HOMIES AND HOMEYS

"Hardball" author Sara Paretsky

Ugh - don't you hate it when you're being generous and willing to go with the flow... and all of a sudden you feel like you're being taken advantage of? That this other person is asking for way too much? That's what happened with "Hardball." It's not like the story isn't tightly written (if not a little too Dickensonian for me.... everything turns out to be so coincidental!) or that I didn't like the narrator V.I. Warshawski, but in a novel about shady connections between gang life and the police force of Chicago in '67 , was it so much to ask to properly pluralize 'homie'? I have never seen the spelling of homie pluralized as homeys, which author Sara Paretsky kept doing. So annoying, but more importantly, so jarring. This word is used so often, too. I'm able to forgive the choppy dialogue, but it would have been so easy for Paretsky to use urbandictionary to check up on her word choices. Where was her editor? And also, is it a bit unsettling to read a detective novel about white/black relations in the 60s and present day hyper-segregated Chi-town from a white author who can't spell? It is, to a degree. I think Paretsky is very knowledgeable about the history, but there's a difference between earnest writing and authentic writing. I can feel her TRY. But I'm really impressed, too, with how vividly I was parked into Chicago, and how Paretsky's urgency made me want to explore the city. It is, after all, the birthplace of Kanye West's twitter account. Have you checked it out? Don't do it on a full bladder, you'll piss yourself.

"Hardball" is actually a part of a collection of mystery novels about the private investigator, V.I. (or Vic). She's in her late forties or early fifties, and from what I can tell from brief references, been left for dead on the highway, recently divorced, has nursed a former journalist lover back to health after he was left for dead on an assignment in the Middle East (I guess that's kind of a casualty of knowing Vic). Um, I also believe she's been tortured (numerous times...?). She's rough around the edges, a slob, kinda persnickety, and loves her two dogs. I get along better with dogs, too. I'm just attracted to a much quieter lifestyle is all. If you have some time, you could check out some of the other books in the series.

I borrowed Erykah Badu's "Live" album from the library and sweet Jesus. That voice! She is so fucking weird. I love her.

xx t