Review 150: Slam

Slam by Lewis Shiner
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

For much of this book I kept asking myself, why am I reading this book? Somewhere I had a recommendation for the book, which became the hook. The book was short enough that I wanted to see where it would lead.

Dave is released out of prison as the book opens after serving six-months for evading taxes, not paying them, somewhat out of principle. Dave comes across as someone who just floats through life, see what happens next and doesn't have any ambition to speak of, and is running up to aged forty.

There is some weird stuff that happens, weird people show up, while Dave tries being a caretaker of 23 cats all in this one house. I found myself being reminded me of the movie Pulp Fiction, although this book really is completely different. I guess it was the odd stuff that kept happening. Dave hooks up with a grocery store clerk who is half his age, and squatting in an abandoned art house with a few other runaway skaters. Dave befriends one of them too.

Things seem full of despair in this story, but somehow Dave starts to do the right things, by some accounts. There is some philosophy about how to live, and society, and a couple other ideas that actually saves the book. Yet it comes so late in the book that it’s a slog to get there.