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Winslow dredges up all kinds of cool
Book Review
By Derryll White
Winslow, Don (2012). The Kings of Cool.
Don Winslow is a forensic anthropologist, taking apart the wonderful social scene of the 1960s and ‘70s. For anyone who wandered south of the border into the shimmering craziness of the Haight Asbury and the marijuana madness of California generally, this is the book to take you back home.
Reading ‘The Kings of Cool’ I have dredged up the memory of every beautiful, lithe, giving woman I ever slept with and have treasured them all again – each and every one. Winslow is that good.
Like all good writers, Don Winslow is in love with words. He loves the sound and shape of them, the etymology, the sensuous nature of multiple meanings. Unfortunately that also probably means that ‘The Kings of Cool’ is not for every reader. Winslow makes you work. He chops sentences, parses, drifts with the mellow nature of the ‘60s. The structure and the content are not traditional, more stoned – don’t get me wrong, very good but not the norm.
The central question is what is love and what does it cost? Some of the answers are hard to take but they are realistic. ‘The Kings of Cool’ is a complex read, very funny but also serious, switching from surface views to deep, complex ones. The writer’s perspectives on America are right for me, down to Ronald Reagan being my very worst nightmare.
If you reflect on the American dream, if you have questions as to the turns your own life has taken over time, this is the book for you. Don Winslow’s writing is something I will seek out more and more.
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Excerpts from the novel:
CALIFORNIA – “Then why are so many girls in ‘Playboy’ named Bambi?” O asks…
“Girls are named Bambi,” Ben says now, ‘because we are culturally ignorant, of even pop culture, and because we crave the archetype of childlike innocence combined with adult sexuality.”
His parents are both psychotherapists.
HIPPY REALITY – What happened?
Altamont, Charlie Manson, Sharon Tate, Son of Sam, Mark Chapman we saw a dream turn into a nightmare we saw love and peace turn into endless war and violence our idealism into realism our realism into cynicism our cynicism into apathy our apathy into selfishness into greed and then greed was good…
POLITICAL REALITY – Ronald Reagan, Bush the First selling cocaine to fund terrorists, a war to protect cheap gas, Bill Clinton and realpolitik and jism on dresses while insane fanatics plotted and Bush the Second and his handlers, a frat boy run by evil old men and then you turn on the TV one morning and those towers are coming down and the war has come home what Happened?
TOYS – A vibrator.
What she would refer to as
Paqu’s smartest Boyfriend
The Bestest Stepdad Ever.
Ubermann.
(With apologies to Chon’s beloved Nietzsche),
BNI
(Batteries Not Included)
No first dates, no awkward conversations, no futile fumbling, no messy human relationships. Just fire that bad boy up, find a suitable fantasy, and
The big O or
Os, plural, if you do it right.
CARDINAL RULE – Maybe only Chon knows that “cardinal rule” doesn’t come from the Catholic religious official, but from the Latin “carlo” which means “hinge.” So a cardinal rule is something that everything else hinges upon.
Everything hinges upon not selling dope to people you don’t know.
And know well.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
