Valet Reader

From 1999 through 2003 I lived in a rural town in central Pennsylvania. Having grown up in sunny and metropolitan San Diego you can probably imagine how different life was for me when I moved. If I remember correctly, we had three bars, a couple of pizza places, two or three restaurants, a Dunkin’ Dounts and a Wal-Mart not too far away. For the first time in my life I was privy to true seasons. In Fall the leaves would all turn a beautiful hue before the dark, cold, snowy Winter stripped all those leaves away. In the Spring, flowers would being to bloom, the grass would turn green leading into the hot and humid Summer months.

There were many things that struck me about this part of the country, but one of the most distinguished was the people who permanently called this place home. I wouldn’t quite compare them to the banjo playing characters in Deliverance, a more realistic likeness would be to the characters in the book which I am reviewing here, Nobody Move. You see they aren’t quite backwards but they also aren’t quite forwards (yeah, that doesn’t mean much to me either).

The similarities between the two, central PA and the book, really struck home in the way in which the title character, Jimmy Lutz, was portrayed. Here’s this naive, somewhat ignorant guy that isn’t quite a criminal but is on the verge of it. A guy who is dictated by circumstance as opposed to dictating circumstances. I’m really not trying to be mean here and stereotype people from central PA, cause I’m not. What I’m trying to convey is that Mr. Lutz, the rest of the cast from the book and all the scenes in the story could have very easily occurred where I was living. (What’s really scary is that the book actually takes place in California, where I grew up and live now).

Seriously, I remember there being this old creepy abandoned house near where I was living. It was up this long dirt road and there was honestly nothing else around it. It’s exactly how I imagine some of the scenery in this book. One other correlation which I just now recalled is the river. Both the book and where I was living had a river running right beside it. This is actually now starting to get creepy.

Nobody Move though is not distinguished by it’s likeness to my old home of PA. Instead, Dennis Johnson has distinguished this book by making it funny. It’s not necessarily laugh out loud funny, it’s more of a deadpan, dark and dry humor. Although conversations such as this one: “What’s Your name, lady?” “Mary. What’s yours?” “Fuck you.” “That’s what I thought.” Are quite common in the story.

The story itself is a crime story stuffed with awkward encounters, gun shots, theft and small time and big time crooks. It’s fast moving and enjoyable, to a point. I wouldn’t be willing to say I did not enjoy this story, cause I did, but I didn’t exactly love it. The story wasn’t exactly original but yet it was still fun. The characters were, as I mentioned, a little too much like some people I’ve met before which was slight creepy. The chance meetings, the love affairs and the money locked away in an inaccessible account round out the necessary elements for a novel of this nature which doesn’t do anything to make it more readable. I guess what it comes down to is that this is a book that you read to see what Dennis Johnson is capable of.