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War of the Crazies
160 pages, Paperback
First published September 14, 2011
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February 22, 2012
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
As I've said here before, usually when a book falls under the category of "bizarro," you can reasonably expect the literary version of a wacky 1940s Warner Brothers cartoon; but sometimes the results can actually be quite different than this, as evidenced most recently in John Oliver Hodges' disturbing yet memorable novella War of the Crazies, a book just as strange as any other gonzo tale you might come across, but rooted much more in the realities of actual day-to-day life. Taking its cue off such '70s groundbreakers as Midnight Cowboy, Hodges begins by assembling a group of characters who feel like they could exist in the real world, yet if they do undoubtedly live in one of those freakish shadow societies in America that the rest of us "normals" are always getting mere glimpses of, during episodes of Cops or YouTube videos of Juggalos -- there's the mentally challenged Ruth, for example, the lesbian sexual predator Silva, and the bizarre Jewish hoarder and spiritual sugar-daddy Noyo, making up the core of their dysfunctional little "family" -- and then plunks these characters down into a situation that certainly seems realistic, yet is so weird and disturbing that it can't help but feel like a derelict funhouse at times, in this case the three of them (plus various other hangers-on) living their curious lives within the confines of a dilapidated, crumbling house in the middle of the rural wilds, a sort of anti-commune that much like the abandoned house in Fight Club seems to encourage the evermore disturbing behavior of our characters hothouse-style, the point not really being to follow the loose plot but rather to wallow in the semi-sympathetic, semi-damning portraits that Hodges paints of these desperate lumpen-proletarians. A dense yet quick read that kept me legitimately absorbed until the very end, despite the lack of a strong storyline, this is the very definition of engaging alternative literature, and those who are curious to see what contemporary writers are doing away from the usual three-act structure of long-form storytelling would be wise to pick up this dark yet blackly humorous thought-provoking tome.
Out of 10: 8.6
As I've said here before, usually when a book falls under the category of "bizarro," you can reasonably expect the literary version of a wacky 1940s Warner Brothers cartoon; but sometimes the results can actually be quite different than this, as evidenced most recently in John Oliver Hodges' disturbing yet memorable novella War of the Crazies, a book just as strange as any other gonzo tale you might come across, but rooted much more in the realities of actual day-to-day life. Taking its cue off such '70s groundbreakers as Midnight Cowboy, Hodges begins by assembling a group of characters who feel like they could exist in the real world, yet if they do undoubtedly live in one of those freakish shadow societies in America that the rest of us "normals" are always getting mere glimpses of, during episodes of Cops or YouTube videos of Juggalos -- there's the mentally challenged Ruth, for example, the lesbian sexual predator Silva, and the bizarre Jewish hoarder and spiritual sugar-daddy Noyo, making up the core of their dysfunctional little "family" -- and then plunks these characters down into a situation that certainly seems realistic, yet is so weird and disturbing that it can't help but feel like a derelict funhouse at times, in this case the three of them (plus various other hangers-on) living their curious lives within the confines of a dilapidated, crumbling house in the middle of the rural wilds, a sort of anti-commune that much like the abandoned house in Fight Club seems to encourage the evermore disturbing behavior of our characters hothouse-style, the point not really being to follow the loose plot but rather to wallow in the semi-sympathetic, semi-damning portraits that Hodges paints of these desperate lumpen-proletarians. A dense yet quick read that kept me legitimately absorbed until the very end, despite the lack of a strong storyline, this is the very definition of engaging alternative literature, and those who are curious to see what contemporary writers are doing away from the usual three-act structure of long-form storytelling would be wise to pick up this dark yet blackly humorous thought-provoking tome.
Out of 10: 8.6
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