Order TOXICITY here
(also reviewed)
Order THE MIND IS A RAZORBLADE here
Maddox's first day in prison was a memorable one, especially for the other inmates. Sure, random violence was essential in a house os sin, but no one has ever witnessed such anger and hostility over something so stupid.
Not until Maddox.
Methamphetamine is the drug du jour for fiends and fiction writers both. There is harder smack out there, but meth surfs a fine, subtle line because it turns you into a zombie before you can understand how bad you're hurting yourself and it keeps you in a zombified state, unlike let's say Krokodil. But drugs is a competitive market and it's a question of time before another product starts wreaking havoc on society and inspire aesthetes. Author Max Booth III anticipated the problem in his first novel TOXICITY, where a brand new drugs tears through America and its effects are only limited by Booth's imagination. Meth is so 2013 guys. It's the Katy Perry of drugs. Max Booth III looks towards the future through the distorted prism of his mind's eye and the future is kind of wild.
Maddox Kane, once a hot prospect for the Chicago Cubs, just served a ten years sentence in Megaton Penitentiary on a drugs and weapons charge. His dreams were crushed, his life was put on hold for an entire decade, but Maddox wants to be better nonetheless. He wants to reconnect with his now teenage daughter Addison, find honest work, be a better man overall. The world isn't the same anymore, though. His wife is shacked up with a junkie, his daughter might not exactly be who she says she is and the entire neighborhood is devastated by a swanky new purple drug called Jericho. What will an ex-con have to do to survive and become better?
The best way I could describe TOXICITY is the following: It's like Hamlet was re-written by Belgian drug writer Henri Michaux and that the movie adaptation had been directed by David Cronenberg. It's a social crime novel that's way too much fun to be a social crime novel. TOXICITY describes the ravages of Jericho on an entire neighborhood and most important on Maddox's family, but it affects everybody's to drastically it turns what should be a tragedy into rather effective slapstick humor.
Perhaps its greatest achievement in iconoclasm are the Johnny Desperation chapters, which have very little to do with the storyline and serve the very precise purpose of showing the awesome range of effect of Jericho on the human mind. They are a pure idiosyncratic pleasure to read. They ultimately tie-in to Maddox's story, but 1) only loosely and 2) they are a surrealist pleasure in themselves. You might now survive TOXICITY if you can't enjoy Johnny Desperation tripping balls.
"This is your parole officer, Mr. Kane. My name is Lionel Turner. Pleased to meet you."
Shit. He had completely forgotten the prison assigned him a PO. With all this hooked business, it had been a little hard to remember.
"What do you want? Now is not a good time."
"What seems to be the problem, Mr. Kane?"
"You don't want to know."
"Actually, I do. It's kind of my job to want to know, as you can understand."
"You really want to know?"
"Yes, please"
Maddox sighed. "A lot lizard just raped my brother's roommate. She isn't going to leave until we pay her the money we owe, which we don't have. Care to help out?"
"What?"
Whether TOXICITY is a comedy about serious themes or a tragedy wearing funny pants remains to be determined. It's crazy, out of control and its heart is in the right place. There are minor issues with the novel. It's very crowded. There's a large cast and some characters don't get all the breathing room they need in order to be...well, interesting! Let's not be afraid of words Maddox's daughter Addison, for example, doesn't have anything memorable about her. She's merely a plot device, feeding motivation to other characters, including Maddox and her hard rocking Harry Potter nerd boyfriend Connor. It happens when a novel gets a little overambitious, but you can't fault Max Booth III for aiming high. I prefer crazy-and-uneven to tight-and-flat.
I might've understated the Cronenberg-ian aspect of TOXICITY, since it's rather deeply interwoven with its dark sense of humor. Slapstick (body humor) and body horror share the same page on more than one occasion. Max Booth III has both writing talent and comedic timing, although he's a little bit out of control at times. The comedy bits and the crime storyline sometimes feel like they're not in the same book, and I don't know whether it's bad or not. I just know that it makes TOXICITY feel unique and intense. Max Booth III might've created for himself a niche style that makes him essential. I thoroughly enjoy the unique and creative spin off the drug novel TOXICITY offered.