Dennis Lehane heartily endorses debut noir novel Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto in Sunday’s NYT Book Review. Although he thinks Pizzolatto makes some missteps in the opening chapters — he’s “too self-conscious about [the genre’s] structural baggage” —  he resolves that quickly and then,

…settles into the book he wants to write, an often incandescent fever dream of low-rent, unbearable beauty…in its authenticity and fearless humanism, [Galveston] recalls only the finest examples of the form: Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past and David Goodis’s Down There, Carl Franklin’s One False Move and James Ellroy’s Black Dahlia.

Both the PW and Booklist reviews were strong; Kirkus found it “An unsatisfying split-personality novel redeemed by some terrific dialogue.” Most libraries are showing holds on light ordering.

Pizzolatto published a story collection, Between Here and the Yellow Sea, in 2006.

Galveston: A Novel Nic Pizzolatto Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-06-15) ISBN / EAN: 1439166641 / 9781439166642

Tantor Audio; Read by Michael Kramer; UNABR; Simultaneous

Trade; 9781400117567; 6 Audio CDs; $29.99
Library; 9781400147564; 6 Audio CDs; $71.99
MP3; 9781400167562; 1 MP3-CD; $19.99

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