With his clipped, jagged prose and darkly imaginative plots, Ridley has proven himself as one of the new chroniclers of the rot that some find festering beneath the glistering veneer of Los Angeles. Here, he's in good form, slashing out a black comedy that may be a little too disturbing for some tastes, but is nonetheless memorable. In Ridley's city of unattainable dreams, Paris Scott is its personification. He works the night shift at a scuzzy Hollywood mini-mart, drives a '74 Gremlin and was recently declared a loser by his ex-girlfriend. But Paris finally gets his break: he comes into possession of the last musical works of rocker Ian Jermaine, just before the star commits suicide. Paris tries to sell the tape for $1 million but quickly finds that several people would rather kill him for it. Also in Paris's possession--unbeknownst to him--is a large quantity of cocaine that a different set of killers want back. After Paris clumsily dodges several murder attempts, he flees to that other city of tacky dreams, Las Vegas, where the mayhem continues. The narrative is peopled by all sorts of misfits and undesirables--oily Hollywood agents and their insufferable sidekicks, ignorantly vicious drug dealers, tragically hopeful immigrants and a beautiful expert at torture who savors the driving beat of Bachman-Turner Overdrive while inflicting pain on her victims. There's a moral here--that there are no easy roads to success and fulfillment--and Ridley (Stray Dogs; Love Is a Racket) gets around to that point after all the blood is spilled. His writing may ooze bitter disdain for L.A., but it's clear that the city fascinates him just as much as it repels him. Though his strong, conversational voice carries the story, one hopes that next time around he'll put his talent to work on a plot with more depth and substance. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Everybody Smokes in Hell
Narrated by Peter Francis James
John RidleyUnabridged — 9 hours, 29 minutes
Everybody Smokes in Hell
Narrated by Peter Francis James
John RidleyUnabridged — 9 hours, 29 minutes
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Overview
Editorial Reviews
In his cynically comical third novel, Ridley (Love Is a Racket) exposes the seedy underworld of glamorous Hollywood. Paris Scott is a young man who arrives in this land of dreams planning to become a rich movie mogul--but instead ends up working nights at a convenience store. When, by mistake, he gains possession of a valuable recording and a stash of stolen drugs, he jumps at what he sees as his opportunity to get rich quick. But the contraband brings a dangerous parade of Hollywood agents, drug dealers, and women into his life and sends him running from L.A. to Vegas. As usual, Ridley ably strings together a series of unlikely events, making them seem wholly plausible. Continual action, believably unsympathetic characters, and minimal description combine to keep the reader riveted. A welcome change of pace from much of today's plodding fiction; recommended for all public libraries.--Craig L. Shufelt, Lane P.L., Hamilton, OH Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Ridley's either one bad motha of a writer or simply one bad writer. But his stories in any case remain always at a boil and show a rich mastery of black English. Someone gotsta pay because he stolt Daymond's pure package of H and kilt his clocker. That someone is young Paris Scott, who has been working in a Hollywood convenience store. Like Ridley's degenerate gambler, John Stewart, in Stray Dogs (1997) and scriptwriter Jeffty Kittridge in Love Is a Racket (1998), Paris is a born loser unlikely to realize his million-dollar dream even when it drops into his lap. Paris's roommate is Buddy, teenage wheelman for Alfonso, who kills a roomful of mothas while copping Daymond's H, though Alfonso himself takes much lead and dies. Buddy hides the H in a duffel bag under Paris's bed, little knowing that the bag also holds the last works of Ian Jermaine, lead singer and composer for zillion-dollar rock group Will of Instinct. The night before, Paris had saved Filthy White Guy from being rousted and driven him home to his Xanadulike palace in Bel Air. Filthy White Guy turns out to be suicide-hungry Jermaine, eager to fill the legendary footprints of Marilyn, Jimmy Dean, and Jim Morrison. He's just taped his farewell in his home studio, playing all the instruments himself, and actually does go out in a blaze of glory—or, rather, fertilizer. With the tape and the H in his duffel, Paris has four different killers chasing him from Hollywood to Las Vegas. One is Brice, a female assassin whose specialty is deep pain before long-delayed oblivion. "She had great tits. Real and large. Not mutant-large, just large enough to fit with precision comfort into a man's wide and groping hand. Her twobeautiful boobs swelled in an upward curve ending in full nipples that always looked erect. Her tits were the least of her. She was a hell of a woman." If you like that, there's plenty more—or even if you don't.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170733798 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 02/07/2008 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
"Three oh three."
"What if I don't got it?" His smile went on saying "Fuck you."
Buddy: "Give him the money, Alf."
Alfonso just kept staring at Paris, kept smiling at him, kept waiting for him to do something, the something he knew Paris would never do except stand there while a guy cracked wise at him.
Buddy again: "Just give him the money!"
"Fucking wimp." Alfonso looked straight ahead, but he could've been talking to either of the roommates; to both of them.
Buddy clawed for his wallet. "Here, take it." His fingers moved so quick they were barely able to dig free some bills and fumble them to the counter. "Just take the money."
"Fucking wimp." This time, for sure, it was meant for Buddy.
Buddy to Alf: "We don't need any extra drama. Not tonight."
Paris to Buddy: "Why you getting messed up with this guy?" It was a rhetorical question. Paris knew Buddy well enough to be hepped to his aspirations of becoming a hustler and a player; a man who was connected and respected. Like every other nobody in LA, he wanted to be somebody.
The dude Buddy had chosen to apprentice under, Alfonso, was none of the things Buddy wanted to be, but he mimed the banter and faked the rest good enough so that being in Alf's proximity made Buddy feel like he was moving smooth and steady along the road to Mack-dom.
And it's not that Paris much cared what Buddy did or who with, but Alf was such an obvious fuckup he had to ask his roomie: "Why you wasting time with him?"
"How about you just worry about your own shit?" Alfonso stepped in to cover for Buddy.
"Wasn't talking to you."
"Well, I'mtelling you. . . ." Alfonso pressed himself up against the counter. It was all that separated him from Paris, and there was nothing but empty air to keep Alfonso from reaching out and giving Paris a great and mighty ass-kicking if he wanted.
Paris took a slight but obvious step back.
"Worry about your own shit, or I'll give you some shit to worry about."
Shared stares. Alf's angry, Paris's anxious, Buddy's scared. Eyes flinching around the room, sweat streaking over his forehead, Buddy was a long way from quitting his nervous-guy ways.
He inched for the door: "I'm . . . I'm gonna . . ."
"Do yourself a favor, Buddy. All this guy's going to bring you is trouble."
"What are you, his mommy?" Alfonso cutting in, not giving up the press.
"What are you? Nothing but a wannabe hood."
Reflexively Paris flinched in anticipation of the automatic punch to the head that was likely to follow that brand of smart mouth.
But the remark didn't so much bother Alfonso as give him something else to fuck-you smile about.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "I'm nothing. Why don't you say that again while you're ringing up a Big Guzzle. I'm nothing . . . and you're nothing but a loser."
For a real quick second a picture flashed in Paris's mind. A picture of her screaming those same words at him, the memory of it a bitter sting like a bad scar that won't fade away.
"Shut up!" Paris yelled back.
"How's the world look from across that counter? Better get used to the view.
"Get out of here!"
Alfonso got out. He took all the slow-groove time he wanted doing it. Buddy tagged along behind.
Paris was left standing right where he was, kept close company by the shame of so readily accepting the humiliation he'd been handed.
A beat later the filthy white guy took up the space at the counter Alfonso had previously filled, his arms brimming with frozen burritos. Frozen burritos were a popular item with late-night hopheads. The filthy white guy opened his arms and the burritos thudded on the counter cinder-block heavy.
Without putting thought to it, Paris scanned the burritos as he'd done with tens of dozens of frozen burritos and frozen pizzas and frozen burgers and frozen chili dogs he'd rung up in the thirty nights and counting he'd been working at the 24/7 Mart.
Thirty nights.
One month.
Happy anniversary, Paris.
Paris said: "Eight dollars."
Filthy White Guy dug gangly hands in his pockets; pale fingers pulled out a bill. A hundred-dollar bill. Filthy White Guy just held it up for Paris like it was nothing but ordinary for a filthy white guy to come around a 24/7 Mart in the middle of the night buying frozen burritos with a hundred-dollar bill.
Paris took the bill and looked it over careful, as if he would know a fake one when he saw it. After going through the motion of giving Ben Franklin all the attention he felt he deserved, to Filthy White Guy: "Welfare been good to you, huh? I always knew even poor white guys was rich."
Barely Paris made change, gave it back to Filthy White Guy. Filthy White Guy jammed the fistful of bills in his pocket with all the care of someone who'd gotten back used Kleenex for their cash.
Scooping up the burritos, Filthy White guy carried them -- dropping a few along the way, they bounced off the linoleum -- over to the complimentary 24/7 Mart microwave and put them, all of them, inside.
Paris, who had watched this one-man "Just Say No" campaign, came around the counter. "C'mon. One at a time."
It was just then the two thirteen-year-olds, who had been laying in wait for the perfect op, reached over the counter and grabbed the Penthouse they'd been eyeing all night.
"Hey!" Paris moved for the kids.
Filthy White Guy turned on the microwave.
The overstuffed machine groaned and flashed and popped and spewed radiated burritos all over the store.
The kids made it out the door.
Everywhere, burrito parts dripped and slid and oozed in downward patterns.
Paris caught a glimpse of himself in one of the Mart's security mirrors. His body, draped in the multicolored uniform, distorted by the curve of the glass, made him look very much like a pathetic circus clown.
"I can't deal with this," the clown muttered. "I can't deal with it."
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