3 Stars - Recommended to those who remember what it was like to be wild and free and careless with other people's lives
217 Pages
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Releases: March 2014
The first thing you notice is the way in which D. Foy manipulates language. He pulls it taught then lets it go, snapping it to and fro, filling the pages with words in fits and bursts; tensing things up and slowing things down with his hypnotic prose.
The second thing you notice is that Andrew, our narrator, and the four friends he is planning on hanging with at a secluded cabin in Lake Tahoe, are all completely out of their gords. Drugs, drink, sex, and a storm-to-end-all-storms set the stage for this story, and the set up is sure to put you in mind of certain b-level thrillers.
After a quick trip out for ice ends in an unfortunate car accident, leaving one of group sick and dying, the storm floods the roads around them trapping them tight. As the fivesome kill the time by passing around the hooch and playing a round of Truth or Dare, their paranoia, past histories, and Dinky's quickly failing health threaten to turn what should have been a relaxing New Year's vacation into a full out waking nightmare.
Unlike most of your typical B-level thrillers, though, there are no monsters or madmen lurking in the shadows here, unless you consider the passerby Super and his dog Fortinbras mad. Instead, this group of 30-something burnouts work at each other relentlessly, while taking turns watching over their ill buddy, racing out into the pouring rain and wandering through the wooded trails seeking help, hoping for a break in the bad weather by which they might get him to a hospital.
If wearing out your welcome and driving your friends nutty is your bag, and if being careless with other people's lives provides you with hilarious fodder, this book was written for you.
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