Order OUT OF THE BLACK here
(other reviewed books)
Order THE GROVE here
Order THE COLD KISS here
Order ALREADY GONE here
Order LOST THINGS here
Have you ever wasted an evening of your life, droning in front of your TV set without purpose or enjoyment, only to stumbled upon a badass movie you've never heard about before on late night television? That's how I feel when I read a John Rector novel. OUT OF THE BLACK is the Nebraskan author's fourth novel if you don't count the nice enough interlude that was LOST THINGS. Rector's fiction is always very lean and simple, yet he has mastered the form long ago. OUT OF THE BLACK is nothing new, but it's his leanest, meanest and purest story yet. It could very well become his flagship novel.
Matt Caine has become ''that guy'' after his wife Beth died in a car accident. ''That guy'' who's a single dad, struggling to make ends meet, fighting a custody battle with his old in-laws and facing everybody's judgement because he's fucking his daughter's babysitter. What the neighborhood doesn't know is that Matt borrowed money from local mobster and ''friend'' Brian Murphy in order to keep his house. That's the exact moment Matt's friend Jay chooses to spring back into his life with a foolproof scheme to make money: kidnap the wife of some random, old local benefactor. Easy enough. Harmless enough. Jay SEEMS to have done his homework, but there is always something you couldn't have known.
John Rector novels are stylistically peculiar and that makes them interesting to me. His protagonists all step through a looking glass, mostly due to their own greed or despair and what ensues could very well be reality, a fever-laced dream or a straight out psychosis. In OUT OF THE BLACK *, once Matt Caine agrees to participate to his friend Jay's kidnapping, reality soon crumbles around him and gives place to a paranoid game where he seems to be the object of enjoyment and not a player. These choices are characterized on the page by lengthy, visual and intricate action scenes, a deliberately sparse approach to detail and insane plot twists.
I picked up my glass. ''What are we drinking to?''
Jay seemed to think about it for a moment, then he smiled. ''To ghosts.''
I didn't like the toast, but because I could say anything, Jay searched out and touched his glass to mine. The sound, delicate and sharp, hung in the air around us like a curse. I didn't want to drhink to it, but it in the end, I did anyway.
''Okay,'' I said. ''To ghosts.''
Now, Rector's style is also deliberately low on characterization and I believe this is a weaker aspect of his writing. There are a few scene in OUT OF THE BLACK where Matt Caine shows what he really is about, but they come off as a sympathy grab, more than an exposition of Matt's predicament. The single, indebted yet well-meaning dad is not the most original idea. Otherwise, the characters occupy strategic positions in Rector's plot more than they camp strong personalities. Pinnell is the omnipotent, paranoid king, Matt is the unsuspecting pawn, Jay is the wildcard bishop, every character has a rational reason to live within the established storyline, like the pieces on a chessboard. It's clever, dynamic, yet a little predictable. Personally, I tend to prefer more character-driven stories.
Overall, OUT OF THE BLACK was quite enjoyable. Matt Caine is John Rector's best define character since Dexter McCray. He has its shortcomings, but I enjoyed that he wasn't all that innocent to begin with, that he swerved a little from Rector's ''through the looking glass'' model. I don't know where he can go from here, though. Maybe he is due for a series? OUT OF THE BLACK strikes me as ''as much refined'' as the formula can get. It'll be intriguing to see where Rector is going to go from now on. If you're looking for a ''suspended reality'' companion, bring OUT OF THE BACK along on a trip, or on a quiet Christmas vacation day. It's a great novel to read outside your routine.
*And in most of Rector's novels, except maybe THE GROVE.