Synopses & Reviews
Recalling the moody violence of the early novels of Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson, a dark and visceral debut set along the seedy wastelands of Galveston by a young writer with a hard edge to his potent literary style
On the same day that Roy Cady is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he senses that his boss, a dangerous loan-sharking bar-owner, wants him dead. Known “without affection” to members of the boss's crew as “Big Country” on account of his long hair, beard, and cowboy boots, Roy is alert to the possibility that a routine assignment could be a deathtrap. Which it is. Yet what the would-be killers do to Roy Cady is not the same as what he does to them, which is to say that after a smoking spasm of violence, they are mostly dead and he is mostly alive. Before Roy makes his getaway, he realizes there are two women in the apartment, one of them still breathing, and he sees something in her frightened, defiant eyes that causes a fateful decision. He takes her with him as he goes on the run from New Orleans to Galveston, Texas — an action as ill-advised as it is inescapable. The girl's name is Rocky, and she is too young, too tough, too sexy — and far too much trouble. Roy, Rocky, and her sister hide in the battered seascape of Galveston's country-western bars and fleabag hotels, a world of treacherous drifters, pickup trucks, and ashed-out hopes. Any chance that they will find safety there is soon lost. Rocky is a girl with quite a story to tell, one that will pursue and damage Roy for a very long time to come in this powerful and atmospheric thriller, impossible to put down. Constructed with maximum tension and haunting aftereffect, written in darkly beautiful prose, Galveston announces the arrival of a major new literary talent.
Review
"As Pizzolatto switches smoothly between past to present, he vividly captures Galveston in all its desperate vulnerability as it faces the approach of Hurricane Ike." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"Nic Pizzolatto is one of the most exciting young writers to come along in ages. His collection is first-rate, and Pizzolatto is going to be wowing us for a long, long time to come." Steve Yarborough, author of The Oxygen Man and Prisoners of War
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"Galveston is an assured debut full of hard truths, a throwback novel that ends up shouldering the noir genre forward." Chuck Hogan, author of Devils in Exile and Prince of Thieves
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"Nic Pizzolatto’s beautiful, lucid prose seems to flow like water or like music. He knows how to write in the marrow of his bones. This will be the first of many brilliant books. Hooray for talent, that rare and lovely gift of the gods." Ellen Gilchrist, author of Victory Over Japan and Nora Jane
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"These brilliant, if often bleak, stories offer a world of choices and realities. You want to stay awhile with these characters — some of them won't look you in the eye, but follow that sidelong glance; there will be something worth seeing there, something unforgettable." Times-Picayune
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"[A] taut first novel suffused with a strong noir sensibility...a fine crime-fiction debut." Booklist
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"Galveston is a haunting and haunted tale, beautifully rendered, an uncommonly well written thriller moving in its descriptions of people struggling to escape the gravity of the past amid a ruinous landscape." -- Kem Nunn, author of Tijuana Straights
Review
"An often incandescent fever dream of low-rent, unbearable beauty.... Galveston, in its authenticity and fearless humanism, recalls only the finest examples of the form." - New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Nic Pizzolatto's fiction has appeared in the Atlantic, the Oxford American, the Missouri Review, the Iowa Review, Best American Mystery Stories and other publications. His work has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award, and his story collection Between Here and the Yellow Sea was named by Poets & Writer’s Magazine as one of the top five fiction debuts of the year. He lives in Indiana.