Order THE BADDEST ASS here
(also reviewed)
Order TO THE DEVIL, MY REGARDS here
Order PSYCHOSOMATIC here
Order THE DRUMMER here
Order YELLOW MEDICINE here
Order HOGDOGGIN' here
Order CHOKE ON YOUR LIES here
Order ALL THE YOUNG WARRIORS here
Billy Lafitte is perhaps the worse thing to ever happen to her family. But she knows he'll do the right thing.
If you're unfortunate enough to not know who Billy Lafitte is, here's a crash course. Imagine BREAKING BAD, but replace the broken-down, dying protagonist with a violent, sadistic and controlling asshole. That's only the start. It gets a million times worse from there. Billy has been a terrible cop, the equivalent of the black plague as a biker and in THE BADDEST ASS, he finally landed where he belongs. In jail it is. But once again, this is only the starting point. Anthony Neil Smith's motto when writing Lafitte probably is: "It gets worse from there," because it does. I think that along with Dennis Lehane, he is the only author of whom I've read the complete works. THE BADDEST ASS ranks up there with HOGDOGGIN' and CHOKE ON YOUR LIES as ANS in his championship shape.
Prison is the end of the road for most criminals, but not for Billy fuckin' Lafitte. Oh no, sir. The nations of enemies he made outside (and inside) the walls are still hounding him and want him dead. Billy's rep is preceding him in that regards as old nemeses Colleen Hartle and Franklin Rome and new nemeses Ricardo "Ri'Chess" Dulles and the prison head guard are organizing an intricate riot scenario to have him killed. But wherever Billy goes, the stench of death and chaos follows and soon enough, nobody has control over the North Dakota penitentiary anymore and acts of unspeakable violence are committed. That's where Billy shines usually, but these guys HAD to plan their attack on THE DAY his son Ham and his mother-in-law were visiting him. To say "shenanigans ensued" would be a criminal understatement.
This Smith guy. I don't know how he does it. His novels are written with violent abandon; they're an outpouring pained, chaotic thoughts that wage war to one another. No author author can gleefully tackle self-destruction in such an entertaining fashion. It's especially true when it comes to his cursed outlaw character Billy Lafitte. Billy ain't bad, but he's the fuckin' worst. It's hard to explain. In THE BADDEST ASS, it's evident that he's nothing like the other convicts. That he is driven by an inner light, a longing that the other inmates don't have. He has a purpose, or rather he was born to seek purpose to his actions. But the among the crazy and the homicidal, his worst instincts are surfacing and putting the one person he loves the most in danger. He is the only savage that didn't relinquish his soul yet.
Ri'chess waits in the cafeteria with Jean Robert and a few trustee kitchen workers who Ri'chess owes big time. Couldn't have done it without them. It smells warmed in here than in the rest of the joint. Fresh rolls baking. But the rest, good god, man, whatever meant they got back there smells like toasted rubber of something. If it didn't smell like that all the time, Ri'chess could've blamed it on his trustees out making sure this fake riot turned into a real one. But it is what it is - bad meat simmering in vats of bad cream of mushroom soup for a bad hot dish.
If THE BADDEST ASS works so well, it's because of primarily two things. First the amazing sense of place (as quoted), that transpires with bad odors, institutional coldness and egoistical laissez-faire of system employees who despise their job as much as they despite the inmates. It's more of a worst-case scenario of a godforsaken building than something realistic, but the depiction of unfair treatment to inmates not being the point here, it creates tension and drama beautifully. The North Dakota prison of THE BADDEST ASS is a gloomier and more frightening place than most self-consciously frightening estate in fiction like haunted houses or insane asylums. Come to think of it, it's a bit of a mix of both, except that the only thing lingering in the air is the destructive nature of humans.
The novel has the precise, detailed characterization that makes ANS so fun to read. It's probably not deliberate, but their motivations and desires are so clear, they create a unique and dynamic picture. Ri'Chess wants control. Jean Robert wants power. Colleen wants to see Lafitte dead. Mrs. Hoeck wants salvation. Ham wants his dad. Billy is caught in between these forces, without a second to think about what he wants for himself, except maybe being left alone until his dying breath. The beauty of Billy Lafitte novel is found in witnessing the world trying to break him and by the ending, everybody is broken, except Billy. He probably wish he was every time, but his ability to withstand inhuman ordeals is both his blessing and his curse.
Do you need to read YELLOW MEDICINE and HOGDOGGIN' to appreciate THE BADDEST ASS? Not necessarily, disbelief has been suspended higher before, but I strongly suggest it. It's cheap and the downward spiral that brought Billy Lafitte to fight for his life, stranded in the middle of nowhere amongst the worst possible human beings is a sight to behold. I am persuaded Anthony Neil Smith's books will beat father time in the same fashion Jim Thompson's novels did. They have similar approaches, by the way, except maybe that Smith's savagery isn't bound to the last fifty pages of his novels. They run rampant, seamlessly, from one novel to the other.
BADASS
The novel has the precise, detailed characterization that makes ANS so fun to read. It's probably not deliberate, but their motivations and desires are so clear, they create a unique and dynamic picture. Ri'Chess wants control. Jean Robert wants power. Colleen wants to see Lafitte dead. Mrs. Hoeck wants salvation. Ham wants his dad. Billy is caught in between these forces, without a second to think about what he wants for himself, except maybe being left alone until his dying breath. The beauty of Billy Lafitte novel is found in witnessing the world trying to break him and by the ending, everybody is broken, except Billy. He probably wish he was every time, but his ability to withstand inhuman ordeals is both his blessing and his curse.
Do you need to read YELLOW MEDICINE and HOGDOGGIN' to appreciate THE BADDEST ASS? Not necessarily, disbelief has been suspended higher before, but I strongly suggest it. It's cheap and the downward spiral that brought Billy Lafitte to fight for his life, stranded in the middle of nowhere amongst the worst possible human beings is a sight to behold. I am persuaded Anthony Neil Smith's books will beat father time in the same fashion Jim Thompson's novels did. They have similar approaches, by the way, except maybe that Smith's savagery isn't bound to the last fifty pages of his novels. They run rampant, seamlessly, from one novel to the other.
BADASS