Book review: 'Galveston' by Nic Pizzolatto


Things are not as bad as they seem in this down-and-out world; they're worse. Peopled with prostitutes, small-time mobsters and assorted ne'er-do-wells, it's a novel that offers a bleak and beautiful vision, not for the faint of heart. Think of the TV program I Shouldn't Be Alive, but instead of freak plane crashes in Africa, it's daily life in the senseless-killing neighborhoods of New Orleans and Galveston.

At the outset of the novel, big lug Roy Cady learns he has lung cancer, and his mobster boss, Stan Ptitko, tries to have him ambushed because of a woman. Her name is Carmen, and she's fishnet-stocking trouble: "I think the reason men liked her was because she gave off a high level of carnality. You looked at her and just knew - this one's up for anything. It's sexy, but you can't really stand it."

Things go awry. Against all odds, Cady walks away alive, with a teenage prostitute, Rocky (short for Raquel), in tow. On the lam, the two head to East Texas, rescue a 3-year-old, Tiffany, from squalor, then lie low at a Galveston motor court. There they eat oysters, drink beer and make false promises to turn over a new leaf.

While the straight-and- narrow may be a mirage for Cady and Rocky, Tiff scampers around their sordid heels, encouraging (albeit only for brief moments) their better selves. Pizzolatto describes the Gulf Coast with a squint and groan: "I deemed the weather offensive, the way the air lay on me like a giant tongue, clammy, warm and gritty as embers." Or: "We passed the high school football field and leaving the town proper, a black billboard posted off the road read in white letters Hell Is Real."

All the mayhem takes place in 1987, when Cady murders a handful of low-lifes on his way to prison punishment and redemption, but the novel's coda unfolds in 2008, as Hurricane Ike bears down on Galveston Island. The alternating time frames allow Cady to offer hard-bitten wisdom: "I've found that all weak people share a basic obsession - they fixate on the idea of satisfaction. Anywhere you go men and women are like crows drawn by shiny objects. For some folks, the shiny objects are other people, and you'd be better off developing a drug habit."


Read author William J. Cobb's blog at williamjcobb.


Nic Pizzolatto

(Scribner; $25)

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