Pariah

Badass Gets Out of Jail #2

by Dave Zeltserman

Named by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009.

"What a sick puppy of a writer Dave Zeltserman is!...a doozy of a doom-laden crime story that not only makes merry with the justice system, but also satirizes those bottom feeders in the publishing industry who would sign Osama bin Laden to a six-figure contract for his memoirs, if only they could figure out which cave to send their lawyers into...I'd say Zeltserman can't top Pariah for its sheer diabolical inventiveness, but he probably will. And given that the corrupting vision of his work is so powerful, I ought to know better than to read the next novel he writes. But I probably will anyway." Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post

"This fusion of hardboiled and bitter satire is brand new territory for noir and I suspect that it will be one of the most talked about novels of 2009." Ed Gorman

"Pariah will keep you glued to its pages. There are no holds barred anywhere in this wonderful launch into evil. The meek beware . . . be-very-ware." Charlie Stella

"Pariah is sure to catapult Zeltserman head and shoulders above other Boston authors. This is not only a great crime book, but a gripping read that will crossover to allow greater exposure for this rising talent." BOOKGASM.com

Once part of the holy triumvirate ruling the South Boston Irish Mob, Kyle Nevin is set up with the Feds by head mobster Red Mahoney, who leads him to a court case and a stretch in the slammer. Now out of prison, Kyle wants revenge on his old boss and mentor and, just as importantly, to reclaim his former glory. A kidnapping gone wrong leads, bizarrely, to a major book deal and a newfound celebrity status for Kyle. However, it also brings about bigger problems for both himself and anyone unlucky enough to cross his path. With this dark riff and contemporary theme, Zeltserman shows why he is the heir of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain.

Dave Zeltserman lives in the Boston area with his wife. His previous novel Small Crimes was included in The Washington Post's best books of 2008 and was one of NPR's top five crime and mystery novels of 2008.

Genres: Crime, Noir, Mystery, Thriller, Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2009

About the author

Author of the crime noir novel SMALL CRIMES named by NPR as the best crime and mystery novel of 2008, and by the Washington Post as one of the best novels of 2008, and made into a major film (to be released in 2017) starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Molly Parker, Gary Cole, Robert Forster, and Jacki Weaver.

Shamus Award winner for JULIUS KATZ. Ellery Queen's Readers Choice Award winner for ARCHIE'S BEEN FRAMED and ARCHIE SOLVES THE CASE.

PARIAH named by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009. THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD (2010) shortlisted by American Library Association for best horror novel of the year and named a horror gem by Library Journal. MONSTER selected by Booklist Magazine for their 2013 list of top 10 horror novels and WBUR for one of the best novels of the year.

OUTSOURCED (2011) and THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD are also currently being developed for film.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mixing the coke and that pill was a bad idea.

Yeah, I think I read somewhere that Viagra didn't mix well with other items. But that's just one of the many bad ideas Irish mobster Kyle Nevin has upon getting out of prison. The one understandable idea, revenge on his ex-boss "Red" Mahoney (an obvious Whitely Bulger type), keeps getting side tracked due to complications as Kyle tries to set things up for the big score that will fund his mission of vengeance. First off, his brother Danny has gone soft, a working stiff with a girlfriend (who hates Kyle at first sight). Danny is key for a planned kidnapping scheme that Kyle has set up with another ex-prisoner. And then there's the neighborhood, Boston's notorious "Southie," which has changed since Kyle last roamed the streets eight years before. Gentrification is changing the character (such as it was) of this violent area. The "Code" seems to have vanished, and "rats" are everywhere. Kyle just does't know what to make of it all as he hurtles brutally along, smashing faces, getting drunk, having sex in public places. On top of all of this Kyle, at 42, is starting to feel his age (see that little blue pill). He can't sleep at night, can't drink like he used to, people don't fear him (though they should) as in the old days, and he's forced to cruise the streets in his brother's battered Honda Civic (with 300,000 miles on it). Jeez.

Just looking at the skeleton of this story, you can see there's nothing all that new here, but don't be fooled, Zeltserman has crafted a nasty masterpiece. Kyle Nevin is one of the biggest pieces of shit I've encountered in fiction. It's a lot for the reader to take in. I've even noticed that a few reviewers seemed to have docked this book a star due to be being so repulsed by Nevin. I don't see it that way. To me this is black comedy, like something the Coen Brothers might pull off (See Fargo). Pariah is definitely in the woodchipper zone. If you were able to laugh at that, you can handle Nevin (though you may want to take a shower afterwards). Zeltserman also adds an extra wrinkle, making Nevin an aspiring author, a shift in the story that really turns into a savage (and funny as hell) indictment of the publishing industry. This late turn initially bothered me, but Zeltserman juggles this part of the story wonderfully, while at the same time tipping his hat to crime masters of the past. That's risky writing, and here it works well, with Nevin's voice raging (and typing) to the end that he's still on top of the world.

[Ed [Redacted] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nevin is a bad, bad man. I don't mean a cool bad guy like Parker or something. I mean a slimy, vicious, evil, arrogant, violent, self absorbed, sociopathic son of a bitch. He is one of the least sympathetic protagonists I have ever read. Nevin is just fucking evil.

Things Nevin gives a shit about;
1. Killing Red Mahoney
2. Money
3. Respect
4. Money

Things Nevin does not give a shit about;
1. Killing women
2. Killing children
3. The innocent
4. Puppies (I'm actually just making an educated guess here)
5. Everything else

The story begins with South Boston Irish gangster Kyle Nevin being released from prison after an eight year stretch for armed robbery. He refused parole and did all of his time. Nevin was set up by his one time mentor, a Whitey Bulger type character known as "Red" Mahoney. Nevin deeply wants revenge against Red, who has fled Bulger like. In order to fund his search for Red, Nevin cooks up a kidnapping plan that goes horribly wrong.

From the text it is clear that what we are reading is a draft written by Nevin for future publication. (he gives notes to his editor in a few places.) Also from the text it is clear that Nevin is quite unreliable in his narration.

One of the more interesting twists is Nevin's entry into the world of publishing after his crimes make him a celebrity. The skewering of the publishing industry is a nice touch but most interesting is the thing Nevin finally does, the thing that makes him the pariah of the title, the one unforgivable thing that Nevin does after all the heinous crimes he has committed.

Pariah is a pretty damned good book, 4/5 stars, but the protagonist is such an unsympathetic asshole that this may cause problems for some readers.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dave Zeltserman sure knows how to write a mean bastard – Kyle Nevin is a free man after enduring an 8 year bid for armed robbery, his stay courtesy of his former boss Red Mahoney, a big time criminal underworld figure turned FBI informant. Naturally the only thing on Kyle’s mind is revenge; however the violence isn’t equally distributed to the desired as family members, former associates, hostages, and companions feel the brunt of Kyle’s wrath. Pariah is a very easy book to read with a linear plot, engaging characters and fast paced action. It takes a lot of talent to create a main character that evokes such strong emotions of hatred from the reader – make no mistake, Kyle Nevin is a one man army with no redeeming qualities who you are compelled to read about to see what depraved level of inhumanity he’ll sink to next. Fantastic – 5 stars.

[MM Suarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I don’t know, there was some sadness and maybe even a touch of pity behind their smiles and well wishes; kind of like I was a washed-up prize fighter, a guy who used to be a champ but was now just a punch-drunk bum."

It is impossible to come up with one good thing to say about Kyle Nevin, even for an author like Zeltserman who writes extra dark crime noir this character is over the top. Nevin blows up his own life as well as the life of those who are unlucky enough to know him. Driven by revenge, self pity and delusions not necessarily in that order, he manages to screw up an incredible opportunity to write and get a book published because he can't be anything other than what he is, a cheat and a bad, bad, man. Dave Zeltserman is not for everyone, this novel is dark and gruesome at times, so proceed with caution. I enjoyed it and appreciated the not so subtle dig at the publishing industry.

[AC]

Better than Small Crimes,but still too many false notes. I’ll leave this author to others. “Sophomoric nihilism”

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dave Zeltserman’s Pariah takes noir for a ride with one of the more despicable characters this side of Bret Easton Ellis’s Patrick Bateman (from American Psycho). Kyle Nevin is let out of prison after a 9 year stint for a foiled bank robbery, with now on-the-lam Southie crime boss Red Mahoney as the guy who ratted Kyle out. Kyle isn’t exactly into reform or starting a new life. He wants revenge, and anyone in his way doesn’t stay in his way for long. Like Bateman, Kyle as a violent sociopath, a force of nature (one from which we can’t look away), albeit a cultivated one. He’s a wonderfully unreliable narrator, even pseudo-confessing to inaccuracies (or him replacing actual events with some over-the-top American male, consumer obsessed type fantasies) to an unnamed “editor.” Yeah, an editor, as in Kyle is ready and willing and even able (despite a horribly botched kidnapping attempt) to cash in on his celebrity.

Pariah is at turns brutal, violent, and a funny, scathing satire of our celebrity obsessed consumer culture and publishing industry. Really couldn’t put the book down, I poured through it in one day.

[Diana Nagy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent read....couldn't stop reading! Highly recommend! Don't miss out on this terrific author...I am definitely going to be seeking his work from here on out!

[Schurkenblog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keine Chance auf Läuterung. Eine düstere, hoffnungslose Geschichte, von der man ahnt: das geht nicht gut aus. Ein Tipp für Noir-Leser! Und ein Antitipp für Optimisten und Leuten, die davon überzeugt sind, jeder hätte eine zweite Chance verdient. Manche sind einfach durch und durch verdorben.

Kyle Nevin hat nichts gelernt. Nach 8 Jahren Gefängnis ist er kein bisschen geläutert. Im Gegenteil, kaum die Gitter hinter sich gelassen, macht er genau dort weiter, wo er damals unterbrochen wurde.
Nur 8 Jahre haben seine Welt verändert. Alte Kollegen versuchen ihr Leben ohne Verbrechen zu leben, andere sind zu Ratten, Verrätern, geworden. Oder untergetaucht. Oder tot. Oder so gut wie.

Kyle Nevin ist kein Typ, den man mögen kann. Er hat nichts aus seinen Fehlern gelernt und versucht selbst seinen Bruder wieder auf eine verbrecherische Bahn zu lenken. Außerdem will er Rache. An seinem ehemaligen Gangsterboss, der ihn verraten hat und nun untergetaucht ist. Dafür braucht er Kohle. Und da handelt er wirklich skrupellos.

„Paria“ zeigt die Geschichte eines Antihelden, einer unsympathischen Figur, die in einer Welt gefangen ist, die von Gangstern, Alkohol, Schlägereien, Drogen, „Nutten“, Erpressungen regiert wird. „Paria“ zeigt auch den Werdegang eines Mannes, der so gar nichts aus seiner Strafe gelernt hat. Er ist einfach ein abgrundtief missratener Typ, zu dem man als Leser so eine Art Hassliebe entwickelt.

Und „Paria“ gibt diesen Typen Raum. Denn Kyle selbst erzählt die Geschichte, wie aus den „Anmerkungen für das Lektorat“ hervorgeht, denn es ist sein Buch, seine Lebensgeschichte. So gesehen gibt es einen kleinen Seitenhieb auf die Medienbranche, die solchen Typen Geld dafür gibt, berühmt zu werden, zu Wort zu kommen. Aber auch das geht natürlich nicht gut aus, sonst wäre es ja nicht noir.

Für Noir-Leser eine empfehlenswerte, durch und durch hoffnunglose Geschichte, von der man schon am Anfang ahnt: Das geht niemals gut aus. No happyend garantiert.

Anmerkung: „Paria“ ist der zweite Band der „Badass gets out of Jail - Reihe“, kann aber unabhängig von den anderen Bänden gelesen werden. Nur das Thema „Exknacki“ verbindet die Bücher, die Geschichten selbst sind in sich abgeschlossen.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are anti-heroes and there are anti-humans. Kyle Nevin is both. Released from prison after eight years, he's out to avenge himself on the crime boss who set him up, make a big chunk of change quickly, and. indirectly, destroy as many lives as he can. The story is presented as a memoir written for publication by some unknown editor, whom Kyle addresses during the flow of the action. The violence is over the top, the shenanigans of Kyle are atrocious, and it all eventually grates on the reader. The Southie (that's South Boston to those who don't live here) denizens are all amoral and pro-criminal, except for when they rat on a friend. That Kyle has so many friends and well-wishers is unbelievable. That a gorgeous woman would fall so head over heels for the lug strains credulity. Is Kyle making this stuff up? He admits to it a couple of times in the notes to the editor. This is a Raod-Runner cartoon version of the Whitey Bulger story. Fiction generally makes more demands than non-fiction; it has to be truthful while reality does not.

[Soho_Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

It happens rarely, but sometimes you get to the end of a book and what has gone before leaves you speechless. As a reader, this is a wonderful feeling, as you've just been through a great experience. As a book reviewer, however, it presents a problem, as you tend to have to sum up a book in more than no words. My first draft of this review read simply "..."

"Pariah" is the story of Kyle Nevin. A little over eight years ago, he was part of the mob running South Boston. He was set up by his boss Red Mahoney and was jailed for an armed robbery. Recently released from prison, he has his mind set on revenge. Prison hasn't mellowed Kyle the way it did his brother Danny and he's not about to settle for a life as an ordinary working man. However, he's found that South Boston has changed in the eight years he's been in prison and he doesn't have the same power or respect he used to.

Before he can track down Red, Kyle needs to get the resources to do so and he has a plan to get several million dollars so he can do just that. Things don't go so well, but a letter he sends to the New York Times brings him to the attention of a publisher, who is keen for him to write a book about what he may or may not have done. Suddenly, Kyle has a Plan B and he looks set to make more money honestly than he ever had as a criminal and South Boston is now looking at him in a new way.

The story is presented as the writing of Kyle Nevin himself, complete with occasional notes to an editor regarding sections where he may have taken minor liberties with the story to put himself in a better light. It's wonderfully done, as you get to see glimpses of his ego amongst the violence and anger he has made his life. Whilst Zeltserman rarely describes his characters in detail physically, leaving you unable to picture them terribly well, the insights he provides into Nevin's psyche let you get more of a feel for him as a person.

Whilst the physical descriptions aren't detailed, he does pick out characteristics, the same kinds of thing that would first draw the eye if someone like Nevin was looking at them, so you at least get a good feel for appearances, if not an exact picture. He does much the same for the locations, so you don't get to feel South Boston as a whole, but you get a decent impression of Nevin's South Boston. Indeed, as a further touch of realism, he pays more attention to describing women and their distinguishing features than he does of the men and when he visits somewhere he wouldn't usually go, such as his visits to New York, the descriptions of places he's seeing for the first time and isn't accustomed to get additional detail.

Kyle Nevin isn't a particularly likeable character. Of course, the aim isn't to make him out to be a hero. He may have been wronged, which was how he ended up in prison, but he's wronged more people in worse ways and continues to do so. Nevin isn't trying to make himself out to be a sympathetic character and he shows no remorse. The intention here is simply to tell the story, not to distract the reader with thoughts about right or wrong and in that aim, Zeltserman succeeds admirably. This isn't a book about the good guys and the bad guys, it's a story all about the bad guys. Nevin's just a man from the mean streets of Boston, he's not necessarily proud of what he's done, but he demands respect and he's unapologetic of what he's done to ensure he gets it.

With books like this, you can often find they're all style and very little substance. With "Pariah", Zeltserman writes not only with great attention to stylistic matters, but he also has a great eye for a story. Kyle Nevin is the kind of man who once he knows what he wants; he's in a hurry to get it. He comes out of prison with an aim and he's going to get there as quickly as he can and the pace with which he moves through the things that need to be done to achieve that is reflected in the pace of the writing and the pace of the story. It's relentless and leaves the reader almost breathless at times.

What really stuck out for me in the overall brilliance of the book was the ending. So often in stories like this, the author waters down the ending in a weak effort to tie up loose ends. Zeltserman doesn't fall into this trap. Once the story is over it ends and that's it. If there are loose ends, they stay loose and that makes the ending the best and most honest ending to any book of this kind I recall reading.

There's nothing bad I could say about "Pariah" and it's not often I find that. It's the perfect mixture of style and substance and the unusual way the story is told adds a lot to the book and to the genre as a whole. It's the kind of book that is going to spoil whatever I read next, as it's going to be found wanting compared to this. This is a book that anyone with even the slightest interest in the crime or thriller genres simply must get their hands on, as it's bound to have a huge impact on you.

This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zeltserman can write a crime novel.

[Kin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un noir di grande impatto che si rifà agli hardboiled anni '40-'50.Notevole.

[Bruce MacBain · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are novels that invite us to inhabit the mind of an amoral sociopath. (The Ripley stories of Patricia Highsmith are an excellent example.) Pariah, Dave Zeltzerman’s latest crime novel, asks us to make ourselves at home inside the skin of one Kyle Nevin. Not everyone will feel comfortable there. Kyle is an Irish-American gangster from Boston’s ‘Southie.’ His CV includes bank robbery, vicious beatings, prodigious drinking, a vocabulary limited to four-letter words, and the torture and murder of children—for none of which he feels a shred of guilt. The story is told through his first-person point of view.

We meet Kyle as he returns to Boston after an eight-year prison stretch for bank robbery and we learn that he was set up for the fall by Red Mahoney, the erstwhile leader of the gang in which Kyle was an enforcer. Red, it turns out, had betrayed his own men to the FBI in return for favors and is now hiding out somewhere in Europe. Kyle has sworn to track the ‘rat-bastard’ down and kill him. The plot is, of course, reminiscent of the career of Whitey Bulger, chief of Boston’s notorious Winter Hill Gang. Kyle Nevin, himself, bears a passing resemblance to Bulger hit man, Kevin Weeks.

Kyle easily slips back into his old life—drinking vast quantities of Guinness and Bushmills at his local bar, where he is idolized; shacking up with a slumming nymphomaniac named Nola; and beating people to a pulp for the occasional snide remark. But Kyle needs money to track down Mahoney and so concocts a plan to kidnap the young son of a well-to-do suburban family. To help him he has to enlist his younger brother, Danny, a former thug who is now going straight and liking it. Kyle succeeds in winning Danny reluctantly back into ‘the game.’ But the kidnapping goes horribly wrong and it is Danny who suffers the consequences.

At this point the plot takes an unexpected turn. Kyle, having beaten the kidnapping rap, is invited by a New York publisher to write a novel, using a character similar to himself, as if he had done the crime. (Are we meant to think of O. J. Simpson’s short-lived If I Did It?) The rest of the story follows this thread, indulging along the way in every writer’s fantasy of being a best-selling novelist with a million-dollar publicity campaign and a spot on Oprah. But, alas, Kyle just can’t catch a break and the conclusion is, not surprisingly, a blood-soaked catastrophe.

Zeltserman’s style is unadorned but effective. However, whether or not one wants to spend a couple of days inside his hero’s head, each reader must decide for himself.

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like dark, gritty noir realism, then you need to read Dave Zeltserman’s books. The first person narratives of his prison release trilogy drop you into the world of troubled men and paint extraordinary rich characters. Pariah is no different. Kyle Nevin is driven by a grim determination to rule by fear and to seek whatever he desires by any means except those legitimate. He professes to have a moral code of sorts – sticking by family and brothers in arms – but everyone else is fair game. Ultimately though he’s fighting a battle of himself against the world and he’s prepared to do anything to make sure the world loses. At times, the feeling of realism in Zeltserman’s writing is disturbing, especially in the first half of the book. The second half felt a little rushed at times, with a few key events a little underdeveloped, taking up very little of the narrative and quickly moving on. The twist at the end was clever, but felt a tad contrived. I also felt that the whole Whitey Bulger riff was a bit tired, explored in other books such as Adrian McKinty’s Bloomsbury set and Richard Marinick’s Boyos, and no doubt others. As a result, in my view, Pariah was a good read, but not quite on the same par as the other two books in the prison release trilogy: Small Crimes and Killer. Given how stellar those two books are that’s no great criticism. To repeat: if you like noir read Zeltserman, you won’t be disappointed.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an example of noir, Dave Zeltserman’s Pariah, the second installment in his man-out-of-prison trilogy, is a cross between Don Tracy’s Round Trip (1934) and Jason Starr’s Fake I.D. (2000). Like Round Trip, the structure of Pariah is episodic. There are several plot elements in the first three-quarters of the novel (including a revenge plot, some family psychodrama, a kidnapping, and a trial), any one of which could have been the foundation of a thriller with a conventional plot arc. But, as in Round Trip, the plot wanders, trading narrative tension for a heightened sense of realism. The major difference between Round Trip and Pariah is that the protagonist of Tracy’s novel, Eddie Magruder, is basically a sympathetic character, while the protagonist of Zeltserman’s novel, Kyle Nevin, is fairly loathsome from the moment the novel begins. Thus, like Jason Starr with Tommy Russo, the unsympathetic protagonist of Fake I.D., Zeltserman takes a chance that he can make readers care enough about the fate of an unlikeable character to keep reading. Combine this risk with the risky plot structure, and Pariah becomes a noir high-wire act. But if Zeltserman gets you across the wire, you will be rewarded at the other side.

[J.F. Juzwik · Rating 5 out of 5]

The reader is spared nothing in this brutal and despairing story. You are taken on a journey through the frightening, corrupt and violent streets and forced to interact with the lowest of the low. There is nothing socially redeeming here. It is a story, after all, of an insatiable desire for revenge--pure and simple. Noone fights for right or honor or seeks their way to the light. It is all about getting back what was taken and then some. It is a look at the human spirit in its basest form. It is a gem and a half, and you will absolutely love it.

[Metagion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Talk about a hard hitting book! If it were a person, it would've been Mike Tyson in his heyday, and you wouldn't know what hit you! Gritty, down-and-dirty story that puts most writers to shame! (Plus it doesn't hurt that I'm originally from Massachusetts, so I know where he speaks when he mentions places!) :) Get this book and be prepared for a no-nonsense I'll-kill-you-for-kicks kind of book you'll long remember :)

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book in Zeltserman's "trilogy" is a cut (or a shot) above the first, the darkness of the first volume painted midnight black here. If the intensity is deliberately incremental, I can't imagine what the third one is going to be like. Truly, both of these books are some of the best descendants of good old crime novels that I can recall reading.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

intense and dark story of an excon

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like that this author has the guts to have unsympathetic protagonists.

[Letipster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost a great crime novel but lost it in last section

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like the first Zeltserman book that I read, the first 85% is spectacular and the last 15% goes nowhere.

[Brandon Nagel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal. Loved it. My 2nd in the "Man out of Prison" Trilogy. Definitely picking up the third.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This was quite a page turner narrated by a complete socio-path and I couldn't stop reading it even though I was cringing the whole time.