What an impressive, quick read. I love Clancy Martin's writing - his ability to capture detail and specific moments summons similarities to Henry Miller. His description and placement of women also belongs in the Miller world - here are men who are heart-breakingly in love with women, with the wrong women, the archetypal Medusa women. Men who use because their minds and hearts are alienated from their flesh from time to time, only to wake up put together, pain coursing throughout. I got into HOW TO SELL from Clancy Martin's fictional essays on Vice magazine - those are worth reading as well, particularly "Whores I Have Loved." I was appalled, interested, and ultimately enchanted by how Martin's male protagonists fell into one vice and bed to another and still reappeared sympathetic, human and sometimes even strong. Narratively and as a comprehensive novel, HOW TO SELL leaves me wanting more and wondering where the ending should be. It's trendy to produce work that serves as a "slice of life" for audiences, but I'm starting to get tired of asking "What's the point of this story?" to all of the authors, filmmakers and other contemporary story tellers out there. I'd like to know why. I'd like to know what exactly did Robby/Bobby Clark learn at the end, after the deaths and business failures. And where does he go? I want to know!I still recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the complex world of jewelry trade and the world of the emotionally and sexually confused male. Gems and broken men - not a bad exploration at all. This is an extraordinary novel. Characters and plot make it compulsively readable. Martin's prose is also fantastic. There is a hint of Jim Thompson, of James M. Cain -- but also there's a tenderness to Bobby Clark towards his brother and his women that transcends the hard-boiled. Interviews indicate that Clancy thought long and hard about the moral implications of the situations in his book. I was aware of the dense complexity of these, but also sped along by the quality of the prose, the intensity of the action, and the wonderfully thorough explication of the jewelry trade. Martin's next book is due to be a memoir (this is a heavily autobiographical novel), and I can't wait to read it. I look forward to seeing him tackle a fully conventional fiction, as I think he's still got room to grow and mature as a story-teller.
What do You think about Come Si Vende (2009)?
I liked the Dallas references, but liked the book for more than just that.
—SmartBlonde28
Ugh, this was so distasteful I abandoned it, which I hardly ever do.
—berdine
