skygiants | (no subject)

In further adventures of 'books I simply could not leave on the shelf at the used bookstore,' the cover flap of The Bric-A-Brac Man: An Extravaganza promised me "a look-alike cousin", "a breath-takingly lovely girl and her older sister, a woman whose face is always hidden behind a black veil," "a man who claims to be the Devil, a pair of cunning old ladies, a brawny psychopath who likes heights but hates cats, and various other intriguing individuals," but MOST of all it promised me to be Extremely Set In The Greater Boston Area and oh boy on that front did it deliver!

Here are some representative passages of Local Color from the days in the life of our hero, moderately dishonest antiques dealer Arnold Hopkins:

The life I led was too hectic. I had to cease whirling about like a lunatic performing a fandango. At seven that morning, for example, I was arguing with a lady in Natick over the price of a Kazak rug she'd advertised in the Globe classifieds. From there, I'd sped to Wayland to see Max Guzman, then across to Sudbury, back to Watertown Square, in to Cambridge, over to Allston, out to Brighton, and finally down to Charles Street.

Garbage picking is really an interesting pursuit. It taught me a lot about restoration. Today I can repair almost anything, from armoires to zithers. Of course, some alleys were more rewarding than others. Those that ran behind Commonwealth Avenue, particularly between Exeter and Arlington streets, were the best in the city. Once I found an exquisite gray marble head of Hermes in a hatbox at the rear of the Baptist church. It was in mint condition, and Sidney Peretz paid me seventy dollars for it. Outside that area, though, the scavenging wasn't quite so good. Around Massachusetts Avenue, for example, the people disposed of very inferior garbage.

I regarded him for a moment. His eyes and cheeks were hollow, his complexion lurid. The poor old bastard looked like a cadaver washed ashore two months after a shipwreck. No wonder he dreamed about funerals.
"Did you drive over?" I asked him.
"Nah -- took that lousy MBTA. Twenty minutes I had to wait, and then I couldn't even get a seat."

(Three pages after his bad time on the MBTA this poor man dies in St. Elizabeth's after being chucked out a window on Westland Avenue.)

You may be getting the impression that the book is 90% just Arnold Hopkins schlimazeling his way through various highly specific Boston locations ... and this is pretty accurate; despite the fact that the protagonist starts out the book afflicted with frequent fifteen-minute amnesia attacks, starts committing grand larceny on page 43, and sells his soul on page 74, I spent the first hundred and fifty pages or so complaining that while I was enjoying the Local Color the book wasn't anywhere near as much of an extravaganza as advertised. "Criminal underuse of an identical twin cousin!" is in fact what I said to

genarti.

However, in the last fifty pages, things ramp up dramatically and by the end I think it is fair to say that the identical twin cousin situation pays off with a vengeance as it turns out that the identical twin cousin has been partnering with a beautiful femme fatale to setting up an elaborate con to frame Arnold for the murder of the femme fatale's older sisters! one of whom is tragically faceless due to a teenaged boat accident! all of which results in the femme fatale and the identical twin cousin dying in a fire in their beautiful apartment (645 Comm Ave, near Gloucester Street) so that Arnold can slide into taking over his identical twin cousin's identity and thriving antiques business, achieving all his dreams, and yet it tastes only of ashes because of having sold his soul to [possibly] the Devil, with the only hope being the elusive possibility of re-opening negotiations via the discovery of an extremely rare commemorative tea towel!

So I'll allow the extravaganza to stand; Mr. Greenan absolutely pulled it off (although caveat emptor, the book was written in 1976 and is rife with casual townie racism.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

teenybuffalo

This sounds bananas and it's intensely about the greater Boston area, and although your description is lurid and detailed, I still can't tell what genre(s) it falls into. I kinda want to read it. Thanks for warning about the racism, into the bargain.

From:

skygiants

Neither can I tbh so perhaps An Extravaganza is the best term for it! (I guess ... noir-satire might be the best description?)

From:

adrian_turtle

I can't name the genre, but I think it's related to whatever Zodiac is. (Batshit, Boston-focused, trash-focused.) Stephenson seems to be writing on the banks of SF, rather than actually in it.

From:

davidgillon

That's a pretty fair description of Zodiac (at least for a non-Bostonian). Definitely SF-adjacent.

From:

sovay

Around Massachusetts Avenue, for example, the people disposed of very inferior garbage.

I flashed on Murray Burns in A Thousand Clowns (1965): "This is your neighbor speaking! Something must be done about your garbage cans in the alley here! It is definitely second-rate garbage! By next week I want to see a better class of garbage—more empty champagne bottles and caviar cans!"

"Nah -- took that lousy MBTA. Twenty minutes I had to wait, and then I couldn't even get a seat."

Boy, that particular shade of local color has dated not at all since 1976, God help us.

and yet it tastes only of ashes because of having sold his soul to [possibly] the Devil, with the only hope being the elusive possibility of re-opening negotiations via the discovery of an extremely rare commemorative tea towel!

I have to ask, how does the tea towel figure in the calculations of his soul?

(This does, in fact, sound as though it achieves extravaganza at the last minute; congratulations.)

From:

skygiants

The [eccentric wealthy businessman who claims to be the] Devil collects rare English pictorial tea towels and his dream is to complete the set ... only such a bargaining chip might open the possibility of either reclaiming his soul from the Devil, or re-negotiating for more money which honestly is probably what he would end up doing, haunted by the taste of ashes or no.

From:

aella_irene

I immediately started attempting to remember rare commemorative tea towels.

From:

skygiants

As I recall, he was very proud of his Guy Fawkes and his Coronation of Edward VIII ....

From:

jadelennox

Boy, that particular shade of local color has dated not at all since 1976, God help us.

Did a chunk of concrete fall on his head? Did his train car catch on fire over the mystic? I'm telling you, maybe present day bostonians should sell our souls to the devil in return for fixing the T; it was apparently better back then. 😔

Edited Date: 2023-04-11 03:35 am (UTC)

From:

skygiants

Honestly it couldn't hurt!

From:

ckd

Was the 645 Comm Ave address described as "near Gloucester" in the book? IIRC that would be west of Kenmore Square (somewhere on the BU campus) and Google Maps agrees. I don't think Comm Ave was renumbered between 1976 and the late 1980s when I was at BU....

From:

skygiants

Yeah, it's definitely described as near Gloucester, and the area near Gloucester St matches up much better with the description of the neighborhood than the area near BU where 645 Comm is actually located, so my guess tbh is that he picked an area that he was thinking of and then changed the number to something that's nowhere near it so that nobody could pick out the actual house.

From:

ckd

That would make a lot of sense. I doubt there are any skipped addresses in that stretch that he could have used as a 555-xxxx equivalent, so he used the address of a Burger King. (Well, it was a Burger King in 1986 and it looked like it could easily have been 10 years old by then.)

From:

landofnowhere

I feel like this should cross over with Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts somehow!

From:

skygiants

I was also thinking that! Those are definitely the two most aggressively Boston books I've ever experienced ...

From:

chestnut_pod

Rare commemorative tea towels indeed!

From:

skygiants

As inherently absurd objects go it's pretty choice, I admit!

From:

jadelennox

I dunno, you maybe get a slightly classier tier of garbage in the Back Bay, but there's a reason September 1 is Allston Christmas; for sheer volume the Back Bay has too few students for the best trash picks. I got an amazing papasan off the street in Somerville, and a whole futon; you're not finding that in the Back Bay. Also I went to high school at Commonwealth and Dartmouth only 10 years after this book and the alley behind Comm Ave was mostly just rats.

On the other hand, you probably get a much better class of identical twin cousin / femme fatale long con hijinks in the Back Bay. The Devil probably doesn't spend much time buying souls in 1970s Allston-Brighton.

From:

skygiants

I think the problem is the students just don't get into the same range of antics to need the buyout ... the people most interested in taking the Devil up on his offer here seem like desperate forty-something dudes with their own failing businesses and those people are not bunking up in Brighton triple-deckers so much.

From:

marginaliana

Twenty minutes I had to wait, and then I couldn't even get a seat." - I feel like the truth of this went away and then came back around again.

From:

skygiants

The range of problems we get now is a little more exciting at least, I'll say that!

From:

bloodygranuaile

Just reading about that drive in the first quoted paragraph is bringing my heart rate up. Owning a car in Boston (Greater or no) has taken years off my life, I swear.

From:

bloodygranuaile

I am also reminded of the conversation at the 2-minute mark of this very classic movie trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLwbzGyC6t4

(The only real authentic Boston movie IMO is The Heat, which starts off with Melissa McCarthy parking her car in a space so tight she has to climb through another car's windows to get out.)