3 posts tagged “king of methlehem”
It begins:
Dedication page:
for chelsea
Following page:
You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.
-- William Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Next page:
tweeker 1. A methamphetamine user. Tweekers are known for their extreme paranoia, flagrant dishonesty, and lack of non-tweeker friends. A tweeker will steal your stuff and then help you look for it.
If you let those goddamned tweekers come to your party, don't expect to have your stereo in the morning.
From www.urbandictionary.com.
How can I possibly not like a book that begins thusly?
Yes, fine readers, the book has arrived, The King of Methlehem by local boy Mark Lindquist.
Mercury retrograde sure kept his hands off this project! By astro aspects, the book should've circled from New York to Bombay to Olympia before landing in my town of Tacoma. Which causes me to speculate whether Merc-retro is as discombobulating as is asserted but I ain't gonna be volunteer guinea pig to test out the theory, I've more than enough on my plate.
The tome's arrival is sweet on two counts. First, the timing could not be better, I finished Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass just last night. I'd been hungering to read Lewis Carroll's masterpiece after falling into the rabbit hole myself approaching three years ago. As I was closing Alice with a smile and a sigh, I got to thinking: I need a new book. I wanna read King of Methlehem.
The following day it was delivered
The second sweet spot is that Mark's a local boy ... and I've such feeling for the book's arrival and flow ... begining with my attendance at his reading to my blogging on it to his surprising Vox message to the offer of the book I hold now in my hands.
Tonight I anticipate with a glow settling into a chair or onto my stomach on the mattress tossed nightly onto the floor, opening mind and book and entering the tale that begins:
I had to tell you lies to help you get to the truth.
OK, ladies and gents, I can shout the happy news I been bustin' to share for the past half day.
Regular readers will remember my recent entry titled Bouncing between prison bars and bookstore about "The King of Methlehem" and the reading I attended by its author, Mark Lindquist, accompanied by sidekick bongo boy.
Last night I answered the (parenthetical) call of the Vox private message box and found this:
So last night I had the novel experience of meeting the man and author of a newly released novel from my ‘hood. So to speak. Introducing Mark Lindquist and his “The King of Methlehem.”
He enters the rear of King's Books, a large community-oriented used and new Tacoma bookstore with its two requisite fat cats, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, jacket open and loose. Short hair gelled up comfortably. He seems tall, or perhaps it’s his easy but confident presence. On first impression, before he opens his mouth, you think poised prosecutor. Or movie star. He’s easy on the eyes.
Once he opens his mouth, you hear the prosecuting positives in him: articulate, intelligent, on the ball, quick. And the writer: observant, witty, descriptive, fearless.
Mark reads two chapters from his book. After the first sentence, I’m hooked. This guy can write ... and he writes in a way that’s gripping, visual and escorts you directly into the underbelly of the meth labs and tweekers. “The King of Methlehem,” his fourth novel, is fiction interwoven with a bundle of nonfiction by one who’s been up close and personal with the realities of the dark streets.
The author has a good speaking voice -- strong but not forceful, entertaining without sounding silly, pleasant, articulate. My only complaint is the accompanying bongo-playing by his sidekick, the deputy prosecuting attorney who’s also a recurring character in his novels. The dude is seated off to the side in beret and sunglasses producing impromptu beatings for dramatic effect. It’s not dramatic, it’s distracting. Within 10 minutes, I’m driven from my folding chair to another across the room.
After two chapters, the room’s opened to Q&A. I’m impressed with how he addresses the wide variety of questions ranging from the source of "tweekers" for meth addicts -- in the addiction, "they love to take things apart and put them back together ... (to tweak) ... you'll very often find carbeuretors in meth labs ..." -- to the current migration of the meth problem from West Coast to East. He’s witty, quick with the quips, presents a command of information, is personable, confident yet never cocky or arrogant, personable. And oh, the colorful tales he could divulge in an all-nighter in a pub.
It must be something to produce a book, I also think, then speak on it and to a crowd that’s interested. And the interest is high, judging by the line that snakes through the old bookstore, waiting patiently to meet him or have him sign their hardbacks. Wow. It’s another world.
One person's view:
A new novel from acclaimed author Lindquist — a ripped-from-the-headlines look at the drug underworld, in which veteran police detective Wyatt James tracks a powerful methamphetamine distributor through a world of addiction, destruction, and madness.
And another's:
The King of Methlehem is so brutal and honest I could feel my teeth falling out as I read it. With street-tough prose and astonishing human insight, Lindquist takes you deep inside the racing, arrhythmic hearts of tweekers, leaving you bleeding and jonesing for more."-- Will Clarke, author of The Worthy and Lord Vishnu's Love Handles
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