Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
New York : Vintage Books, 1990.
Description
Once upon a time Eddie played concert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall. Now he bangs out honky-tonk for drunks in a dive in Philadelphia. But then two people walk into Eddie's life--the first promising Eddie a future, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Shoot the Piano Player is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty: the kind a man owes his family, no matter how bad that family is; the kind a man owes a woman; and, ultimately, the loyalty he owes himself. The result is a moody thriller that, like the best hard-boiled fiction, carries a moral depth charge.
User reviews
LibraryThing member datrappert
There are no joyrides when reading Goodis. But there are a lot of pleasures to be had in the little parts of his writing. Everything is intensely dark and intensely real even if you don't fully understand the characters' motivation or how they act, and even if you have never walked alone on the
I've written around things here to avoid providing any spoilers. This is not a happy book. It is filled with scenes of pain and brutality, but throughout, there are rays of light as human beings act human and in the midst of this dark world, they reach out to help the pianist in small ways. This is too dark to be escapist fiction, but I suspect you won't be able to put it down until the end, or to soon forget it.
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dark streets of Philadelphia. The story concerns a pianist, formerly a sensation on the classical stage (as befits a graduate of the Curtis Institute, America's premier music school), who has now retreated to playing jazz in an out-of-the-way bar for $30 a week. As the story unfolds, we are shown both the personal tragedy and the family he has run away from. But there is no escaping either as Goodis draws us into this bleak tale. The pianist's brother is on the run from the mob and comes to the bar looking for help. Suddenly the passive pianist is now engaged in something he never wanted--and his animal side is coming back info focus, as it did after his personal tragedy.I've written around things here to avoid providing any spoilers. This is not a happy book. It is filled with scenes of pain and brutality, but throughout, there are rays of light as human beings act human and in the midst of this dark world, they reach out to help the pianist in small ways. This is too dark to be escapist fiction, but I suspect you won't be able to put it down until the end, or to soon forget it.
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LibraryThing member the_terrible_trivium
AKA "Down There". A poetic bit of noir. Takes place in my home state, and during the winter too. Snow everywhere. Dense and beautiful writing.
LibraryThing member MarquesadeFlambe
From the back: "If Jack Kerouac had written crime novels, they might have sounded a bit like this." - Geoffrey O'Brien. What else is there to say?
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
David Goodis is a great storyteller. The story opens with a man, bloodied, dazed and running from two unknown men. Throughout most of the plot you don't know who is who. Is the running man a good guy or is he bad? Why do the men chasing him want him so badly? They are relentless in their pursuit.
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You don't know who to root for. But, the story isn't really about the man being pursued. When he escapes into a seedy bar where his brother is playing piano, the attention shifts. Now, caught in the middle is younger brother, Eddie. Growing up, Eddie had very little to do with his rough and violent brothers. While they followed a life of crime, Eddie became a Carnegie Hall pianist. Now, he is just a simple piano player in Harriet's Hut. Out of family loyalty, Eddie helps his brother and plunges headlong into the trouble is he has been trying to avoid for years. There is a reason he no longer plays Carnegie and that past comes back to haunt him. Throughout the story there isn't enough character development to care about Eddie or his family. You don't know if they are the good guys or not. Enough bad things have happened to Eddie to make the reader sympathetic to his plight, but not enough to sit on the edge of your seat, hoping and praying for his survival. I rooted for the plucky waitress, Lena, who attaches herself to Eddie and refuses to take no for an answer. She was gutsy and valiant and never wavered from her character. Show Less
LibraryThing member write-review
Originally Published in 1956 as Down There,/i>
File this classic noir tale, made all the more famous by François Truffaut’s retitled 1960 film adaptation Shoot the Piano Player, under “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.” As Goodis’ very dark novel illustrates, they might yawn and lick you, or, more
Eddie Lynn earns his meager keep by scratching out tunes on a beat up upright in Harriet’s Hut, a dive bar in the seedy part of Philadelphia. He a quiet man in worn clothes who comes across as milquetoast. He’s tightly scribed his existence in a tiny circle of playing, lying in his room, and occasionally paying Clarice for a bit of sex. So divorced from the world is he, he’s not aware that a young, attractive waitress, Lena, has her eye on his.
Then Turley shows up battered and a little disoriented and urges Eddie to help him. Eddie hasn’t laid eyes on Turley, or his other older brother Clifton, nor his parents, or their modest homestead in the dark woods of south Jersey in nearly a decade. Turley and Clifton have been involved in a caper that has gone seriously wrong. Two gunsels, described as real professionals, are after him and he needs to get away fast. Eddie doesn’t want any part of the action but fate dictates otherwise. The pros turn up at the bar and in the first of many violent outbursts in the book, Eddie enables Turley’s escape. Now, however, Eddie is a marked man who himself must avoid and eventually flee the gunmen.
Unfortunately for Eddie, the affair awakens his senses, especially to Lena, who helps him, and to whom he begins to become attached. He sufferers internal conflict, in fact the core of the book is about his constant internal struggle to not love again, to hide his true identity, to keep clear of his notorious brothers, all of which bubble to the surface and help readers understand the real Eddie.
Debate himself as much as he will, he can’t suppress his growing feelings for Lena, and can’t keep his previous life, love, and agony over causing his young wife’s death bottled up. It sort of replays itself when the bouncer, who is also Harriet’s husband and an ex-wrestler known as the Harleyville Hugger (specialty: bear hugging an opponent into submission) tries to take liberties with Lena. A brutal and exhausting fight ensues between him and Eddie, when Eddie defends her. It results in the stabbing death of Hugger.
Now Eddie with the aid of Lena, for whom he finally concedes his growing affection, has to lam out of Philly to the one place he’s certain nobody will find him, the family house in Jersey. Naturally, this being noir and ultimately nihilistic at heart, complete disaster engulfs every character in the novel, until Eddie reins in his emotional monster, and the novel ends on these notes: “He opened his eyes. He saw his fingers caressing the keyboard.”
Modern readers will probably find the dialogue somewhat stilted and anachronistic and Eddie’s motivations a bit overwrought, but Goodis more than makes up for these with his word pictures of a dark, brutal world, and the idea of a guy who just wants to be left alone to stew in his misfortune and, most important, not to care and love again to only enviably hurt the one loved and himself again.
File this classic noir tale, made all the more famous by François Truffaut’s retitled 1960 film adaptation Shoot the Piano Player, under “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.” As Goodis’ very dark novel illustrates, they might yawn and lick you, or, more
Show More
likely in noir land, they might be wounded by the past and explode to engulf you in violence that tears your world apart.Eddie Lynn earns his meager keep by scratching out tunes on a beat up upright in Harriet’s Hut, a dive bar in the seedy part of Philadelphia. He a quiet man in worn clothes who comes across as milquetoast. He’s tightly scribed his existence in a tiny circle of playing, lying in his room, and occasionally paying Clarice for a bit of sex. So divorced from the world is he, he’s not aware that a young, attractive waitress, Lena, has her eye on his.
Then Turley shows up battered and a little disoriented and urges Eddie to help him. Eddie hasn’t laid eyes on Turley, or his other older brother Clifton, nor his parents, or their modest homestead in the dark woods of south Jersey in nearly a decade. Turley and Clifton have been involved in a caper that has gone seriously wrong. Two gunsels, described as real professionals, are after him and he needs to get away fast. Eddie doesn’t want any part of the action but fate dictates otherwise. The pros turn up at the bar and in the first of many violent outbursts in the book, Eddie enables Turley’s escape. Now, however, Eddie is a marked man who himself must avoid and eventually flee the gunmen.
Unfortunately for Eddie, the affair awakens his senses, especially to Lena, who helps him, and to whom he begins to become attached. He sufferers internal conflict, in fact the core of the book is about his constant internal struggle to not love again, to hide his true identity, to keep clear of his notorious brothers, all of which bubble to the surface and help readers understand the real Eddie.
Debate himself as much as he will, he can’t suppress his growing feelings for Lena, and can’t keep his previous life, love, and agony over causing his young wife’s death bottled up. It sort of replays itself when the bouncer, who is also Harriet’s husband and an ex-wrestler known as the Harleyville Hugger (specialty: bear hugging an opponent into submission) tries to take liberties with Lena. A brutal and exhausting fight ensues between him and Eddie, when Eddie defends her. It results in the stabbing death of Hugger.
Now Eddie with the aid of Lena, for whom he finally concedes his growing affection, has to lam out of Philly to the one place he’s certain nobody will find him, the family house in Jersey. Naturally, this being noir and ultimately nihilistic at heart, complete disaster engulfs every character in the novel, until Eddie reins in his emotional monster, and the novel ends on these notes: “He opened his eyes. He saw his fingers caressing the keyboard.”
Modern readers will probably find the dialogue somewhat stilted and anachronistic and Eddie’s motivations a bit overwrought, but Goodis more than makes up for these with his word pictures of a dark, brutal world, and the idea of a guy who just wants to be left alone to stew in his misfortune and, most important, not to care and love again to only enviably hurt the one loved and himself again.
Show Less
LibraryThing member write-review
Originally Published in 1956 as Down There,/i>
File this classic noir tale, made all the more famous by François Truffaut’s retitled 1960 film adaptation Shoot the Piano Player, under “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.” As Goodis’ very dark novel illustrates, they might yawn and lick you, or, more
Eddie Lynn earns his meager keep by scratching out tunes on a beat up upright in Harriet’s Hut, a dive bar in the seedy part of Philadelphia. He a quiet man in worn clothes who comes across as milquetoast. He’s tightly scribed his existence in a tiny circle of playing, lying in his room, and occasionally paying Clarice for a bit of sex. So divorced from the world is he, he’s not aware that a young, attractive waitress, Lena, has her eye on his.
Then Turley shows up battered and a little disoriented and urges Eddie to help him. Eddie hasn’t laid eyes on Turley, or his other older brother Clifton, nor his parents, or their modest homestead in the dark woods of south Jersey in nearly a decade. Turley and Clifton have been involved in a caper that has gone seriously wrong. Two gunsels, described as real professionals, are after him and he needs to get away fast. Eddie doesn’t want any part of the action but fate dictates otherwise. The pros turn up at the bar and in the first of many violent outbursts in the book, Eddie enables Turley’s escape. Now, however, Eddie is a marked man who himself must avoid and eventually flee the gunmen.
Unfortunately for Eddie, the affair awakens his senses, especially to Lena, who helps him, and to whom he begins to become attached. He sufferers internal conflict, in fact the core of the book is about his constant internal struggle to not love again, to hide his true identity, to keep clear of his notorious brothers, all of which bubble to the surface and help readers understand the real Eddie.
Debate himself as much as he will, he can’t suppress his growing feelings for Lena, and can’t keep his previous life, love, and agony over causing his young wife’s death bottled up. It sort of replays itself when the bouncer, who is also Harriet’s husband and an ex-wrestler known as the Harleyville Hugger (specialty: bear hugging an opponent into submission) tries to take liberties with Lena. A brutal and exhausting fight ensues between him and Eddie, when Eddie defends her. It results in the stabbing death of Hugger.
Now Eddie with the aid of Lena, for whom he finally concedes his growing affection, has to lam out of Philly to the one place he’s certain nobody will find him, the family house in Jersey. Naturally, this being noir and ultimately nihilistic at heart, complete disaster engulfs every character in the novel, until Eddie reins in his emotional monster, and the novel ends on these notes: “He opened his eyes. He saw his fingers caressing the keyboard.”
Modern readers will probably find the dialogue somewhat stilted and anachronistic and Eddie’s motivations a bit overwrought, but Goodis more than makes up for these with his word pictures of a dark, brutal world, and the idea of a guy who just wants to be left alone to stew in his misfortune and, most important, not to care and love again to only enviably hurt the one loved and himself again.
File this classic noir tale, made all the more famous by François Truffaut’s retitled 1960 film adaptation Shoot the Piano Player, under “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.” As Goodis’ very dark novel illustrates, they might yawn and lick you, or, more
Show More
likely in noir land, they might be wounded by the past and explode to engulf you in violence that tears your world apart.Eddie Lynn earns his meager keep by scratching out tunes on a beat up upright in Harriet’s Hut, a dive bar in the seedy part of Philadelphia. He a quiet man in worn clothes who comes across as milquetoast. He’s tightly scribed his existence in a tiny circle of playing, lying in his room, and occasionally paying Clarice for a bit of sex. So divorced from the world is he, he’s not aware that a young, attractive waitress, Lena, has her eye on his.
Then Turley shows up battered and a little disoriented and urges Eddie to help him. Eddie hasn’t laid eyes on Turley, or his other older brother Clifton, nor his parents, or their modest homestead in the dark woods of south Jersey in nearly a decade. Turley and Clifton have been involved in a caper that has gone seriously wrong. Two gunsels, described as real professionals, are after him and he needs to get away fast. Eddie doesn’t want any part of the action but fate dictates otherwise. The pros turn up at the bar and in the first of many violent outbursts in the book, Eddie enables Turley’s escape. Now, however, Eddie is a marked man who himself must avoid and eventually flee the gunmen.
Unfortunately for Eddie, the affair awakens his senses, especially to Lena, who helps him, and to whom he begins to become attached. He sufferers internal conflict, in fact the core of the book is about his constant internal struggle to not love again, to hide his true identity, to keep clear of his notorious brothers, all of which bubble to the surface and help readers understand the real Eddie.
Debate himself as much as he will, he can’t suppress his growing feelings for Lena, and can’t keep his previous life, love, and agony over causing his young wife’s death bottled up. It sort of replays itself when the bouncer, who is also Harriet’s husband and an ex-wrestler known as the Harleyville Hugger (specialty: bear hugging an opponent into submission) tries to take liberties with Lena. A brutal and exhausting fight ensues between him and Eddie, when Eddie defends her. It results in the stabbing death of Hugger.
Now Eddie with the aid of Lena, for whom he finally concedes his growing affection, has to lam out of Philly to the one place he’s certain nobody will find him, the family house in Jersey. Naturally, this being noir and ultimately nihilistic at heart, complete disaster engulfs every character in the novel, until Eddie reins in his emotional monster, and the novel ends on these notes: “He opened his eyes. He saw his fingers caressing the keyboard.”
Modern readers will probably find the dialogue somewhat stilted and anachronistic and Eddie’s motivations a bit overwrought, but Goodis more than makes up for these with his word pictures of a dark, brutal world, and the idea of a guy who just wants to be left alone to stew in his misfortune and, most important, not to care and love again to only enviably hurt the one loved and himself again.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1956
Physical description
158 p.; 21 cm
ISBN
0679732543 / 9780679732549