Galveston: A Novel

"Excessive" professional thug Roy Cady has been sentenced to death.Not by any court of law but by the doctor whose X-rays reveal the "blizzard" filling up Roy's lungs as it empties him of breath.Louisiana crime boss Stan Ptitko assigns Roy a standard rough-em-up gig, then suspiciously orders Roy not to go strapped. Roy, paranoid and in no hurry to die any earlier than he must, arms himself and walks into a bloodbath.Roy and a young whore-in-training named Rocky are the only people to walk away from the massacre. Roy decides his safest bet is to run back home to Texas. Rocky -- terrified and Texan, too -- doesn't take much persuading to ride along. Roy does regret leaving behind his extensive collection of John Wayne videotapes.On the run with a young girl who's ... pliable, shall we say, Roy tries to be a gentleman. He knows she's trouble, added complications he doesn't need, but he allows her to stay with him. When he keeps the sleeping arrangements above the covers, Rocky marks Roy as a decent guy (for a lethal legbreaker), and Roy winds up taking on an extra passenger: Rocky's little sister, Tiffany. Roy bristles at the prospect of playing patriarch in Rocky's impromptu family, but he can't leave them in his rearview. So, honoring the longtime traditions of outlaws on the run, the trio head for Texas. Any guesses where?The Galveston coast has a storied past of providing refuge and recreation to pirates and scofflaws and reprobates. "You get the impression this place is still nursing a hangover from all that history." Roy has personal history there as well.He shaves his beard and mullet and emerges looking like Warren Oates. He and Rocky fade into a population of redneck drifters along the coast as Tiffany delights in discovering the ocean. Roy feels no drive to pursue payback against his former boss, figuring the ambush was part of a territorial squabble over a tramp who'd dumped Roy for Ptitko.At a beachside motel, a junior biker junkie named Tray, another orphan in search of a father figure, pegs Roy as the criminal type and tries to interest him in knocking off pharmacies. Roy figures he's not going to be around long enough to enjoy the rewards and would rather just sit in the parking lot and get baked by the sun and steady slugs of Johnny Walker.Roy is content in this numb stasis until he finds out just how much trouble Rocky is in. "Some people's crazy was worse than others." Trouble is drawn to trouble, and Tray and Rocky team up to see what kind of trouble they can get into and bring down on Roy's head.And yes, Stan Ptitko is still out there, and the implications of his beef with Roy go beyond a shared bimbo's extensive sexual history.Nic Pizzolatto wrote "Galveston" before he started making big bank on the excellent HBO series "True Detective." Fans should recognize some of the quirks, characteristics and themes of "True Detective" in "Galveston," where they began to germinate: timelines decades apart but converging; the question of inescapable pasts and lives that run in repeating cycles; the possibility of redemption or changing course; the roles men take on for themselves; even little beer can people. But these characters are mostly country-western criminals, so there's little of the heady nihilism espoused by Rust Cohle (which might be disappointing or a huge relief, depending on how seriously you took Rust's ruminations; Thomas Ligotti will probably be grateful not to be asked about "Galveston").Like his fellow HBO scribe David Benioff, Nic Pizzolatto writes prose that's practically screenplay-ready. This is no Michael Crichton cash-in quickie -- there's too much feeling and soul behind it -- but most books geared toward viewing more than reading could stand a little beefing up. "Galveston" is such a fast read that at times, I had a little trouble finding traction. Everything just whizzed by, then I was at the end. Where "True Detective" took on extra depth through its literary qualities, "Galveston" can feel a little lightweight because it's so cinematic.And maybe Pizzolatto didn't need to take out every "of" in the book.

Nic Pizzolatto is best known as the creator of True Detective, the brilliant HBO crime series. In addition to being a superb writer he is an excellent commentator on his own work and on crime writing in general. Don’t miss that commentary in the subsidiary material accompanying the True Detective dvd’s and don’t miss the video clip of him discussing Galveston on the Amazon site.Galveston is the story of Roy Cady, a troubled man who serves a local hood in New Orleans (one of a series of such hoods). Suddenly two things hit him hard: his boss decides to take him out and he is simultaneously diagnosed with lung cancer. He leaves New Orleans with an 18 year-old and heads for a cheap motel in Galveston. Along the way they pick up the woman’s younger sister.(Not to get sidetracked, but the depiction of the motel and its various tenants is nothing short of inspired. They don’t have a restaurant, but the proprietor’s estranged husband has a grill and he cooks sausages in the morning and burgers in the evening. Breakfast is two sausages, without juice, coffee, tea, fruit, eggs or toast, and the tenants gobble them up.)While Roy tries to escape his past and forestall his future, the eighteen year-old, Raquel/Rocky does the same. We know that they are not entirely successful, because the story is told in different time levels. Suddenly, e.g., Roy is wearing an eye patch. Why? While we know that he has escaped a worse fate we are being told that all has not been well. The strains of noir run very deep here; this is very strong material and while the mixed time levels offer some mitigation and consolation we realize as the narrative proceeds that we will need a great deal of both.In talking about his work NP has acknowledged the influence of a number of horror writers. In Galveston the influence of James Lee Burke is clear. Both men know Louisiana and the Gulf Coast like the back of their hands and both are alive to the sights, smells, sounds and the heavy, ominous air which hangs over the lives that are lived there. Both are obsessed with the past and its ability to haunt the present and future. Characteristic, local names (Arceneaux) appear in both and NP has an (homage to Dave) Robicheaux appear in Galveston.The writing here is heartbreakingly beautiful in individual passages and the major plot arcs are pure ‘tragic realism’, to use James Ellroy’s characterization. This is a stunning debut novel, one not to be missed. While it is not for the faint of heart it blurs the line between pure noir and powerful, mainstream fiction.Very highly recommended (and if you don’t know True Detective, discover it at your earliest opportunity).

Nic Pizzolatto wrote 'Galveston', his first novel, in 2010. He's since gone on to create and script True Detective and the remake of The Magnificent Seven.I've not seen either of them but 'Galveston' really shows what his true calling should be. It's a sublime piece of fiction - a really gripping thriller but it's also something much rarer. 'Galveston' is so evocative and haunting, the descriptions are really beautiful and the characters are so well drawn that they feel real. I truly hope this won't be Pizzolatto's last ever novel; he's a hugely gifted prose writer and it's almost unbelievable that this was a first novel.

I enjoyd this. Great story and pretty much true to the (sub)genre but a little slick. Lacked the grittiness to make it 'real'. Close though. Got a bit too clever with a 'twist'. In A Movable Feast Hemingway urges Fitzgerald not to bother with these sorts of technical tricks. Similarly here I think if the author had stuck with the story and the character they wouldn't have needed this emotional trickery, which is a move away from the true spirit of the genre and rather dilutes the spirit of things. I appreciate the desire for commerical success but this sort of trickery can be be pulled off by Tarantino, mostly, but not by others.

I loved True Detective Season one. That being said, I wonder if the things that made that season so good were in spite of Pizzolatto. And the things I did not like about that season, I found in this novel. It's clear that he has a thing for men's men who are deeply flawed, but heroes nonetheless. With Pizzolatto, the guy gets to be a hero, no matter his shortcomings, and the women are either whores, damsels (or both!). The female characters are TERRIBLE (another complaint repeated in TD). Little girls, nags, or whores basically. It was a SLOG to finish, and not worth it.I'm speechless as to the high star reviews here, to put it plainly - don't waste your time with this novel.

It is clear this novel shares DNA with the wonderful True Detective. Both are set in the sinister and atmospheric deep south. Both have troubled and alienated protagonists trying to navigate through this landscape whilst facing ghosts from their pasts. Both use structures that jump back and forward over decades to tell the story.Galveston was deeply satisfying for me on various levels. The plot is really good and had me engaged right to the end and has kept me thinking about how neatly it all hangs together right to the end. But it is more than a tough guy redemption thriller. It also explores some interesting and thought-provoking themes.A major part of this novel is based on how the protagonist's behaviour, attitudes and and world view change when he learns he is dying of cancer. This gangster hitman only starts making selfless and brave decisions when he thinks he is dying. He was perfectly capable of escaping the mess he was in provided he stuck to his professional methods. But this time he didn't. People often say that if they have just a few months to live they would party like it is the end of the world. I dont buy it. Maybe confronting our mortality makes us better people?Another theme he toys with is the unreliablity of memories. His rose-coloured memories of his relationship with a long lost love were shaken back to reality when he tracked her down and she told it like it was. Again by shattering the story he had told himself about his own life focussed him on his present and creating a meaning for his life once freed from the myth.Lookiing forward to the next one

Like many others, I bought this book because I had loved 'True Detective' and I was curious about the writer and his other work. I came away having enjoyed it for its own sake; it has some things in common with the TV drama series - atmosphere, characterisation - but is by no means a spin-off or a cash-in.Really, 'Galveston' is a slice of noir fiction which could have been filmed in black-and-white in the late 40s or early 50s without seeming too much out of place. Its [anti]hero is a weary hitman called Roy who falls into a kind of love with a sad-eyed escort girl he rescues from a New Orleans crimescene. There's more to both of them than meets the eye, and the narrative switches between their brief platonic romance as they flee to the Texas coast and a timeframe twenty years on, when you might say everything and nothing has changed.It's hard to say more without spoiling the plot, but the point of Galveston is really its prose - almost Chandleresque in its wry, laconic observation - and the evocation of a feverish, heat-oppressed landscape where people too easily lose hope. The characterisation is solid, though because this is a first-person narrative that's maybe more so for Roy than for the flotsam and jetsam he encounters along the way.For a short debut novel, thought, it's an impressive achievement, and stays in the mind long afrter the last page is reached.