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Toy Gun (2005)
Cheating hearts
by Sheila Munro
Given the cover of Dennis E. Bolen's Toy Gun (Anvil $26), a stark image of a handgun against an orange background, most readers will be surprised to discover this novel is more psychological study and moral exploration than hard-boiled crime thriller.
As the third instalment in Bolen's trilogy about federal parole officer Barry Delta, following Stupid Crimes (1992) and Krekshuns (1997), it focuses more on the inner machinations of its characters than on crimes committed.
A self-confessed 'burn out' eyeing early retirement, bad boy Barry Delta drinks too much (way too much), cheats on his wife, has trouble curbing his glib tongue, and is given to bouts of self-deception and self-loathing in about equal measure. His work in the underworld of addiction, prostitution and street crime has left him jaded and exhausted.
Bolen, a former parole officer himself, deftly weaves the stories of Barry Delta's life and loves (somehow women find him irresistible and more than one of them wants to have his baby), his boozy afternoons at the Yale Hotel, and the desperate escapades of the parolees on his caseload.
We witness the crazed excitement of a coke addict preparing to commit a robbery, the humiliation of a prostitute being tossed out of a car and called a whore. This is a country of the damned where ugly behaviour, brutal crimes, lies and deceptions prevail. Bolen renders this world with such visceral intensity that you can almost feel the drug cravings, the hangovers, the adrenalin rush that comes with violence.
Everything is convincing, nothing is glossed over. Obviously Bolen knows this territory from the inside out.
Ultimately Toy Gun is a novel of redemption, but first the worse has to happen so redemption can begin. Just about everything that can go wrong for Barry does. Disaster piles upon disaster as his personal and professional life spiral out of control. He finally bottoms out to find himself a mentally and physically broken man. There's something contrived about the plot in this regard, and of course the love of a good woman (the waitress at the Yale, no less) has much to do with his own redemption.
Meanwhile Barry wonders if even one of his clients can be saved. In so many cases the damage done to them in childhood is irrevocable. When the foul-mouthed, drugged-out prostitute Chantal declares, "I'm always going to be on the streets,"; he is unable to contradict her.
To keep going, Barry Delta has to believe that if even one former inmate doesn't re-offend, then his job will have been worthwhile. In grappling with this theme of redemption, increasingly the novel is marred by pious lectures about the need for love and forgiveness. The point is well taken but this is telling, not showing. We want to draw our own conclusions.
In Toy Gun Bolen takes us for a bracing ride, lacing sordid truths with humour and wit, mixing horror with the banality of everyday life, reflecting back to us our own messed-up lives. He forces us to look at things we don't want to look at, jarring us out of middle class complacency, and in doing so he reveals the narrowness of the worlds we live inside.
Sheila Munro lives in Comox where she is following her non-fiction book with a novel-in-progress.
1-895636-68-X
by Sheila Munro
Given the cover of Dennis E. Bolen's Toy Gun (Anvil $26), a stark image of a handgun against an orange background, most readers will be surprised to discover this novel is more psychological study and moral exploration than hard-boiled crime thriller.
As the third instalment in Bolen's trilogy about federal parole officer Barry Delta, following Stupid Crimes (1992) and Krekshuns (1997), it focuses more on the inner machinations of its characters than on crimes committed.
A self-confessed 'burn out' eyeing early retirement, bad boy Barry Delta drinks too much (way too much), cheats on his wife, has trouble curbing his glib tongue, and is given to bouts of self-deception and self-loathing in about equal measure. His work in the underworld of addiction, prostitution and street crime has left him jaded and exhausted.
Bolen, a former parole officer himself, deftly weaves the stories of Barry Delta's life and loves (somehow women find him irresistible and more than one of them wants to have his baby), his boozy afternoons at the Yale Hotel, and the desperate escapades of the parolees on his caseload.
We witness the crazed excitement of a coke addict preparing to commit a robbery, the humiliation of a prostitute being tossed out of a car and called a whore. This is a country of the damned where ugly behaviour, brutal crimes, lies and deceptions prevail. Bolen renders this world with such visceral intensity that you can almost feel the drug cravings, the hangovers, the adrenalin rush that comes with violence.
Everything is convincing, nothing is glossed over. Obviously Bolen knows this territory from the inside out.
Ultimately Toy Gun is a novel of redemption, but first the worse has to happen so redemption can begin. Just about everything that can go wrong for Barry does. Disaster piles upon disaster as his personal and professional life spiral out of control. He finally bottoms out to find himself a mentally and physically broken man. There's something contrived about the plot in this regard, and of course the love of a good woman (the waitress at the Yale, no less) has much to do with his own redemption.
Meanwhile Barry wonders if even one of his clients can be saved. In so many cases the damage done to them in childhood is irrevocable. When the foul-mouthed, drugged-out prostitute Chantal declares, "I'm always going to be on the streets,"; he is unable to contradict her.
To keep going, Barry Delta has to believe that if even one former inmate doesn't re-offend, then his job will have been worthwhile. In grappling with this theme of redemption, increasingly the novel is marred by pious lectures about the need for love and forgiveness. The point is well taken but this is telling, not showing. We want to draw our own conclusions.
In Toy Gun Bolen takes us for a bracing ride, lacing sordid truths with humour and wit, mixing horror with the banality of everyday life, reflecting back to us our own messed-up lives. He forces us to look at things we don't want to look at, jarring us out of middle class complacency, and in doing so he reveals the narrowness of the worlds we live inside.
Sheila Munro lives in Comox where she is following her non-fiction book with a novel-in-progress.
1-895636-68-X
Submitted on July 14, 2005 in By David.
