Drama City
by George Pelecanos

review by Byron Merritt

Lorenzo Brown is an ex-con trying to stay on the straight and narrow. He’s got a job with the Humane Society as an animal control officer, ticketing those that abuse or neglect their animals; he’s got a small apartment in DC that he shares with Jasmine, a mutt he saved; and he’s trying to get back into his daughter’s life, whom he hasn’t been able to speak with since returning from his eight year stint in prison on drug-related charges.

Rachel Lopez is Lorenzo’s probation officer who has problems of her own. She drinks too much, is sexually stunted because of her upbringing, and needs almost as much help as the people she’s trying to keep from going back behind bars.

Rachel and Lorenzo’s lives are about to be changed forever. A violent act by a brash young man ends up changing everything. Is death and destruction all that lie ahead for our two characters? Can an ex-con truly ever be a successful member of society without falling back into old habits?

There were several problems with this novel that made it a poor read for me. First, and most prominently, was the author’s prose. Mr. Pelecanos, I’ve noted, is a screenwriter and this may be a pretty big issue. Screenplays and novels are two entirely different styles of writing, and this book didn’t read like a novel; it read like screenplay. Here’s an example of this author’s prose (this scene is during a fairly pivotal moment in which an illegal dog fighting ring has been found and is about to be busted up): ‘The dogs were released. They ran to the center of the ring and clashed. The crowd was loud and intense. They laughed and called out for murder and blood. The dogs were virtually silent. They fought methodically, battling for position and dominance. Both were taken down and both sprang back up. Both had been conditioned for strength and endurance by cat mills, carpet mills, and spring poles. Both wanted to please their owners and defeat their opponent. Only one could emerge victorious.’

Could you feel the murderous need and the flying blood? Could you hear the slobbering of the dogs as they snapped and ripped at one another? I couldn’t.

The second problem was execution. Nothing of remote interest happens in the book before page 150. For a 304 page book, that’s a disaster for a reader like me. I’ve read books where not a lot happens by the halfway point in the book—and I’ve enjoyed some of them—but these were carefully woven stories with interesting characters and prose that kept me engaged. I didn’t find that in Drama City.

Thirdly was the language and word choice by Mr. Pelecanos. Lorenzo is a pretty tough dude living in a distinctly tough neighborhood. Life is gritty, sometimes fleeting, and always a battle. So why would words like “feces” and “excrement” and “urination” appear in such a world instead of their much more colorful descriptors that can’t be muttered on daytime TV? Mr. Pelecanos DOES use those more colorful terms . . . sometimes. But the way he mixed up the words felt completely unnatural and forced.

Fourth and final was the editing of the book. Example: ‘He went were [sic] he wasn’t supposed to go.’ Several times I noted “were” instead of “where”. And there were other problems, too, but that one stood out above the rest.

If this is a sampling of Mr. Pelecanos’ writing, I fear I won’t be reading anything else by him.