When the Nines Roll Over [Paperback]

Issued between the two novels of his first "25th Hour" and the five years later issued "City of Thieves", "When the nines roll over" is a collection of mainly magazine published short stories done before and since his first novel. As such it is an interesting selection of evidence on what Benioff does well and also less well. Some are early runs such as the Chechen conflict story ("The devil comes to Orekhovo") being a nice precedent for the WWII most recent novel. More critically, it is proof that his real forte is about current US urban scenarios where men are in open competition or relationships. The two best stories reflecting this are the lead title story which shows a real insiders feel for the abuses of the cut throat musical business in New York and Los Angeles and the last story "Merde for Luck", a sharp view of gay lovers infected with HIV that conveys well the decline into despair suffered.

However as with many other short stories selections, not all work as well. With Benioff in transition and showing himself experimenting, the two key examples are where Benioff goes into what verges on fantasy or sci fi, being "Zoanthrophy" about a lion hunt in New York and "De composition" the story of a sole survivor in a bunker dependent in recording his thoughts on a computer.

As such it is a fascinating pot pourri of a writer in development whose two novels to date have shown him to be potentially a great writer.

I first read Benioff a few years ago in "All-Story" magazine, where three of the stories in this book first appeared (they are actually available online at All Story's site for those interested in sampling his writing). I then read and loved his novel "The 25th Hour", and so am glad to get my hands on this collection of eight stories. There aren't that many young American writers whose work excites me, but Benioff is certainly one of them (Mark Jude Poirier and John McNally are two others). His prose is clear and crisp, without the affectation or self-consciousness one finds in so much coming out these days. The stories collected here show a nice range of subject matter and tone, ranging from pure realism to slight surrealism, but almost all contain threads of loss, disappointment, and forlorn hope. Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay to the stories, is that even though I didn't connect with some of them, I still loved reading them.

The opening (and title) story, is one of these, following a record label A&R man (essentially a high-end scout) who pursues a talented punk girl and spirits her away to Los Angeles and out of the life of her drummer boyfriend. It felt a little old-fashioned in a lot of ways. Do record label execs still act like that? Are they really that interested in transforming punk chicks into superstars? But it did nicely capture that moment in relationships when one person has moved on to bigger and presumably better things, and their lover just doesn't fit in the picture any more. Another story, "The Garden of No", is very similar thematically, only here it's a waitress turned television actress, and the man is a short-order cook.

Misfiring romance figures prominently in three other stories as well. "Barefoot Girl in Clover" tells of a 30ish man who tries to track down a girl he hung out with for a day as a teenager. "Neversink" is about a New York couple and the aftermath of their breakup. In "Merde For Luck", a gay man recounts his last relationship from beginning to grim end. What's interesting is that in all three of these stories, the narrator is either missing a crucial piece of information or operating under some major misconception. This allows Benioff to set each up for a major fall late in the story, when all is revealed. The lesson seems to be that if women don't betray you, life will find a way to.

The three other stories are a little harder to categorize. "The Devil Comes to Orekhovo" is a great story with a very traditional feel to it. It follows three Russian soldiers on patrol in Chechnya as they scout out a house that may or may not contain Chechen separatists. Benioff brilliantly captures the unease and awkwardness of the youngest, rawest soldier, as the older men mock him and eventually put him to a nasty test. It deserves a place with Tolstoy and Lermontov's stories of the Russian experience in the Caucuses. "Zoanthropy" is a strange story about a young man whose father is called in to shoot lions when they appear in New York. It left me kind of blah, but again, I enjoyed reading it. Finally, "De Composition", is a Twilight Zone-inspired take on a man locked into a bunker with his computer following some kind of global cataclysm. Felt a little derivative, but nicely done with a clever ending.

On the whole, this is a very strong collection of stories. Hopefully Benioff can find time away from the lucrative world of screenwriting to write another novel.

In 2000, David Benioff (DB) debuted strongly with "The 25th Hour", a novel situated in NYC about three life-long 27-year old friends, covering the final day of freedom of one of them, who will begin a 7-year sentence the next day. In 2008, DB published a second, even better novel called "City of Thieves" about the siege of Leningrad in the Soviet Union in 1941, supposedly based on his grandfather's early life history. In the years in between and since, DB has worked as a versatile and highly-paid screenwriter.
In 2004, DB released this collection of short stories, which was well received in US media. DB's alter ego from the novels appears in only two of the 8 stories: he is a young Jewish male virgin, bright and a worrier, deeply insecure, but who is somehow tolerated, even befriended by blue-eyed superiors, expert womanizers and risk takers. Lev and Kolya in "City of Thieves" for example, Jakob and Monty in his debut novel, another.
Apart from his screen writer's successes, DB's versatility is evident from his choice of main characters in the 8 stories: a ruthless talent scout in the music business; a naïve Russian boy soldier in Chechnya; an obsessed 30-year old former football prodigy, a gay man seeing his partner waste away. Or the man who has lived sealed off for ages in his underground nuclear shelter until a bug invades his computer; the waitress in LA finally scoring a major part; the young man seeing a lion wink at him in NYC, and the love-truck, spurned young male trying to fulfill the final wishes of his ex-girlfriend's dead father.
David Benioff's novels are great stuff. This reader hopes he will find time to write many more despite the lures and rewards of Hollywood. This collection has great atmosphere and dialogues, but some of the stories lack a KO finishing punch. For Benioff fans, this collection is a must.