude Stein meets Mickey Spillane). Youth crime is a real and serious problem; here it's foully exploited for thuggy scares and sheer ooze.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION