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Cutter and Bone (Midnight Classics)
 
 
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Cutter and Bone (Midnight Classics) (Paperback)

by Newton Thornburg (Author), George P. Pelecanos (Introduction) "IT WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME RICHARD BONE HAD SHAVED WITH A Lady Remington, nor did he expect it to be the last ..." (more)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Serpent's Tail; New edition edition (16 Mar 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1852426764
  • ISBN-13: 978-1852426767
  • Product Dimensions: 19 x 12.7 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 226,925 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Uncut

‘Brilliant and terrifying’


Glasgow Herald

‘The story twists and turns on itself until its final, startling sentence’
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
IT WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME RICHARD BONE HAD SHAVED WITH A Lady Remington, nor did he expect it to be the last. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Dead Souls, 19 Mar 2003
By A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
One of the best depictions of mid-'70s America I've come across, this powerful novel was written when the country was struggling to recover from the Vietnam War and remains as a vivid reminder of that time. Set mostly in Santa Barbara, the story follows two men firmly stuck in cycles of self-destruction. Bone dropped out of the corporate life and left his wife and kids in Minnesota to float around California as a gigolo, while Cutter came back from Vietnam minus an arm and a leg and teeters on the brink of insanity. Both are utterly disillusioned with the world around them and spend a great deal of time drinking and trying to blot out their rapidly suburbanizing, strip-mallifying, consumerist surroundings. The third member of this circle of dead souls is the sarcastic, Quaalude popping Mo, Cutter's live-in girlfriend and mother to his baby.

The whole book reads like one big hangover—the party (late '60s free love, rebellion, Vietnam, etc.) is over, and someone's gotta pay. One evening Bone unknowingly witnesses a murderer disposing of a victim, and what he half saw leads to a half-baked scheme to make some money. In another writer's hands, this could have lead to a comic caper, but Thornburg is intent on showing the county's loss of innocence through the bitter, maimed, and reckless Cutter, and his guilt-ridden and aimless buddy Bone. One problem I had with the story was the friendship between the two men. The book unfolds from Bone's perspective, and it's hard to fathom why he keeps returning to Cutter's side, other than guilt and/or a self-destructive streak.

In any event, the book starts fairly slow and there were a few times I considered ditching it. By the second half though, the lean prose gets more and more compelling, and the dilemmas get a bit more interesting. The final quarter or so takes the two men on a road trip from California to the Ozarks, in possible pursuit of the murderer. The climax is awfully gripping in a "y'all ain't from around here" Deliverance kind of way, and the final sentence packs a huge punch. (Well, at least for a few moments.) Still, book's theme—that the Vietnam war did irreparable damage to the American psyche and values, and led to an America where money and consumption are king and justice is a mirage—emerges in full color, and the book remains an important picture of the empty '70s.

Note: This was made into a great dark film called Cutter's Way.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Cuts To The Bone, 9 Nov 2006
By Nick (London, England) - See all my reviews
This book's one of my all-time favourites. Like James Crumley's 'The Last Good Kiss', this is a dark, profane but huge hurt-hearted trawl through 70s America, with damaged characters making the most of their lots, usually badly. The characterisation is searingly vivid, leading the plot rather than the other way around. What does happen to the characters had me - in several places - almost howling at the book with emotion, shock, sadness, anger, and the ending left me blinking into space for several minutes. I immediately ordered more Thornburg off amazon but'll be happy if it's even half as good as this magnificent, ugly beautiful, powerhouse of a novel.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars to the bone, 10 April 2003
A stunning,visceral trip down the mean streets of the American dream.The nightmare that was Vietnam drips of every page and haunts each character.
The novel's premise is quite simple, a murder and the almost demonic quest on behalf of Cutter and Bone to bring the killer to justice. It is this journey that leads to a quite disturbing conclusion, believe me it will leave you breathless.
A classic
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars First Cut is the Deepest
Cutter and Bone are not your usual crime fighters. Bone is a man who abandoned his wife and young family to live on the coast and waste his life on loose women and cons. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Sam

5.0 out of 5 stars Cult Noir
The greatest crime/noir novel of the 1970's perhaps the most devastating ever.Cutter and Bone like Robert Stones's Dog Soldiers is THE post vietnam novel, telling the tale of... Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2002 by christopherjarman

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