Kockroach [Hardcover]

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." You probably recognize this as the opening line to Franz Kafka's classic novella "The Metamorphosis." Of course you do --- pretty much everyone knows (or at least knows of) the story of Gregor Samsa's unfortunate transformation into a cockroach. Apparently, Tyler Knox also knows Kafka's tale well --- well enough to start his debut novel, KOCKROACH, with the following sentence: "As Kockroach, an arthropod of the genus Blatella and of the species germanica, awakens one morning from a typically dreamless sleep, he finds himself transformed into some large, vile creature."

What kind of "large, vile creature," you may ask, could a cockroach possibly turn into? Why, a human of course. Kockroach, assuming he's undergone some horrific kind of molting, soon sets about exploring the peculiarities of his new human body and his new environment. From the seedy hotel room where he awakens, Kockroach ventures out into the almost painful brightness of Times Square. This Times Square is not the tourist playground of today --- this is the 1950s, when it was a haven for gamblers, gangsters, prostitutes, drug dealers and the small-time hustlers who served them all.

One of these con men is a petty criminal named Mite. When Mite and Kockroach have a chance meeting, neither one of their lives will ever be the same. Mite gives Kockroach a human name (Jerry Blatta) and soon enlists him on an errand --- retrieving some money from a deadbeat. When Kockroach proves more than adept at playing the heavy (he breaks the offender's arm without hesitation), Mite quickly attaches himself to Kockroach as the mysterious newcomer rises to the top of the Times Square crime scene. But the pair's uneasy partnership is as driven by competition as it is by loyalty, and soon their mutual acts of betrayal may blow everything up in their faces.

As Mite recognizes, Kockroach, with his utter amorality and his recognition of only two emotional states --- fear and greed --- proves startlingly adept at obtaining, and wielding, power. While still maintaining (sometimes in particularly gruesome and graphic fashion) certain cockroach attributes, Kockroach quickly and brutally rises through the ranks of organized crime, business, and finally (no surprise here) politics, all without moral qualms or even passing regrets. As Kockroach ascends to power, Knox poses some intriguing questions about what kind of person --- or insect?- --- it takes to be successful in America, all couched within a noir motif that's worthy of James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler.

Kockroach's story is told by three different narrators. First, there's Kockroach himself, whose combination of naivete and clear disdain for the human species makes him an oddly appealing antihero. Then there's Mite, the insecure opportunist who teaches Kockroach to see past the present and whose narration is riddled with slang. Finally, there's Celia, the polio-crippled beauty whom both men love, at least as much as either one is capable of experiencing that emotion. Together, the three construct a narrative that goes far beyond pastiche and marks Tyler Knox as a first-time novelist to watch.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl.

There was a book some years ago called Shoebag by Mary James. It is a children's book. A cockroach turns inro a little boy named Shoebag because cockroaches are named after their place of birth and he is born in a shoebag. He has a friend named Gregor Samsa, the hero of Kafka's Metamorphosis. I think this book is still in print. Kockroach is well told. I think both books are interesting takes on the idea.

"Deal with it, that is the cockroach way. When food is scarce, cockroaches don't complain, first they eat their dead, then they eat their young, then they eat each other." "He will adapt, he is a cockroach." The author does indeed pull off the transformation of insect into man, and does it humorously- "Mite rubs a shiny white stone all over his body, creating a weird white froth. Other humans do the same thing, Kockroach takes the same white stone. It is slippery, easily bruised like no stone he has ever touched befor. He licks it and spits out the bitter taste." and with purpose,"Whenever a cocroach sits back and wonders what it's all about, he gets stepped on." This is a morality tale done in a style I find myself cheering on, "Similary Kockroach fails to understand the way some humans are angry at other humans simply because of the sound of their last names, the shape of their eyes, the color of their skins. To him they are all of the lower orders, all humans, and to differentiate among them because of color or accent or the vowels in their last names is to differentiate among defferent orders of feces, all tasty, sure, but still." Or the sexual innuendos, as when killing cockroaches,"..but when those little buggers they're back that night it's hell to pay. You want to kill'em, you got to think like 'em. Not just any crack will do. They like it warm, they like it tight, they like it moist." "Don't we all" replies Kockroach. Or when Kockroach starts thinking, "This thinking, he thinks, is like a sicknes, only you can't sqeeze it out with your morning crap.". Or in describing business, "The world of business is a close to a perfect spot as a cockroach could ever hope to find.". Or money, "Money, he has learned, draws women like flies to feces.". Or, "And what I learned was this: People, theys all liars, and the ones they lying to most of all is theyselves.". And finially, "Senators are cheaper to buy than buildings. Better to sit on a toilet seat than in the Senate.". A great read with humor and purpose.