Rush to Nowhere

While living in Manhattan and working in a Madison Avenue ad agency, twenty-three-year-old Dancer, a would-be writer from Alabama, encounters an odd assortment of aimless New York City eccentrics

Russell's frenetic first novel, set against the New York City shadows cast by literary predecessors Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney, is a roller coaster of a read that races through one fate-riddled week in the life of a struggling young writer named Dancer. A cynically slick study in urban survival, the story begins when Dancer witnesses a misdirected murder in the "bowels of the Antechamber of Hell" (Grand Central Station) while he waits for the "train of tears" to take him back to the rundown apartment he shares with an army of roaches and a zoned-out roommate named Zinc. Dazed by the gruesome homicide, he stumbles out into the streets and wanders over to the waterless fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel, where he's befriended by an aging ex-starlet who's looking for love and a comeback. What follows are seven days of implausible yet gripping events, which sweep Dancer to Alabama for a disastrous family reunion, to Atlantic City where he wins $2000 in 10 seconds, to London for the funeral of an infamous rock star, to Greenwich Village where his destiny is read by a streetwise soothsayer and to a cocaine-related event that lands his roommate in prison. The story becomes even more farfetched when one considers that in the midst of this karmic chaos, Dancer also manages to hold down his job as an advertising assistant, and even finds time to cultivate his movie-star romance. Plot notwithstanding, Russell is a master at character development and dialogue and this present-tense narrative marks the arrival of an exhilaratingly clever author.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

While recovering from the shock of witnessing a woman shoved in front of a New York subway train, 23-year-old Dancer, a would-be writer now in advertising, meets out-of-work actress Anne Monet. A romance soon develops, leading to an increasingly out-of-control series of adventures that carry Dancer from the New York club scene to the Atlantic City casinos and eventually to London for the funeral of a British rock musician with whom Anne was to co-star. Russell deftly lampoons advertising, contemporary New York, rock and roll, and the mores of a society on the verge of breakdown. Although the writing suffers occasional lapses and tends to work somewhat the same territory as Jay McInerney and Ann Beattie, its high spirits and broad satire allow it, finally, to stand on its own. Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.