- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (Nov 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060933534
- ISBN-13: 978-0060933531
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.5 x 2.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,185,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Tina coudn't decide between ground glass and Drano. Read the first page
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20 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
crack noir
22 Aug 2006
Format:Paperback
This is a book that begs to be put up on the big screen. In fact, I was constantly reminded of Richard Linklater's take on "A Scanner Darkly," visualizing this as a better framework. Not that there's anything wrong with "Scanner," but "Plainclothes" beats it with a rusty razor-studded belt for sheer drug-drenched slapstick. The pages turn like a Jim Thompson potboiler read out loud blindfolded in a scramjet scraping the treetops at full throttle. Jerry Stahl has here sketched out a cartoonish burg riddled with misfits and sex maniacs, as if all the world's twisted psyches gathered for a crazy convention in one small town about the size of 300 pages or so. The words glide along the concourse of your mind in horse-sized slaps. This is the kind of prose that makes you do double-takes; some lines have to be repeated because you can't believe you read them right the first time.
If you've dunked your eyeballs into Stahl's earlier "Perv: A Love Story," you're no stranger to his brand of verbal assault, scenarios that no God-fearing person could read straight through without feeling that spine-scorching flash of guilt. However, while "Perv" was like a more demented version of Disney's "Small World" boat ride, populated by child rapists, deformed bullies and schizophrenic daredevils, "Plainclothes" is a sort of angel dust-flaked detective pulp novel with tongue firmly wagging through hole in cheek. The impetus of the tale involves the presidential scrotum. Oh, and it's a Last Tango-esque love story to boot. Manny, a former heroin addict cum codeine junky, is a police detective blackmailing everyone he knows. When he stumbles on the scene of a wife who's offed her hubby with a bowl of Lucky Charms, Draino and one mashed-up lightbulb, he falls in love and gets a gander at a photo involving George W. Bush, the town's mayor (formerly knowns as Manny's wife) and G-dogg's family jewels markered up in a happy face. To get to the bottom of the story behind the snapshot, Manny will have to tangle with the likes of a sexually abused, crack smoking killing machine; a delusional police chief immersed in a Hollywood fantasy wherein his biggest concern is casting a star to play his part; and a rest home nurse who's into S&M. Stahl proves once again that's he's the best thing around since I had to give up taking acid alone because I could no longer handle walking the plank above hell and hearing my echo repeating into the infinite for hours on end.
If you've dunked your eyeballs into Stahl's earlier "Perv: A Love Story," you're no stranger to his brand of verbal assault, scenarios that no God-fearing person could read straight through without feeling that spine-scorching flash of guilt. However, while "Perv" was like a more demented version of Disney's "Small World" boat ride, populated by child rapists, deformed bullies and schizophrenic daredevils, "Plainclothes" is a sort of angel dust-flaked detective pulp novel with tongue firmly wagging through hole in cheek. The impetus of the tale involves the presidential scrotum. Oh, and it's a Last Tango-esque love story to boot. Manny, a former heroin addict cum codeine junky, is a police detective blackmailing everyone he knows. When he stumbles on the scene of a wife who's offed her hubby with a bowl of Lucky Charms, Draino and one mashed-up lightbulb, he falls in love and gets a gander at a photo involving George W. Bush, the town's mayor (formerly knowns as Manny's wife) and G-dogg's family jewels markered up in a happy face. To get to the bottom of the story behind the snapshot, Manny will have to tangle with the likes of a sexually abused, crack smoking killing machine; a delusional police chief immersed in a Hollywood fantasy wherein his biggest concern is casting a star to play his part; and a rest home nurse who's into S&M. Stahl proves once again that's he's the best thing around since I had to give up taking acid alone because I could no longer handle walking the plank above hell and hearing my echo repeating into the infinite for hours on end.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
One Sick and Funny Puppy
9 Nov 2001
Format:Hardcover
Totally gross, whacked-out, really well written, suspenseful, with an unexpected romantic twist. I laughed out loud a few times reading this insane stuff. The perfect antidote to an overdose of George W. Peace.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
I've read better.
25 May 2004
Format:Paperback
This wasn't bad, or anything. It was just... very unbelievable. I like unbelievable, but not extremely unbelievable. I didn't have to strain to read it. I just kind of said "huh..." when I was done. After I finished reading Permanent Midnight I said "Wow!" I want more of the wow response, Jerry. No more of this huh stuff. Perv was right in between the two with a "Nice"
I don't really know. It just felt like everything had the expectable twists and turns. I mean, I never saw anything coming, but after I read it, I wasn't surprised. There was ONE surprise that caught me off gaurd though. And it was pretty good. When Stahl is good, he absolutely amazes me. When he's not being absolutely smashing, his writing just comes off as blah. Still interesting, but blah at the same time.
In retrospect, this book wasn't that bad. I have read FAR worse (the STRAW MEN by Micheal Marshall; it was a "I can't believe I wasted all that time reading that piece of crap" book). Plainclothes Naked was interesting and fun to read. And while I'll still read anything Jerry Stahl puts out, I wouldn't read this for a second time. Permanent Midnight, maybe. But not this.
Maybe this should be 3.5. Ehh.
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