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A review by myrrh
Me and the Devil by Nick Tosches
3.0
I'm going to skip ahead: just put this book down and read Hubert Selby Jr.'s [b:The Demon|46941|The Demon|Hubert Selby Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386923973s/46941.jpg|46011] instead. Honestly, I think Nick Tosches would tell you to do the same.
I was still riding the high of reading Tosches' beautifully-crafted [b:In the Hand of Dante|40664|In the Hand of Dante|Nick Tosches|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1431267963s/40664.jpg|40272] when I picked up [b:Me and the Devil|13701723|Me and the Devil|Nick Tosches|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1340758728s/13701723.jpg|19322711]. One of the things I found brilliant about Dante is Tosches' "trick" of creating a narrator who is, like him, a writer, a hardboiled Italian-American New Yorker, and who is also named Nick Tosches. In Dante it makes a lot of sense: Tosches draws comparisons between his struggle as a writer and thinker and Dante's which are truly poignant. The same tactic in Me and the Devil doesn't serve the story nearly as well.
Me and the Devil includes some truly sublime moments of poetry, but it's blemished by a deluge of racial slurs and casual misogyny that the story fails to justify even within the context of this character-who-just-happens-to-resemble-his-author conceit. Dante includes a memorable rant about editors: Tosches clearly prefers that his editors stay away from actually editing his words - and the man is a poet, no question. But there are huge passages of this book that would have benefited greatly from an editor sitting the author down and asking him to either earn it or cut it.
One personal sidebar: while I was reading this book - actually, just when I considered giving up on it - I discovered Norwegian musician Jenny Hval's album Blood Bitch. Listening to a woman's perspective on gender identity, sociopolitical construction, and... um, vampires, made a perfect soundtrack for some of the more difficult-to-stomach passages of this novel. If you've read this and other reviews and, like me, want to read this book & decide for yourself, I highly recommend putting on this album while you read.
Just to be clear: I didn't entirely hate this book. But I did hate large portions of it. I'd like to think (generously, hopefully) that the project Tosches is engaged with is a critique of the character he called Nick Tosches - a curmudgeonly misogynistic man-child who gets off on saying the n-word and hates pretentious literary snobs while somehow also demonstrating all the characteristics of the worst pretentious snobs himself. The character is rife with contradiction and self-loathing, and this story brings him beyond the brink of death and face to face with the devil himself: but it still feels like Tosches isn't fully committed to picking apart the leathery facade of the character who wears his face. I read the entire book hoping for a definitive moment of actual self-awareness... and instead got several extended "self-awareness" scenes that still left me with... doubts.
Maybe the ambiguity is what he's going for. Certainly, the question of "wait, how much of this is really you" adds to the thrill of In the Hand of Dante, and the ambiguity there serves the story. Coming right up against that edge is something Tosches admires writers like Selby for - which is why, ultimately, if you haven't read Hubert Selby Jr.'s [b:The Demon|46941|The Demon|Hubert Selby Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386923973s/46941.jpg|46011], just read that one instead. I think that's the book Tosches wishes he would have written here. The vampire shit is almost interesting, the sex is almost kinky, and the author's confrontation of his own mortality is almost not overplayed, but ultimately Me and the Devil raises the knife and fails to break the skin.
I was still riding the high of reading Tosches' beautifully-crafted [b:In the Hand of Dante|40664|In the Hand of Dante|Nick Tosches|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1431267963s/40664.jpg|40272] when I picked up [b:Me and the Devil|13701723|Me and the Devil|Nick Tosches|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1340758728s/13701723.jpg|19322711]. One of the things I found brilliant about Dante is Tosches' "trick" of creating a narrator who is, like him, a writer, a hardboiled Italian-American New Yorker, and who is also named Nick Tosches. In Dante it makes a lot of sense: Tosches draws comparisons between his struggle as a writer and thinker and Dante's which are truly poignant. The same tactic in Me and the Devil doesn't serve the story nearly as well.
Me and the Devil includes some truly sublime moments of poetry, but it's blemished by a deluge of racial slurs and casual misogyny that the story fails to justify even within the context of this character-who-just-happens-to-resemble-his-author conceit. Dante includes a memorable rant about editors: Tosches clearly prefers that his editors stay away from actually editing his words - and the man is a poet, no question. But there are huge passages of this book that would have benefited greatly from an editor sitting the author down and asking him to either earn it or cut it.
One personal sidebar: while I was reading this book - actually, just when I considered giving up on it - I discovered Norwegian musician Jenny Hval's album Blood Bitch. Listening to a woman's perspective on gender identity, sociopolitical construction, and... um, vampires, made a perfect soundtrack for some of the more difficult-to-stomach passages of this novel. If you've read this and other reviews and, like me, want to read this book & decide for yourself, I highly recommend putting on this album while you read.
Just to be clear: I didn't entirely hate this book. But I did hate large portions of it. I'd like to think (generously, hopefully) that the project Tosches is engaged with is a critique of the character he called Nick Tosches - a curmudgeonly misogynistic man-child who gets off on saying the n-word and hates pretentious literary snobs while somehow also demonstrating all the characteristics of the worst pretentious snobs himself. The character is rife with contradiction and self-loathing, and this story brings him beyond the brink of death and face to face with the devil himself: but it still feels like Tosches isn't fully committed to picking apart the leathery facade of the character who wears his face. I read the entire book hoping for a definitive moment of actual self-awareness... and instead got several extended "self-awareness" scenes that still left me with... doubts.
Maybe the ambiguity is what he's going for. Certainly, the question of "wait, how much of this is really you" adds to the thrill of In the Hand of Dante, and the ambiguity there serves the story. Coming right up against that edge is something Tosches admires writers like Selby for - which is why, ultimately, if you haven't read Hubert Selby Jr.'s [b:The Demon|46941|The Demon|Hubert Selby Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386923973s/46941.jpg|46011], just read that one instead. I think that's the book Tosches wishes he would have written here. The vampire shit is almost interesting, the sex is almost kinky, and the author's confrontation of his own mortality is almost not overplayed, but ultimately Me and the Devil raises the knife and fails to break the skin.