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Random Acts of Senseless Violence
With his vivid, stylized prose, cyberpunk intensity, and seemingly limitless imagination, Jack Womack has been compared to both William Gibson and Kurt Vonnegut - though Gibson admits, "If you dropped the characters from Neuromancer into Womack's Manhattan, they'd fall down screaming and have nervous breakdowns". Random Acts of Senseless Violence, Womack's fifth novel, is a thrilling, hysterical, and eerily disturbing piece ot work.
Lola Hart is an ordinary twelve-year-old girl. She comes from a comfortable family, attends an exclusive private school, loves her friends Lori and Katherine, teases her sister Boob. But in the increasingly troubled city where she lives (a near-future Manhattan) she is a dying breed. Riots, fire, TB outbreaks, roaming gangs, increasing inflation, political and civil unrest all threaten her way of life, as well as the very fabric of New York City.
In her diary, Lola chronicles the changes she and her family make as they attempt to adjust to a city, and a country, that is spinning out of control. Her mother is a teacher, but no one is hiring. Her father is a writer, but no one is buying his scripts. Hounded by creditors and forced to vacate their apartment and move to Harlem, her family, and her life, begins to dissolve. Increasingly estranged from her privileged school friends, Lola soon makes new ones: Iz, Jude, and Weezie - wise veterans of the street who know what must be done in order to survive and are more than willing to do it. And the metamorphosis of Lola Hart, who is surrounded by the new language and violence of the streets, begins.
Simultaneously chilling and darkly hilarious, Random Acts of Senseless Violence takes the jittery urban fears we suppress, both in fiction and in daily life, and makes them explicit - and explicitly terrifying.
--Publisher/Powells.com
Lola Hart is an ordinary twelve-year-old girl. She comes from a comfortable family, attends an exclusive private school, loves her friends Lori and Katherine, teases her sister Boob. But in the increasingly troubled city where she lives (a near-future Manhattan) she is a dying breed. Riots, fire, TB outbreaks, roaming gangs, increasing inflation, political and civil unrest all threaten her way of life, as well as the very fabric of New York City.
In her diary, Lola chronicles the changes she and her family make as they attempt to adjust to a city, and a country, that is spinning out of control. Her mother is a teacher, but no one is hiring. Her father is a writer, but no one is buying his scripts. Hounded by creditors and forced to vacate their apartment and move to Harlem, her family, and her life, begins to dissolve. Increasingly estranged from her privileged school friends, Lola soon makes new ones: Iz, Jude, and Weezie - wise veterans of the street who know what must be done in order to survive and are more than willing to do it. And the metamorphosis of Lola Hart, who is surrounded by the new language and violence of the streets, begins.
Simultaneously chilling and darkly hilarious, Random Acts of Senseless Violence takes the jittery urban fears we suppress, both in fiction and in daily life, and makes them explicit - and explicitly terrifying.
--Publisher/Powells.com
256 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1993
123 people are currently reading
6273 people want to read
About the author
Jack Womack
37books139followers"Womack's fiction may be determinedly non-cyber, but, with its commitment to using SF as a vehicle for social critique, it definitely has a punky edge. William Gibson once said that he thought he was more interested in basic economics and politics than the average blue sky SF writer. That counts double for Womack, whose fiction is packed with grimly amusing social satire and powerful little allegories exploring urban breakdown, class war and racial tensions".
--Jim McClellan (from an interview with Jack Womack, 1995).
--Jim McClellan (from an interview with Jack Womack, 1995).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 399 reviews
June 29, 2013
This book should be as famous as A Clockwork Orange - like that one it has its own language and pictures a near future urban nightmare featuring gangs of feral children.
But it isn't. Perhaps the problem is the title, which is, when you look at it objectively, completely crap. Perhaps the problem is that when people see that it's about a near future urban nightmare featuring gangs of feral children they think huh, I already read one like that.
Doesn't stop them reading umpteen books about vampires though. So it can't be that. Maybe it’s because this novel is a little bit science fictiony and a little bit young adulty and that confuses us poor readers. But really I don’t know. It's a mystery.
Anyway, this novel portrays the disintegration of our heroine's privileged upper-class Manhattan lifestyle bit by bit as all the problems inherent in the rich Western lifestyle which makes it doomed, doomed I say, irredeemably doomed rise up like a fetid sewerey sea of unfixable breakdown and commences to drown everyone. So this is a lot of fun, seeing the rich suffer and the stuck-up girls not able to ride their ponies in the Berkshires any more because the ponies all got eaten.
But that's not the half of it.
The tale is told in diary form by Lola Hart who is 12 when we begin and going on 14 I think as we leave her. It’s one thing to have a good laugh at the rich suffering but when you’re up close and personal with a 12 year old girl’s diary while her life is torn down bit by bit and you watch her have to rebuild it herself with her bare hands, that’s another thing entirely.
Jack Womack is a very brave writer � he thinks he can think the way a rich funny intelligent 12 year old girl would, about 20 or 30 years in the future, and show us how her whole mental landscape, and consequently her vocabulary, her idioms and slang and grammar, all morph along with these huge life changes and she becomes absorbed into the black street gangs which rule the blocks where her suddenly impoverished family has to move to. By the end of the book you get to be as fluent in future black street vernacular as Lola has to be.
By half way, you get the sinking feeling you know how thinks will turn out for Lola, so by the last third you are reading through your fingers hoping that you’re gonna be wrong. The last page is a killer. I can't say this about many people but I can say - Lola Hart � you broke my heart.
.
But it isn't. Perhaps the problem is the title, which is, when you look at it objectively, completely crap. Perhaps the problem is that when people see that it's about a near future urban nightmare featuring gangs of feral children they think huh, I already read one like that.
Doesn't stop them reading umpteen books about vampires though. So it can't be that. Maybe it’s because this novel is a little bit science fictiony and a little bit young adulty and that confuses us poor readers. But really I don’t know. It's a mystery.
Anyway, this novel portrays the disintegration of our heroine's privileged upper-class Manhattan lifestyle bit by bit as all the problems inherent in the rich Western lifestyle which makes it doomed, doomed I say, irredeemably doomed rise up like a fetid sewerey sea of unfixable breakdown and commences to drown everyone. So this is a lot of fun, seeing the rich suffer and the stuck-up girls not able to ride their ponies in the Berkshires any more because the ponies all got eaten.
But that's not the half of it.
The tale is told in diary form by Lola Hart who is 12 when we begin and going on 14 I think as we leave her. It’s one thing to have a good laugh at the rich suffering but when you’re up close and personal with a 12 year old girl’s diary while her life is torn down bit by bit and you watch her have to rebuild it herself with her bare hands, that’s another thing entirely.
Jack Womack is a very brave writer � he thinks he can think the way a rich funny intelligent 12 year old girl would, about 20 or 30 years in the future, and show us how her whole mental landscape, and consequently her vocabulary, her idioms and slang and grammar, all morph along with these huge life changes and she becomes absorbed into the black street gangs which rule the blocks where her suddenly impoverished family has to move to. By the end of the book you get to be as fluent in future black street vernacular as Lola has to be.
By half way, you get the sinking feeling you know how thinks will turn out for Lola, so by the last third you are reading through your fingers hoping that you’re gonna be wrong. The last page is a killer. I can't say this about many people but I can say - Lola Hart � you broke my heart.
.
May 12, 2015
Well, in the areas of "dark apocalypse fiction" this one takes the cake. I'm reading a lot of dark books starring children lately, come to think about it.
This is like a book version of the Telltale Walking Dead game starring Clem. I don't have any better description, actually. It's super dark. Breakdown of society. Diary entries of a kid. Lord of the Flies-ish. Between this and Station Eleven I need to read a bunch of romance fluff for a while, haha.
This is like a book version of the Telltale Walking Dead game starring Clem. I don't have any better description, actually. It's super dark. Breakdown of society. Diary entries of a kid. Lord of the Flies-ish. Between this and Station Eleven I need to read a bunch of romance fluff for a while, haha.
November 30, 2013
So tough to rate.
1) Exquisite writing. Mind-blowingly marvelous. The shifting voice of the MC is compelling and utterly believable.
I've penned myself dry with all I writ. You give ear when everybody deafs and lend me shoulder constant if tears need dropping.
2)The book kept me up ALL NIGHT. I was unable to stop reading because I had to find out about Iz and Boob and Lola.
3) At the same time, I hated the plot. I'm not saying it was a bad plot. It was gripping and perfectly structured. It's no mean feat to give the reader five assassinated presidents in a year and yet feel realistic. But I felt constantly nauseated and on the verge of tears (which frequently spilled over). When I finished I had to speak rather strongly to myself because that everpresent siren call of oblivion was considerably louder than usual.
I'm giving it one star because I genuinely wish I hadn't read it, and the world seems vastly bleaker today. This doesn't mean it is a bad book. It's a brilliant book, that bewitched me, and made me hate it.
1) Exquisite writing. Mind-blowingly marvelous. The shifting voice of the MC is compelling and utterly believable.
I've penned myself dry with all I writ. You give ear when everybody deafs and lend me shoulder constant if tears need dropping.
2)The book kept me up ALL NIGHT. I was unable to stop reading because I had to find out about Iz and Boob and Lola.
3) At the same time, I hated the plot. I'm not saying it was a bad plot. It was gripping and perfectly structured. It's no mean feat to give the reader five assassinated presidents in a year and yet feel realistic. But I felt constantly nauseated and on the verge of tears (which frequently spilled over). When I finished I had to speak rather strongly to myself because that everpresent siren call of oblivion was considerably louder than usual.
I'm giving it one star because I genuinely wish I hadn't read it, and the world seems vastly bleaker today. This doesn't mean it is a bad book. It's a brilliant book, that bewitched me, and made me hate it.
January 6, 2019
Following the trend so easy to see for all of us who lived through the early 1990's, this book takes everything we experienced and amped it up to a fever pitch.
Womack takes all the increasing poverty, the general decline across the board, the massive riots, unrest and all the various drugs making it into every home (including prescription abuse), and tops it with violence on a very scary and down-to-earth scale.
It works so well here in this novel. The gentle diary of a 12-year-old girl in a money-troubled middle-class house slides step by step into chaos. It's so easy to get lost in her everyday concerns, but just like the proverbial frog in the stovepot, it's a cinch to get boiled in the end. :)
From being hounded by true asshole collectors, to moving to a rougher neighborhood, to being ostracized by her old friends, to getting involved in street gangs, this is one hell of a frightening tale. It's just normal life. Twisted inexorably to a dark fate.
And this isn't some novel about one single example. The whole world is going to shit. The riots continue much farther than what we saw. Presidents were mauled by angry mobs. Poverty is rampant everywhere.
The slide is not so quick that people don't TRY to hold it all together. But the slide happens despite everything and this made the book one hell of a horrific read. There's no way out. Anywhere.
Goodbye, normalcy. This SF is a supremely understated sociological SF that instead relies on great characters with great personalities driven into ever-increasing bad circumstances. As an idea novel, it's pretty damn brilliant, but as a dark realistic horror, it's even better.
Very worth the read. Scary.
Womack takes all the increasing poverty, the general decline across the board, the massive riots, unrest and all the various drugs making it into every home (including prescription abuse), and tops it with violence on a very scary and down-to-earth scale.
It works so well here in this novel. The gentle diary of a 12-year-old girl in a money-troubled middle-class house slides step by step into chaos. It's so easy to get lost in her everyday concerns, but just like the proverbial frog in the stovepot, it's a cinch to get boiled in the end. :)
From being hounded by true asshole collectors, to moving to a rougher neighborhood, to being ostracized by her old friends, to getting involved in street gangs, this is one hell of a frightening tale. It's just normal life. Twisted inexorably to a dark fate.
And this isn't some novel about one single example. The whole world is going to shit. The riots continue much farther than what we saw. Presidents were mauled by angry mobs. Poverty is rampant everywhere.
The slide is not so quick that people don't TRY to hold it all together. But the slide happens despite everything and this made the book one hell of a horrific read. There's no way out. Anywhere.
Goodbye, normalcy. This SF is a supremely understated sociological SF that instead relies on great characters with great personalities driven into ever-increasing bad circumstances. As an idea novel, it's pretty damn brilliant, but as a dark realistic horror, it's even better.
Very worth the read. Scary.
January 28, 2022
Lola Lola Lola. You heartbreaker.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this book. One review compared it to Clockwork Orange, which I loved, so I figured I'd give it a chance, and I'm glad I did.
Random acts of senseless violence is a diary that 12-year-old Lola keeps about her life over the course of about 6 months. Lo lives the good life in New York with her family, in a not so far off future. The government is collapsing, gangs of feral children take over the cities at night, soldiers and police keep the peace by shooting and beating citizens. But for the most part, Lo and her family are safe and well taken care of. That is until her mom losses her job and her dad can't sell any of his scripts. That's when things start to go bad for them.
As a reader, we get to see Lo progress from a wide-eyed little girl with a loving family and friends to a street smart thug from a broken home that can take care of herself. But does she go too far? Does she cross the line?
The disturbing part of this book, much like Clockwork Orange or 1984 is how real this scenario could be. A few wrong steps by the government and our society could be thrown into chaos. Scary to think about.
I highly enjoyed Random acts of senseless violence and would highly recommend it.
Death angels rule!!!
I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this book. One review compared it to Clockwork Orange, which I loved, so I figured I'd give it a chance, and I'm glad I did.
Random acts of senseless violence is a diary that 12-year-old Lola keeps about her life over the course of about 6 months. Lo lives the good life in New York with her family, in a not so far off future. The government is collapsing, gangs of feral children take over the cities at night, soldiers and police keep the peace by shooting and beating citizens. But for the most part, Lo and her family are safe and well taken care of. That is until her mom losses her job and her dad can't sell any of his scripts. That's when things start to go bad for them.
As a reader, we get to see Lo progress from a wide-eyed little girl with a loving family and friends to a street smart thug from a broken home that can take care of herself. But does she go too far? Does she cross the line?
The disturbing part of this book, much like Clockwork Orange or 1984 is how real this scenario could be. A few wrong steps by the government and our society could be thrown into chaos. Scary to think about.
I highly enjoyed Random acts of senseless violence and would highly recommend it.
Death angels rule!!!
November 19, 2014
Dear Diary
You are the only one I can turn too when I am troubled and have no one to talk too.
My friends are all reading a book called Random Acts of Senseless Violence written by a guy named Jack Womack. They think it's so cool and it does have a cool name and cover and I really wanted to like it. Really I did... but I just finished reading it and I feel kinda' "meh" about it.
Maybe I was expecting more from it, or maybe dear Diary, maybe I'm too old to be cool anymore. Or maybe it's just not anything very special.
To tell the truth I did like it in the beginning. The narrator seemed very real and what she was saying was very true. Lola and her family and her friends started off very believable, I cared about their trials and troubles. I felt the stress of an average upper-middle-class upper Eastside NYC family being blindsided by a crumbling economy and an increasingly destabilized government.
Oh Diary I think I cared too much because Boom! Powie! Kablam! It all went to nowheresville. They move and it all goes to toilettown. But the more their life went sideways like the less I could swing with it, ya dig?
I'm hip to the slag scene, and I'm copacetic with cats referring it to Clockwork Orange but man... I mean that cat Orwell was digging that jive with his "Newspeak" in 1984. And all the bigwigs in squaresville forget about a little tome called Riddley Walker by a truly far out cat named Russell Hoban. That was the ultimate.
But my ever lovin' Diary this became like nowheresville fast man. I mean I dug the fact that Lola becomes a hardcore tough chick, and that she wasn't cool with guys. I mean you got to swing with whatever makes you wail baby, but it really didn't groove me Man. It didn't make a point or add anything other than the fact she was just digging to her own groove.
Everyone just became like 1D, one dimensional man. I just bailed on caring and just kept reading to see where it was taken me. So by the time people were buying the farm, and things get far out it just meant like nada to me, ya dig? I'm not copping a bit, you know I'm no tuches lecker but I was left bummed. Not depressed or sad.... just the whole book became a King Sized drag, like boresville man. And that's nowhere dad, that just ain't cool Diary.
You are the only one I can turn too when I am troubled and have no one to talk too.
My friends are all reading a book called Random Acts of Senseless Violence written by a guy named Jack Womack. They think it's so cool and it does have a cool name and cover and I really wanted to like it. Really I did... but I just finished reading it and I feel kinda' "meh" about it.
Maybe I was expecting more from it, or maybe dear Diary, maybe I'm too old to be cool anymore. Or maybe it's just not anything very special.
To tell the truth I did like it in the beginning. The narrator seemed very real and what she was saying was very true. Lola and her family and her friends started off very believable, I cared about their trials and troubles. I felt the stress of an average upper-middle-class upper Eastside NYC family being blindsided by a crumbling economy and an increasingly destabilized government.
Oh Diary I think I cared too much because Boom! Powie! Kablam! It all went to nowheresville. They move and it all goes to toilettown. But the more their life went sideways like the less I could swing with it, ya dig?
I'm hip to the slag scene, and I'm copacetic with cats referring it to Clockwork Orange but man... I mean that cat Orwell was digging that jive with his "Newspeak" in 1984. And all the bigwigs in squaresville forget about a little tome called Riddley Walker by a truly far out cat named Russell Hoban. That was the ultimate.
But my ever lovin' Diary this became like nowheresville fast man. I mean I dug the fact that Lola becomes a hardcore tough chick, and that she wasn't cool with guys. I mean you got to swing with whatever makes you wail baby, but it really didn't groove me Man. It didn't make a point or add anything other than the fact she was just digging to her own groove.
Everyone just became like 1D, one dimensional man. I just bailed on caring and just kept reading to see where it was taken me. So by the time people were buying the farm, and things get far out it just meant like nada to me, ya dig? I'm not copping a bit, you know I'm no tuches lecker but I was left bummed. Not depressed or sad.... just the whole book became a King Sized drag, like boresville man. And that's nowhere dad, that just ain't cool Diary.
January 25, 2010
OK, this novel, my second of Womack's and a sort of prequel to Ambient and Elvissey, although none of the same characters, the near future setting of NYC is the same. Don't let the title scare u, this isn't by any stretch just a 'senseless' exploitative scary story. it's one of the greatest, most heartbreaking well-written novels i've read in a long time.
Even though it's along the lines of A Clockwork Orange, it's definitely original and way better in my opinion. I'm not really into coming of age books at all, but i guess this is what this would be called. A must read- honestly! Publisher's Weekly had it on its Best Books of the Year list for '94- the year it came out.
I don't understand why it, or Womack in general, are not better known. He is one of the most talented authors out there. His ability to fracture the present-day speak into something visceral, yet completely believable and understandable is one of things that blew me away about this book. A genuine masterpiece of dystopian fiction as well as a gripping relentless social commentary. I can not do this book the justice it deserves, just read it
Even though it's along the lines of A Clockwork Orange, it's definitely original and way better in my opinion. I'm not really into coming of age books at all, but i guess this is what this would be called. A must read- honestly! Publisher's Weekly had it on its Best Books of the Year list for '94- the year it came out.
I don't understand why it, or Womack in general, are not better known. He is one of the most talented authors out there. His ability to fracture the present-day speak into something visceral, yet completely believable and understandable is one of things that blew me away about this book. A genuine masterpiece of dystopian fiction as well as a gripping relentless social commentary. I can not do this book the justice it deserves, just read it
August 6, 2019
This was a fantastic novel - brutal, distressed and kind of terrifying, but at the same time electric, powerful and really moving. It's both a coming of age story and an intense dystopia - not a light read, but well worth the strain. I would highly recommend this one, and am so glad I finally got to it.
October 11, 2017
The trouble with reading dystopian fiction all the time is that bad dystopias are annoying, good dystopias are depressing, and excellent dystopias are devastating. This is the third kind. ‘Random Acts of Senseless Violence� tells the story of America’s implosion in the brilliantly immediate format of a tweenager’s diary. The writer is plunged straight into the life of Lola, a twelve year old girl living with her parents and younger sister in New York. The way that total social breakdown plays out in the background of her daily doings is nothing short of brilliant. The world-building through teenage slang is cleverly done and has aged well. The language unerringly walks the line between otherness and comprehensibility; the pacing is relentless and absolutely compelling.
Even though I wanted to read something more cheering, I could not put this novel down. A major part of this was emotional investment in Lola, who is a heart-breaking and unforgettable character. It's genuinely distressing to be periodically reminded that she and her friends are only twelve. She is old before her time, clear-eyed and pragmatic. When her parents try to reassure her that everything is going to be fine, she knows immediately that they’re lying and it isn’t. Indeed, she feels a strong sense of responsibility and protectiveness towards her parents and sister. Yet she is also preoccupied with school work and friendships.
I won’t spoil the events of the book, merely comment that they are told in an unusually vivid fashion. First person narration is challenging to get right, but when done well it can be uniquely involving. (Examples from my favourite novels shelf include and .) Political instability, economic collapse, and the escalation of violence are recounted subtly, woven into the fabric of Lola’s daily life. The narrative has a level of emotional conviction that lends it disturbing plausibility. That said, a few years ago I wouldn’t have considered this scenario of total social implosion in the US at all likely to occur. Yet here we are.
The significance of the title is that the book shows why senseless violence is not random. Violence is systemic and its apparent senselessness conceals personal and social causes. I am incredibly impressed with the nuanced analysis of social breakdown that is concealed in the format of a twelve year old’s diary, somehow without Lola becoming a precocious caricature. I won’t soon forget this novel or its narrator. Pity about the lurid cover design, though.
Even though I wanted to read something more cheering, I could not put this novel down. A major part of this was emotional investment in Lola, who is a heart-breaking and unforgettable character. It's genuinely distressing to be periodically reminded that she and her friends are only twelve. She is old before her time, clear-eyed and pragmatic. When her parents try to reassure her that everything is going to be fine, she knows immediately that they’re lying and it isn’t. Indeed, she feels a strong sense of responsibility and protectiveness towards her parents and sister. Yet she is also preoccupied with school work and friendships.
I won’t spoil the events of the book, merely comment that they are told in an unusually vivid fashion. First person narration is challenging to get right, but when done well it can be uniquely involving. (Examples from my favourite novels shelf include and .) Political instability, economic collapse, and the escalation of violence are recounted subtly, woven into the fabric of Lola’s daily life. The narrative has a level of emotional conviction that lends it disturbing plausibility. That said, a few years ago I wouldn’t have considered this scenario of total social implosion in the US at all likely to occur. Yet here we are.
The significance of the title is that the book shows why senseless violence is not random. Violence is systemic and its apparent senselessness conceals personal and social causes. I am incredibly impressed with the nuanced analysis of social breakdown that is concealed in the format of a twelve year old’s diary, somehow without Lola becoming a precocious caricature. I won’t soon forget this novel or its narrator. Pity about the lurid cover design, though.
March 25, 2010
This is a well written book. It is told from the point of view of a young girl whom we get to watch disintegrate in exquisite detail. Some will respond that it's not her disintegration, but in a very real sense it's the story of her and her society coming apart. As I said, it's very well done and I know many rate this book very highly.
So, this is one of the most depressing, sad, harrowing books out there and if that's what you're looking for you will have found it here.
I rate books on more than just competence in writing. Each of us here will rate books differently. I believe that the author here achieved what he was trying to achieve. That being said, I don't need a book like this to show me the mess around me nor to bring home the pain of a shattered life. I have enough pain in actual life, I don't need to add on to it in my leisure time. Some will rate this high. Some will list it among their favorite books. Not me. It will also probably be the last I read by this competent author, unless another book is much different from this one.
So, know it's a well written book. But, be aware that it is a gut wrenching book for anyone who gets involved in books and cares about the characters. From me 2 stars is a gift. I give it in recognition that the author did a good job in relating the story and that I know some really like this book.
I did not.
And please don't say something like, "you just didn't get it" or "understand it". Yes I did, that's a large part of why I didn't care for it...it's so very real and plausible. This kind of pain that can be found in real life is not (for me) something I look for in most of my fiction. Some books like this don't effect me this way, but this one did. 1 star plus 1 more for technical competence and realism.
So, this is one of the most depressing, sad, harrowing books out there and if that's what you're looking for you will have found it here.
I rate books on more than just competence in writing. Each of us here will rate books differently. I believe that the author here achieved what he was trying to achieve. That being said, I don't need a book like this to show me the mess around me nor to bring home the pain of a shattered life. I have enough pain in actual life, I don't need to add on to it in my leisure time. Some will rate this high. Some will list it among their favorite books. Not me. It will also probably be the last I read by this competent author, unless another book is much different from this one.
So, know it's a well written book. But, be aware that it is a gut wrenching book for anyone who gets involved in books and cares about the characters. From me 2 stars is a gift. I give it in recognition that the author did a good job in relating the story and that I know some really like this book.
I did not.
And please don't say something like, "you just didn't get it" or "understand it". Yes I did, that's a large part of why I didn't care for it...it's so very real and plausible. This kind of pain that can be found in real life is not (for me) something I look for in most of my fiction. Some books like this don't effect me this way, but this one did. 1 star plus 1 more for technical competence and realism.
January 16, 2022
"On the news tonight the new President said there’s no reason for anyone to worry about the situation. He didn’t say which situation."
Random Acts of Senseless Violence's title makes it sound like it'll be some kickass cyberpunk-ish action thing, with some Robocop-ish satire thrown in.
And it's not that at all. It's the diary (called Anne) of a twelve-year-old white girl, Lola, living with her younger sister, and firmly middleclass parents (a teacher and a screenwriter) in a nice house in a nice, safe neighbourhood. And in the background we see a society sliding into a ruthless, violent dystopia - first it creeps into Lola's story slowly, until the violence outside starts to cascade faster and faster. The effect is quite frightening, claustrophobic. There is no way out. Not only do you see society breaking down - rioting in the street, the army stationed in New York City, the President is assassinated, but you also see how it affects Lola and her family. It's one of those books where you constantly want to help the characters, but even if they were real, you couldn't do anything. It's too big on a human level, it's societal, and it rolls right over everyone.
Lola feels like a real person. It's quite extraordinary writing. She is written with such sensitivity. Of course she sees the news, she sees the violence erupting on the streets, she sees violence boiling in herself, and she gets more and more frightenend.
"We lived right one time Anne and then it all popped there’s no knowing why there’s not. What did I do to bring down this what."
While society around Lola is ground into a fine dust, her family has to move to a poorer neighbourhood, and here she befriends two Black girls. I know, alarm bells start ringing - a white male sci-fi writer, writing in the 80s, writing Black female voices.. keeping in mind I'm a middle-aged white guy, I was surprised how well they are written. Eventhough they are in a sort of gang, they read like real people, not as cliches of gangmembers. In fact, racism is confronted directly in the text, Lola has to reckon with her own preconceptions. I also feel I must make clear that the gang aspect is a minor detail, it's not central to the story.
And Lola falls in love with one of the girls. Yet again this written with great sensitivity, it could've been horribly exploitative (she is still twelve, after all), but it's not. Their relationship vaccilates between real love, real friendship and a little experimentation.
Lola's use of language starts to change, it becomes a kind of street language ("Maybe it’s true that what’s blooded tops all but if so it’s a worse world than I ever specked Anne that limits who’s close overmuch and divides and conquers just like the big boys want."). It reminds me of a simpler version of A Clockwork Orange's Nadsat.
The story rolls on, and things get worse. It becomes clear that this book isn't going to end very well - reading what's happening, how could it? It's heartbreaking, because by this time you've come to really feel for Lola, her friends and her family.
"When I eye myself mirrored I don’t see me anymore it’s like I got replaced and didn’t know it but I’m still here underneath I’m still here."
The book has an introduction by William Gibson, which is also the final thing that convinced me to read the book - it's one of this favourite books, and Jack Womack is one of his favourite writers. There are five other books in the same world, and this is chronologically the first one. I can't wait to read the rest.
This book was such a pleasant suprise.
Random Acts of Senseless Violence's title makes it sound like it'll be some kickass cyberpunk-ish action thing, with some Robocop-ish satire thrown in.
And it's not that at all. It's the diary (called Anne) of a twelve-year-old white girl, Lola, living with her younger sister, and firmly middleclass parents (a teacher and a screenwriter) in a nice house in a nice, safe neighbourhood. And in the background we see a society sliding into a ruthless, violent dystopia - first it creeps into Lola's story slowly, until the violence outside starts to cascade faster and faster. The effect is quite frightening, claustrophobic. There is no way out. Not only do you see society breaking down - rioting in the street, the army stationed in New York City, the President is assassinated, but you also see how it affects Lola and her family. It's one of those books where you constantly want to help the characters, but even if they were real, you couldn't do anything. It's too big on a human level, it's societal, and it rolls right over everyone.
Lola feels like a real person. It's quite extraordinary writing. She is written with such sensitivity. Of course she sees the news, she sees the violence erupting on the streets, she sees violence boiling in herself, and she gets more and more frightenend.
"We lived right one time Anne and then it all popped there’s no knowing why there’s not. What did I do to bring down this what."
While society around Lola is ground into a fine dust, her family has to move to a poorer neighbourhood, and here she befriends two Black girls. I know, alarm bells start ringing - a white male sci-fi writer, writing in the 80s, writing Black female voices.. keeping in mind I'm a middle-aged white guy, I was surprised how well they are written. Eventhough they are in a sort of gang, they read like real people, not as cliches of gangmembers. In fact, racism is confronted directly in the text, Lola has to reckon with her own preconceptions. I also feel I must make clear that the gang aspect is a minor detail, it's not central to the story.
And Lola falls in love with one of the girls. Yet again this written with great sensitivity, it could've been horribly exploitative (she is still twelve, after all), but it's not. Their relationship vaccilates between real love, real friendship and a little experimentation.
Lola's use of language starts to change, it becomes a kind of street language ("Maybe it’s true that what’s blooded tops all but if so it’s a worse world than I ever specked Anne that limits who’s close overmuch and divides and conquers just like the big boys want."). It reminds me of a simpler version of A Clockwork Orange's Nadsat.
The story rolls on, and things get worse. It becomes clear that this book isn't going to end very well - reading what's happening, how could it? It's heartbreaking, because by this time you've come to really feel for Lola, her friends and her family.
"When I eye myself mirrored I don’t see me anymore it’s like I got replaced and didn’t know it but I’m still here underneath I’m still here."
The book has an introduction by William Gibson, which is also the final thing that convinced me to read the book - it's one of this favourite books, and Jack Womack is one of his favourite writers. There are five other books in the same world, and this is chronologically the first one. I can't wait to read the rest.
This book was such a pleasant suprise.
February 19, 2011
This book began poorly. I was so very, very bored and unimpressed with the story. Some how or another I picked the book up not knowing that the entire work is the diary of a twelve-year-old girl. I try hard to not read anything about a book once I have decided to read it and this kind of bit me in the butt in this case.
The story is lacking that extra spark and I am biased against books with minor protagonists. The title is misleading. The shelves people have thrown the book onto are misleading. This is not cyberpunk nor science fiction. There is a great deal of punk flare and a depressing setting, yet zero technology.
The book is set in an alternate U.S. reality, Manhattan to be precise, and did not feel too far fetched in my opinion. Until the final quarter, I was considering the book to be yuppie-horror-fiction. This feeling lessened as the story progressed. The book is not truly frightening to me. I did not feel enough of a connection to the setting to feel fear, though I felt great sympathy for Lola.
Two things saved this book. One, I really liked Lola, Iz, and Jude, girls stuck in horrible situations, trying to survive. I forgive each of them for being underage characters as they were not annoying or whiny. These girls were quite strong and I found it interesting to read about little punk girls running around on the streets when anything else I have ever read along these lines focuses on young men.
Second, I strongly believe that Womack did something special in this book involving the dialogue used by the girls. Their slang took on a life of it's own and is unlike anything I have ever read. Thankfully there was no need for a glossary but the dialogue was unique and took some getting used to. After the rhythm of the words settled in, the structure of the sentences, the dialogue took on a life of its own and fully brought the girls to life.
In the end, I will only recommend this to people who obsessively read every piece of dystopian fiction they can find or to people who might enjoy seeing parts of New York fall apart.
The story is lacking that extra spark and I am biased against books with minor protagonists. The title is misleading. The shelves people have thrown the book onto are misleading. This is not cyberpunk nor science fiction. There is a great deal of punk flare and a depressing setting, yet zero technology.
The book is set in an alternate U.S. reality, Manhattan to be precise, and did not feel too far fetched in my opinion. Until the final quarter, I was considering the book to be yuppie-horror-fiction. This feeling lessened as the story progressed. The book is not truly frightening to me. I did not feel enough of a connection to the setting to feel fear, though I felt great sympathy for Lola.
Two things saved this book. One, I really liked Lola, Iz, and Jude, girls stuck in horrible situations, trying to survive. I forgive each of them for being underage characters as they were not annoying or whiny. These girls were quite strong and I found it interesting to read about little punk girls running around on the streets when anything else I have ever read along these lines focuses on young men.
Second, I strongly believe that Womack did something special in this book involving the dialogue used by the girls. Their slang took on a life of it's own and is unlike anything I have ever read. Thankfully there was no need for a glossary but the dialogue was unique and took some getting used to. After the rhythm of the words settled in, the structure of the sentences, the dialogue took on a life of its own and fully brought the girls to life.
In the end, I will only recommend this to people who obsessively read every piece of dystopian fiction they can find or to people who might enjoy seeing parts of New York fall apart.
September 25, 2023
There is a curious fact about the American vision of the apocalypse - it has to be sudden. It has to be a plague that has descended upon us out of the blue, or an EMP attack, an unexplained alien intrusion, the unexpected onset of a zombie plague or, of course, nuclear war. Rarely do American writers (and hence the American imagination) realise that the apocalypse can be a slow disintegration, a gradual decaying of society or the economy or both. To be honest, it's not just Americans - Zbigniew Herbert wrote:
"I could write a treatise
on the sudden transformation
of life into archaeology"
"The Abandoned"
and Arshile Gorky:
"One big war, an epidemic, and we collapse into ignorance and darkness, fit sons of chimpanzees."
I have to qualify my observation because there has been at least one good book where it all happens in such a way that we barely notice it; Slow Apocalypse.
But here, in "Random Acts of Senseless Violence" we see how things can happen gradually, over time, almost unnoticed. More interestingly we notice it in the gradual linguistic decline in the diary notations by our heroine, Lola. Vladimir Lenin once said, “Every society is three meals away from chaos� but the truth is that chaos is always there and only a thin veneer of civilisation separates us from it... scratch it and over time...
"I could write a treatise
on the sudden transformation
of life into archaeology"
"The Abandoned"
and Arshile Gorky:
"One big war, an epidemic, and we collapse into ignorance and darkness, fit sons of chimpanzees."
I have to qualify my observation because there has been at least one good book where it all happens in such a way that we barely notice it; Slow Apocalypse.
But here, in "Random Acts of Senseless Violence" we see how things can happen gradually, over time, almost unnoticed. More interestingly we notice it in the gradual linguistic decline in the diary notations by our heroine, Lola. Vladimir Lenin once said, “Every society is three meals away from chaos� but the truth is that chaos is always there and only a thin veneer of civilisation separates us from it... scratch it and over time...
August 3, 2016
I happened upon this book on a list of "most underrated/unknown works." Upon completion, I'm not sure if I agree with that designation. While I liked the fictional setting of a near-future New York on the brink of collapse and anarchy, that may be about all that I liked. It was written in a "dear diary" format that I found irksome, but not nearly so irksome as the 12-year-old girl (as written by middle-aged white male) perspective. It never rang true to me. This became even more grating as the narrator, over the course of just a few weeks, really, shifts from proper grade-school English into a nearly indecipherable (and, in my opinion, inauthentic) street slang. Urban dialects must be exceedingly difficult to accurately convey in writing, this book representing a shining Exhibit A in support of that argument. I didn't hate the idea or the violence, but the actual reading felt like a chore, and I am happy to have it behind me.
June 13, 2015
The best piece of dystopian fiction I've read in a long time. A very disturbing novel, the diary of a twelve-year-old girl living the beginning of a slow-apocalypse and her transformation from the best girl in the school into an end of the world child. Sometimes it was almost to disturbing watching this apocalypse creeping into her world, her city, her street, her building, her family and finally into her soul. I'm astonished that almost nobody seems to have read this brilliant book. Read it and I'm sure that it will become one the your favorites.
Thank you, Jo Walton, for recommending all these incredible but little known novels.
Thank you, Jo Walton, for recommending all these incredible but little known novels.
November 16, 2014
I found this a quick and engaging read. Truth be told, I'm wondering if I lack some empathy gene, because I didn't find it nearly as harrowing or depressing as many other reviews have stated. Partly, I think, is because the author started focusing more on Lola's descent into violence (the gradual shift in voice and action is skillfully done) than fleshing her out as a character; take away her burgeoning sexuality and what else is there? And, honestly, is it really futuristic & dystopian? This sh*t is already happening, just on a lesser gradient. For that reason, I like it; it is a sharp commentary-cum-warning on American society today and how we force people into decisions no one should have to make. The Marxist revolution is at hand, here, but the ruthless brutality of the system keeps it in check. Sound familiar?
February 13, 2019
Very disappointing. The book is structured as a series of diary entries of a twelve year old girl, and that got old real quick. I found these portrayals wholly unconvincing, not least of which are the frequent sexual depictions that were just outright creepy. The story is essentially a coming of age tale that takes place in a society that's slowly falling apart. We get no context or background on this, nothing more than the fact that riots seem to break out all over the place, apparently for no reason.
August 24, 2020
Искрено учуден бях да намеря социална сатира достойна за перата на Бърджис и Балард от американски автор, още повече от писател свързван най-вече с киберпънк течението. В тази книга определено няма технологии, но пънкът, ооо пънкът е брутално наситен.
Романът е под формата на дневник воден от дванадесет годишната Лола. Въпреки заглавието достойно за второразрядна хорър история, мисля че повествованието е изпипано перфектно. Действието се развива в един алтернативен Манхатън, където има зверска икономическа репресия, танкове по улиците и убийства на президенти. Лола учи в частно училище, а родителите ѝ са средно заможни хора. Със задълбочаването на икономическата криза, баща ѝ - холивудски сценарист - остава без доходи, майка ѝ се пристрастява към успокоителни, малката ѝ сестра изпада в депресия, а цялото семейство се мести в гетото. На Лола ѝ се налага да порастне твърде бързо. В училище я остракират, а семейството ѝ я изолира, всеки затворен със собствените си демони. Тя развива изключително зряла за възрастта си отговорност и желание за протекция на любимите си хора. И се променя. В новият им квартал трябва да порастнеш дори само за да се разхождаш по улицата. Лола става част от малка банда непълнолетни момичета, които се наричат "Мъртвите ангели." Това което за нея започва като детска игра, скоро се превръща в начин на живот, коренно различен от досегашния ѝ, а насилието от политическата обстановка неусетно се прехвърля във всекидневието.
Уолмак брутално добре се е справил с "израстването" на Лола, въпреки чисто епистоларната форма на книгата. Сленгът постепенно и почти неусетно измества класическия английски, невинноста се сменя с коравост, която ти къса сърцето. Образите на Изабела, Джуд, Уиз и самата Лола са разтърсващо правдиви, а предвид какво става в момента в САЩ, романът е едва ли не пророчески.
Не обичам термина антиупия, най-малкото чисто семантично е фундаментално сбъркан. Бих определил книгата като пънк, чист и прекалено плашещо реалистичен.
Горещо препоръчвам на всичклии фенове на "Портокал с часовников механизъм", "Повелителят на мухите" или "Небостъргач."
Романът е под формата на дневник воден от дванадесет годишната Лола. Въпреки заглавието достойно за второразрядна хорър история, мисля че повествованието е изпипано перфектно. Действието се развива в един алтернативен Манхатън, където има зверска икономическа репресия, танкове по улиците и убийства на президенти. Лола учи в частно училище, а родителите ѝ са средно заможни хора. Със задълбочаването на икономическата криза, баща ѝ - холивудски сценарист - остава без доходи, майка ѝ се пристрастява към успокоителни, малката ѝ сестра изпада в депресия, а цялото семейство се мести в гетото. На Лола ѝ се налага да порастне твърде бързо. В училище я остракират, а семейството ѝ я изолира, всеки затворен със собствените си демони. Тя развива изключително зряла за възрастта си отговорност и желание за протекция на любимите си хора. И се променя. В новият им квартал трябва да порастнеш дори само за да се разхождаш по улицата. Лола става част от малка банда непълнолетни момичета, които се наричат "Мъртвите ангели." Това което за нея започва като детска игра, скоро се превръща в начин на живот, коренно различен от досегашния ѝ, а насилието от политическата обстановка неусетно се прехвърля във всекидневието.
Уолмак брутално добре се е справил с "израстването" на Лола, въпреки чисто епистоларната форма на книгата. Сленгът постепенно и почти неусетно измества класическия английски, невинноста се сменя с коравост, която ти къса сърцето. Образите на Изабела, Джуд, Уиз и самата Лола са разтърсващо правдиви, а предвид какво става в момента в САЩ, романът е едва ли не пророчески.
Не обичам термина антиупия, най-малкото чисто семантично е фундаментално сбъркан. Бих определил книгата като пънк, чист и прекалено плашещо реалистичен.
Горещо препоръчвам на всичклии фенове на "Портокал с часовников механизъм", "Повелителят на мухите" или "Небостъргач."
Read
October 28, 2013This book is awesome, and it’s a during-the-apocalypse epistolary YA book full of teen lesbians, which all adds up to why on earth haven’t I heard about this before now (especially since it was written in 1995)?
One of the things that makes this book so good is that it’s the story of the transformation of a girl from a sheltered, private-school-attending, not-concerned-about-anything person to someone who ends up abandoning her family because they’re not very helpful and making her own way in the world � by joining the worst gang in New York City. And through that whole character transformation, there’s only one point where the main character calls attention to that transformation and it kind of spins your head around and makes you say, ‘wait, she really has changed, even though all she’s doing to get from the beginning of the book to the end is to make sensible decisions� (besides the decision she makes to kill a guy, which (through miraculous authorial magic) I’m still kind of on her side about).
One of the things that makes this book so good is that it’s the story of the transformation of a girl from a sheltered, private-school-attending, not-concerned-about-anything person to someone who ends up abandoning her family because they’re not very helpful and making her own way in the world � by joining the worst gang in New York City. And through that whole character transformation, there’s only one point where the main character calls attention to that transformation and it kind of spins your head around and makes you say, ‘wait, she really has changed, even though all she’s doing to get from the beginning of the book to the end is to make sensible decisions� (besides the decision she makes to kill a guy, which (through miraculous authorial magic) I’m still kind of on her side about).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 23, 2023
It has been a while since I have ready any dark dystopian fiction but I guess if I had to start anywhere this would be as good as any - this is the story of 12 year old Lola and her experience over a series of months as she writes a diary to a fictitious friend Anne.
As always I will try not to give away any spoilers but I will say that the not so distant future is shockingly realistic and all too possible - what is more the impact it has on Lola, her family and her friends is all to real.
This is one of those stories that asks - how big a nudge do we need to take the path described - and at what cost as you know once the journey is set no one will be the same again.
As always I will try not to give away any spoilers but I will say that the not so distant future is shockingly realistic and all too possible - what is more the impact it has on Lola, her family and her friends is all to real.
This is one of those stories that asks - how big a nudge do we need to take the path described - and at what cost as you know once the journey is set no one will be the same again.
June 29, 2013
Take Oliver Twist, A Clockwork Orange, and Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and beat them into a pulp with a baseball bat, and you've got Random Acts.
The last line made my heart lurch in horror, and not cynical, unfeeling horror of The Wasp Factory, but the kind that comes from genuine despair. I'm afraid that this is one of those books I'm going to be cornering unsuspecting people with at parties and saying "Have you read this f#cking thing?" while they cough and try to shuffle away.
Mindlost and unsoulled and utterly magnificent.
The last line made my heart lurch in horror, and not cynical, unfeeling horror of The Wasp Factory, but the kind that comes from genuine despair. I'm afraid that this is one of those books I'm going to be cornering unsuspecting people with at parties and saying "Have you read this f#cking thing?" while they cough and try to shuffle away.
Mindlost and unsoulled and utterly magnificent.
October 28, 2014
Fantastic, moving and poetic. YA, maybe, if A Clockwork Orange or Lord of the Flies or 1984 are YA. The end left me with a big lump in my throat (I thought of Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, then of Charly in Flowers for Algernon, then of Hamlet's "The readiness is all" as he avenged his father's murder and sealed his own fate.) I also thought of all the sweet, innocent, abandoned, grief-stricken kids I've known who've been sucked into gangs, the Juvenile Justice system and early deaths. And now tears.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 14, 2016
Una obra valiente y estremecedora olvidada hasta su recuperación hace unos años. De las mejores novelas de ciencia ficción de los 90.
January 28, 2015
My wish for this year is that just once, just one time, just for a second, there would be a Jack Womack book that I could actually recommend to people. Because he's a good author. And as I slowly maneuver my way through the DryCo books, I dolike them quite a bit. The futurespeak isn't completely impenetrable, the plots are intriguing and kind of freaky, and there's something very organic about the world of the books.
But the ones I've read, I can't recommend.
Random Acts of Senseless Violencedoesn't have the problems of Going Going Gone, though. It's technically the first book in the series chronologically, it's written for the most part in conventional language instead of barely-coherent hipster slang, it doesn't slam the doors on any of the worlds it creates, and for the most part, it's a tense, engaging read that posits a near-future United States where society is quickly crumbling and then sticks to it. It manages some moments of intense black humor, memorable characters, and one of the most engaging and human-feeling female leads I've read in years. This is a book that should be reprinted in classic editions and substituted in high schools instead of The Catcher in the Rye, and read and analyzed alongside A Clockwork Orangeand Riddley Walker.* This is, by all metrics I have available, an objectively good book.
But if I tell you to read this book, I do so with the knowledge it will hold you down and punch your lights out. It will attack you on pure lizard-brain instinct and punch you in the gut so hard and so often it'll become a second career. This is to dystopian literature what Straw Dogswas to romantic movies.
And I loved every second of it.
More, as always, below.
"Mama says I have a night mind."
- Lola "Booz" Hart
And it is literally all downhill from there. Actually, no, let me explain.
Random Acts of Senseless Violencebegins on Lola Hart's twelfth birthday. Lola's parents give her a bunch of the usual things-- new clothes, some new books, other various presents-- but most notable among the presents is Lola's new diary, which she names Anne. The book unfolds in diary entry after diary entry as Lola goes out for ice cream with her family, attends her upper-crust private school in Manhattan with her friends, and goes out to the various places in the city along the familiar, clean, reliable paths. Her mother and father are a literature professor and a television writer, respectively, and while they aren't doing terribly well, they're doing well enough they don't have to worry about money or losing their modest apartment. In fact, the only indication that anything is going wrong is that there seem to be small outbreaks of violence throughout the city, but since these are nowhere near the Harts, it's barely worth Lola's notice. She's too busy wondering why her friend Katherine is asking her weird questions and wants to practice kissing. And why her more brash friend Lori seems hostile towards the two of them, and especially Lola.
But soon the book takes a turn for the worse as the Hart parents lose their jobs due to the continual deterioration of the government and infrastructure. With no need for the arts, a TV writer and an English professor are out of work, and so the Hart parents try to make ends meet by editing manuscripts and trying to write better stories. Finally, Mr. Hart gets a job at a bookstore working for a cantankerous and possibly psychotic man named Mossbacher, and the entire family moves to Harlem. Within two days, they've lost most of their belongings and Lola's mother is upping her medication count. Thankfully, Lola's father managed to pay off her tuition, so she still gets to go to school with her friends, but as she is living in what they so eloquently refer to as "Cracktown", it puts a strain on things.
Lola's life is about to get a lot worse, though, not through any fault of her own but the fault of an uncaring system as it desperately clings to life. Despite new friends, Lola will have to learn a new language, a new set of social rules to live by, and even those she might leave behind as she and her family struggle to keep their heads above water and keep what little they have left.
When discussing the book with people outside this blog, I used the term "dystopian horror novel", and I stick to it, because it's an absolutely wrenching read, and because it's more horror novel than anything else. I was genuinely afraid while reading the book, not just because Random Acts of Senseless Violence avoids giving its hero even a little hope that things will be different (Lola can tell her mother is lying when she says that they'll be back at their old apartment someday), but because the horror was so commonplace and could literally happen to anyone. All of the worst events are simply a combination of bad luck and bad timing, starting with the Hart parents unable to get jobs that let them keep their lifestyle and that of their children. It's the plausibility and the fact that the conflicts and terrors in the novel are all very real that makes this more terrifying than anything else I've read in the past few months.
By grounding it in the first-person narration of a twelve year old girl, and one that starts the book as an optimistic and precocious young woman, the horror is all that nastier, too. In the beginning of the book, as things start to go bad, Lola has no idea what's going on. She's a fairly innocent child who doesn't understand much of anything. The earlier entries in her diary talk about things like going to an ice cream parlor and the toy store on her birthday, talking about boys with her friends, and when the horror enters, it's either trivial or something Lola can't even comprehend. As the book continues Lola's gradual descent into what can only be described as "hell", the language she uses slowly transforms more and more to match the street, and the tone of the novel becomes harder, harsher. It helps that Lola's a very human presence, and very believably written. Her family even acts like a family, and I loved that Lola used the euphemism of "a visit from Granny" or just "Granny" to describe her periods. It seemed so personal, and the exact sort of thing an innocent would use to describe something like that. Throughout the book, she recognizes that her mother's drugs put her her mother in a stupor, but doesn't actually go into detail about how. It's the same incomprehension level of Koko, though I do admit it works better here.
And finally, the world of NYC in the near-future is an immersive and vibrant one. The inhabitants have their own slang, their own legends, and even their own boogeyman in the form of violent-yet-unseen DCons. "Joining the DCons" seems to be a euphemism for being lost to the lower areas of New York and swallowed up by the city, the way that someone could be lost to any city. It's something that adds a certain element that I really liked. I felt connected, brought further in. As the slang starts to proliferate, the book's language breaking down into street-speak as the heroine does and as the world around her crumbles. There are also some darkly comic moments that help inform the setting, like when the angry citizens of the decaying US keep killing the President every time a new one is appointed, or Lola's crazy religious aunt who continues to feel justified as the country slides down the tubes. There are also some moments of setting-based horror, as well (What didthey do to poor Lori at Kure-A-Kid? And why does everyone think it's better?).
In the end, what you have is a violent, visceral, and terrifying book about a girl and her friends being broken both by the system and by the decay of society to the point of almost feral mental deterioration, and it is one of the best things I've read. Not because of all of that, but because Womack makes it terrifying in a way that A Clockwork Orange**only made surreal and unnerving. Despite all of this, the book is incredibly readable and does manage to make you care about these people getting crushed, only to see their brief glimmers of hope slowly extinguished. I am not sorry I read it, although I'm not sure I would ever read it again, knowing now that it is the first book to cause lingering disturbance since Athena Villaverde's Clockwork Girl, a book that I find myself referencing far too often. You should read this book. And then have a nice comedy to read directly afterwards. I myself and the staff at Geek Rage/Strange Library Media recommend either a Tim Dorsey book, or if you want something without violent criminals, The Good Fairies of New York.
I leave you know with a quote from one of the greatest philosophers and geniuses of our time:
"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."
NEXT WEEK:
Motorman by David Ohle
AND THEN:
- The Supernatural Enhancements by Edgar Cantero
- Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh
*Although I suppose the problem with those books would be that they've been analyzed so much that any possible impact the stories have is now lost...
**I should reallyditch the Womack/Burgess comparisons, but no one else has really attempted what they did, and while Russell Hoban comes close, Riddley Walkeris a little too pastoral and lyrical. Despite the baby-eating***.
***Yes, there's at least one baby that gets eaten in Riddley Walker. I got that far before I got sidetracked.
February 10, 2022
I just picked this up on a whim because it is in the SF masterworks series and I have never read this author before. Sometimes that works out for me and some times it . This time, thankfully, it did.
Having said that, at times the reading was somewhat hard for me. Not because it was in any way badly written or hard to engage with but because it was bleak and you just know it's going to get bleaker as the story goes on. This is a story told by a young teenage girl who lives in New York in a possible near future. She captures a period of her life of about five months in a diary in which we see the world, her surroundings and the people she loves deteriorate and fall away. We also witness a profound transformation in herself as she adapts to her new reality. A transformation all the more shocking by how quickly it happens and how complete it is.
I've seen it said that in all good novels you should see a change or transformation in the central characters over the course of the story. Although I'm not sure I necessarily agree with that, it is certainly the case here. And I think it is a story that will stick with you, I know it will with me.
Having said that, at times the reading was somewhat hard for me. Not because it was in any way badly written or hard to engage with but because it was bleak and you just know it's going to get bleaker as the story goes on. This is a story told by a young teenage girl who lives in New York in a possible near future. She captures a period of her life of about five months in a diary in which we see the world, her surroundings and the people she loves deteriorate and fall away. We also witness a profound transformation in herself as she adapts to her new reality. A transformation all the more shocking by how quickly it happens and how complete it is.
I've seen it said that in all good novels you should see a change or transformation in the central characters over the course of the story. Although I'm not sure I necessarily agree with that, it is certainly the case here. And I think it is a story that will stick with you, I know it will with me.
May 16, 2020
Lola es una niña de clase acomodada. Cuando cumple 12 años sus padres le regalan un diario, que se convertirá en el confidente en el que vierte todas sus vivencias. Él será el testigo de su transformación mientras el país sufre una crisis que hace que se desmorone todo lo que hasta entonces había dado por supuesto.
Una historia estremecedora, que he terminado con el corazón en un puño. Aunque tengo que reconocer que el contexto de incertidumbre en el que vivimos, y tener una hija de edad similar a la protagonista, puede haber influido en que la novela me atrapara con tanta fuerza. La he sufrido, pero eso es lo que le pedimos a nuestras lecturas, ¿no? Que nos hagan sentir.
Resulta extraño que una novela tan potente como esta no haya sido traducida al castellano.
Una historia estremecedora, que he terminado con el corazón en un puño. Aunque tengo que reconocer que el contexto de incertidumbre en el que vivimos, y tener una hija de edad similar a la protagonista, puede haber influido en que la novela me atrapara con tanta fuerza. La he sufrido, pero eso es lo que le pedimos a nuestras lecturas, ¿no? Que nos hagan sentir.
Resulta extraño que una novela tan potente como esta no haya sido traducida al castellano.
October 21, 2020
Ако съдим по описанието на книгата, тя би трябвало да е безкрайно интересна - сайбърпънк от гледната точка на 12 годишно момиче, постапокалиптична фантастика от автор, партнирал си с големия Уилям Гибсън.
За съжаление получаваме... точно каквото е описано - книга, написана от гледната точка на 12 годишно момиче в стил "дневник", дето ден по ден, със словореда и начина на изразяване на не особено интелигентно дете са описани някакви събития... от от гледната точка и с разбирането на не особено интелигентно дете.
Абсолютна скука.
За съжаление получаваме... точно каквото е описано - книга, написана от гледната точка на 12 годишно момиче в стил "дневник", дето ден по ден, със словореда и начина на изразяване на не особено интелигентно дете са описани някакви събития... от от гледната точка и с разбирането на не особено интелигентно дете.
Абсолютна скука.
March 2, 2017
This book is bleak. Bleak as in baby sparrow being left to die in the middle of a desolate moor during a heavy winter sleet storm after its mother and siblings were eaten by a sadistic cat, who probably wasn't even hungry just cruel, just so so cruel.
It's also a good book.
Lola a clever happy 12 year old living a comfortable existence in the upper west side in New York starts a diary. Day by day she chronicles a steadily disintegrating society and the impact it has on her and her family as they struggle to cope with downward spiral. It's done well not least in capturing the shifting voice of child, and in showing how everything gets stripped from that child immensely moving and absorbing.
It's also a good book.
Lola a clever happy 12 year old living a comfortable existence in the upper west side in New York starts a diary. Day by day she chronicles a steadily disintegrating society and the impact it has on her and her family as they struggle to cope with downward spiral. It's done well not least in capturing the shifting voice of child, and in showing how everything gets stripped from that child immensely moving and absorbing.
December 28, 2010
Random Acts of Senseless Violence is the first book I've read of Jack Womack, but it won't be the last. Let me say upfront that Womack is a fringe writer, meaning he writes for a very unique audience. I imagine his fans are the same kind of people who like TWIN PEAKS, which means he's an acquired taste. What makes him so different? Mostly his prose, which I'm told is at its most understated here, but gets more intense with each book. He's one of those guys who gives his characters their own vernacular, syntax and grammar, and when they begin to speak, it's almost like listening to another language. Because this is a first person narrative, that language emerges as the dominant language and as a result, some might find it hard to follow.
The story centers on a 12 year old girl living in a near future state of New York where things have gotten so bad, multiple presidents are killed, riots are everywhere, and joblessness has sent her family from the penthouse to the outhouse. A castoff in private school, she soon finds herself hanging with some girls from her new neighborhood (just outside of the warzone Harlem) and she not only takes on their langauge, but some of their street sensibilities.
In some ways poignant, some ways horrifying, RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENT is something different. A breath of fresh air that while slow (there isn't a ton of plotting here) does manage to draw us in to care about the young protagonist as she learns about life's harsh sensibilities.
I'm not sure this book will ever be a classic, but it's well-written and earnest and as the pages fly by, the unique language becomes only more engrossing. I've read some of his other books operate in this same world, but I don't think the protagonist of this one is featured in those. It's two bad as I would have liked to seen where she ended up somewhere down the line. I guess that's the point of a good book, though, right?
The story centers on a 12 year old girl living in a near future state of New York where things have gotten so bad, multiple presidents are killed, riots are everywhere, and joblessness has sent her family from the penthouse to the outhouse. A castoff in private school, she soon finds herself hanging with some girls from her new neighborhood (just outside of the warzone Harlem) and she not only takes on their langauge, but some of their street sensibilities.
In some ways poignant, some ways horrifying, RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENT is something different. A breath of fresh air that while slow (there isn't a ton of plotting here) does manage to draw us in to care about the young protagonist as she learns about life's harsh sensibilities.
I'm not sure this book will ever be a classic, but it's well-written and earnest and as the pages fly by, the unique language becomes only more engrossing. I've read some of his other books operate in this same world, but I don't think the protagonist of this one is featured in those. It's two bad as I would have liked to seen where she ended up somewhere down the line. I guess that's the point of a good book, though, right?
September 11, 2018
Five stars=It was amazing. It was, but not in the sense that Vanity Fair or Paradise Lost or even Harry Potter is. I have no idea where this book came from. I mean both from the author and from wherever to land on my NOOK. Something must have clicked in the promo that urged me to download it. Frankly, it was a little heavier than I would've liked considering a lot of recent books I've been reading. The construction of this novel is utterly fascinating. Circular in some ways, in others a straight shot down from the fairly mundane to living hell. Life of the fairly well-to-do in New York City set against a vague (in the beginning) to looming destruction of the U.S. into a third-world country. (The chronology of the book is February to July and in those few months, three American Presidents are assassinated. Three.) Womack's use of language is brilliant. That, perhaps, is the essential part of what made this book so amazing to me. Booz/Lola/Lo (the 12-year-old writing the journal that is the novel) goes from a child attending a private girls' school and whose parents are a university professor and a screenwriter to a near-animal speaking the street language of multi-cultures. Whether it's sibling rivalry, catty girl behavior, exploring sexuality, economic collapse affecting everyone, addiction, inner city war, gangs, survival, they all grip you and tear you asunder. This novel pummeled me.
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