Country: USA
Genre: Noir
Pages: 102/114 kb
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The sun bled through the exposed window over the sink. Bars of light caught dust motes, swirling like we were standing in a Billy Wilder movie.
If there is any issues that plague genre literature, it's creativity. When certain variables determine whether or not you belong to a certain artistic current, it's so easy to surf whatever somebody else has created and tweak it just a little. Many stories sound the same. Pulp writer Nik Korpon doesn't suffer from any creative issues, though. BY THE NAILS OF THE WARPRIEST didn't read like anything else ever and OLD GHOSTS even more so. But unlike its predecessor, this story fits the novella format just right. I can't say it's an easy read, but it's original and daring and it manages to deconstruct the ideas that make noir. Chalk it up as experimentation, as character study, as a unique object, but OLD GHOSTS is a great story that knows its strengths and its limits. It's the kind of book that given enough time, will be quoted as one of the books that brought a genre forward. Avant-Garde is the word I'm looking for.
OLD GHOSTS will require some patience. Protagonist Cole is working construction is Baltimore. He recently married his girlfriend Amy and are trying to have a baby. Cole appreciates to the fullest his luck to have found a great girl for himself. His colleague/partner Paddy introduce him to a potential client whom Cole recognizes. His old friend Chance Miller from Boston. He came to Baltimore with his sister Delilah (an old girlfriend of Cole...sort of) with real estate projects...sort of. They are the life Cole ran away from when he moved to Baltimore and they want him back. They mirror danger and excitement to him and make him miss the excitement of his past life. But Cole is a smart guy. He knows there is more than meets the eye to this apparition of old ghosts. They want him back for a reason.
When I say OLD GHOSTS is a novella that requires patience, I'm sure many of you winced. How can a hundred pages novella requires patience? It's all about instant gratification, right? Not here. Please, don't let it turn you away though. You've read stories like that before. They are my favorite kind. Layers of information add up and change the meaning of what you're reading gradually. The elements you begin with are just symptoms of what's really going on. While the narrative builds itself up, Korpon nails his trademark unique atmospheres and vivid symbolism. OLD GHOSTS is particularly apt in this department as it messes around with your head. Korpon deconstructs Cole's life on construction sites and he uses the empty, half-built houses as a metaphor for change and the concept of aging. You can reinvent yourself, but you can't deny who you once were. That allows him to play with other genres' tropes such as horror and..well..ghost stories. I don't remember who said reading OLD GHOSTS was like listening to a Nick Cave record, but it's a great comparison.
I saw Amy's smile, her golden hair swimming among the debris of Boston, the shards of an abandoned life. I saw myself lying in an alley with ice picks stabbed through my eyes.
I liked OLD GHOSTS for many reasons and the main ones were that it skewed some old ideas of noir and flirted with crossover again. Reading Nik Korpon feels like a breath of fresh air, in that regard. If you have read BY THE NAILS OF THE WARPRIEST already, don't expect to get into OLD GHOSTS and find a something similar. One has very little to do with the other. Only thing they share is Korpon's beautiful writing style (although I thought it flowed better in WARPRIEST). OLD GHOSTS is a clever piece of storytelling that will crawl up your spine and find its way inside your skull. The Baltimore of Nik Korpon is the most seducing rendition of the city since David Simon's. It's bold, somewhat mythical and most important, it feels new and pulsing with unexplored possibilities. I haven't read that many writers who nail the concept of darkness in their writing like Korpon does.
FOUR STARS