The House of Whacks Book

If you like brainy dames, rivalling hoods and sharp-tongued hacks all heading for the heist to end all heists against a noir as night backdrop in 1950s Chicago then The House of Whacks is for you. Young British writer, Matthew Branton, can do graceful epic prose, he just choses not to. He spreads his talent for convincing, meaty motivations out among smart-girl Susan who's an SM model in the eponymous House; Ben, her ticket to mollhood; Misty, a tough cookie who's dying of cancer and closing up her pulp fiction outfit; and Lucky, a screenwriter playing soldier for "field detail" in Korea. But the biggest character is America itself--its slang, pop culture and the casualties of its dream machine. It is also about writers, those squeezed out by McCarthy or sexism and now by TV which is forcing career rethinks as fast as IT has done in the nineties. Each character fears becoming part of "America's real invention--a mass of undignified poor, who're never going to learn to tolerate anyone because they despise themselves." Although Branton uses the story within a story device once too often and the pace is a little jerky, the gritty, idiomatic prose is injected with fresh perky humour and the climax pops full of surprises. --Cherry SmythRead More