The Night (Alone : A Novel) - Hardcover

Meltzer, Richard

3.8

45 ratings by Goodreads

9780316566520: The Night (Alone : A Novel)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316566527 ISBN 13: 9780316566520

Publisher: Little Brown & Co, 1995

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In a novel in the Beat tradition of Kerouac and Burroughs, a nationally known rock critic portrays the life of a debauchee who tries to come to terms with his continual drinking, womanizing, and flirtation with death. A first novel.

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From Publishers Weekly:

In an alternately dazzling and tedious barrage of narrative pyrotechnics and vulgarity, rock chronicler Meltzer (L.A. Is the Capital of Kansas; The Aesthetics of Rock) recounts?in nearly 100 short chapters, through various sardonically philosophical personas?hard-won insights into music, writing, intoxication and, especially, sex en route to middle age. Evoking the sensory details of cunnilingus with painstaking precision, extolling masturbation or merely cataloguing sundry dalliances, Meltzer lays down rock- and jazz-inspired prose riffs as he draws on a rich lexicon of creative nicknames for male and female genitalia. Persnickety opinions on the legends of jazz and rock, meditations on the process of writing, elaborate wordplay and structural experimentation provide an odd counterpoint to this black-comic celebration of humanity's baser instincts: "The twin life impulses, cunnilingus and urination, versus the twin death impulses, vaginal intercourse and writing?a neverending battle?which will win?" Filling the shoes of Bukowski proves difficult for first-novelist Meltzer, who tends to overplay the self-congratulatory scatology and bury his flashes of brilliance?both narrative and metaphysical?beneath dicey and often tiresome attempts at comedy.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Although billed as a first novel, this psychological ramble through spent youth has no discernible plot or identifiable cast of characters. The narrative is difficult to follow but more often crude in its recounting of events and situations in the life of a man whose only apparent goal is to spend as much time as possible drinking, doping, and wenching. We are shown the author/protagonist Metzzler/Mezzner/Mezzler (anyone who has a frequently misspelled last name can relate to this brand of humor) in triumph and in despair. We are intimate with his failures, his problems, his sex life, his health, and the contents of his sock drawer before the author tells us that this man is a writer. For some, this brand of stream-of-consciousness fiction will be difficult to read. But those who persevere will be rewarded by Meltzer's wicked sense of humor, succinct prose style, and ability to encapsulate one human male in all of his magnificence and frailty. For large fiction collections.
Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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