A review by xterminal
Fistful of Feet by Jordan Krall
4.0
Jordan Krall, Fistful of Feet (Eraserhead Press, 2009)
I finished this book quite a while ago (16 April 2011; it's 7 July as I write this). I've been trying to come up with something to say about it other than “OMGYOUMUSTREADTHIS”, because while that's the case, it doesn't quite give you an overview of the book's strengths and weaknesses, does it? I want to give it the attention it deserves, but every time I start trying to come up with a “this book is like...” gig, I end up tripping over my feet. And then I end up coming back to Alejandro Jodorowsky, but Fistful of Feet is absolutely nothing like El Topo plotwise. (The movie it kind of is like plotwise is hilariously bad, and I refuse to mention its name here, mostly because as soon as I was finished writing the review for it I blocked it from my mind, and thus no longer remember it.)
Plot: In the small frontier town of Screwhorse, Nevada, pretty much anything can be had for a price. Problem is, sometimes that price is a little higher than you might want to pay. This problem is exacerbated when Calamaro, a gunslinger form the dusky wilds of New Jersey, walks into town pulling his wooden donkey. Very few people in town like Calamaro when they first meet him. (Snap judgments can be a bad thing, kiddies.) But eventually he finds himself with a small core of friends. More enemies, though, including a few wannabe card sharps he embarrasses on his first night in town who work for the Big Boss Man(TM). So of course we have a showdown between the mysterious gunslinger and the town power brewing. How much more western can you get than that?
But telling you about the plot of this book doesn't tell you about all the wonderful little side bits and details that make it so great. The hallucinogenic blue starfish still haunts my dreams three months later. He may be my favorite character in a book I've read so far this year. In fact, he may deserve a book all his own. [elbows Krall] And come on, a wooden donkey. You have to love that. And the secret in the boss' basement (which is actually revealed on the back cover, but not explicitly, so I won't spoil it for you here). The OTHER posse of mysterious gunslingers converging on the town for an entirely different reason. And then there's the climax, which takes all the best blood-flying bits of a Sam Peckinpah film and makes them weird. And, come on, TENTACLE COWS.
Not to say the book doesn't have its weaknesses, and they're the same ones I usually write about when I start talking bizarro. The characterization could've been stepped up some, especially with the minor characters; too many of them smell a little too much like symbols or archetypes rather than thinking human beings (or thinking tentacle cows). Most of the major characters, however, are well-drawn. Krall turned in a book that's about twice as long as most bizarro novels I've read to date, and he used the extra space wisely. Still, make no mistake, this is plot-based fiction for the most part, and what usually gets sacrificed in the service of plot-based fiction in characterization. As long as you're ready for it, or don't care about it, you shouldn't have a worry in the world.
The short answer: OMGYOUMUSTREADTHIS. *** ½
I finished this book quite a while ago (16 April 2011; it's 7 July as I write this). I've been trying to come up with something to say about it other than “OMGYOUMUSTREADTHIS”, because while that's the case, it doesn't quite give you an overview of the book's strengths and weaknesses, does it? I want to give it the attention it deserves, but every time I start trying to come up with a “this book is like...” gig, I end up tripping over my feet. And then I end up coming back to Alejandro Jodorowsky, but Fistful of Feet is absolutely nothing like El Topo plotwise. (The movie it kind of is like plotwise is hilariously bad, and I refuse to mention its name here, mostly because as soon as I was finished writing the review for it I blocked it from my mind, and thus no longer remember it.)
Plot: In the small frontier town of Screwhorse, Nevada, pretty much anything can be had for a price. Problem is, sometimes that price is a little higher than you might want to pay. This problem is exacerbated when Calamaro, a gunslinger form the dusky wilds of New Jersey, walks into town pulling his wooden donkey. Very few people in town like Calamaro when they first meet him. (Snap judgments can be a bad thing, kiddies.) But eventually he finds himself with a small core of friends. More enemies, though, including a few wannabe card sharps he embarrasses on his first night in town who work for the Big Boss Man(TM). So of course we have a showdown between the mysterious gunslinger and the town power brewing. How much more western can you get than that?
But telling you about the plot of this book doesn't tell you about all the wonderful little side bits and details that make it so great. The hallucinogenic blue starfish still haunts my dreams three months later. He may be my favorite character in a book I've read so far this year. In fact, he may deserve a book all his own. [elbows Krall] And come on, a wooden donkey. You have to love that. And the secret in the boss' basement (which is actually revealed on the back cover, but not explicitly, so I won't spoil it for you here). The OTHER posse of mysterious gunslingers converging on the town for an entirely different reason. And then there's the climax, which takes all the best blood-flying bits of a Sam Peckinpah film and makes them weird. And, come on, TENTACLE COWS.
Not to say the book doesn't have its weaknesses, and they're the same ones I usually write about when I start talking bizarro. The characterization could've been stepped up some, especially with the minor characters; too many of them smell a little too much like symbols or archetypes rather than thinking human beings (or thinking tentacle cows). Most of the major characters, however, are well-drawn. Krall turned in a book that's about twice as long as most bizarro novels I've read to date, and he used the extra space wisely. Still, make no mistake, this is plot-based fiction for the most part, and what usually gets sacrificed in the service of plot-based fiction in characterization. As long as you're ready for it, or don't care about it, you shouldn't have a worry in the world.
The short answer: OMGYOUMUSTREADTHIS. *** ½