[title subtitle=”review: Anita Paddock”][/title]
By Nic Pizzolatto
Scribner, 258 pages: $24.90
Nic Pizzolatto, author of this novel that came out four years ago and the creator of the HBO series, True Detective, has hit it big. And I mean big!
Pizzolatto graduated from the Creative Writing Program of the University of Arkansas as their brightest star. He got his start with a book of short stories published by MacAdam-Cage, a publishing house that is no more, but one that was especially interested in launching new, talented writers. Nic took a chance and moved to Hollywood and got a job working on screenplays and from there he took off. All this from a young man who left home and has been completely independent since the age of seventeen.
Galveston opens in 1987 with Roy Cody, who’s nicknamed Big Country because he’s tall, has long hair, a beard, and wears cowboy boots. He’s soon told his lungs are full of cancer and he doesn’t have long to live.
Ray works for a loan shark and bar owner in New Orleans, but his job is on shaky ground because of a woman who used to be his girlfriend, but is now involved with his boss. The boss plots to kill Roy, but he survives an ambush in a seedy hotel by killing three men, only to find Roxy, an eighteen-year-old prostitute in another room with her dead co-worker. He begrudgingly takes the girl with him, knowing both their lives are in danger.
Roy goes to his trailer and grabs some cash he’s saved for an emergency get-away. He also takes along some documents that could get a lot of people in trouble. They head for Galveston, and Roy plans to ditch Roxy as soon as he can. He is attracted to Roxy, but he doesn’t want to be. Along the way, she convinces him to stop in Orange, Texas, so she can pick up money owed to her. Roy lets her off at a shack out in the country, but instead of money, she picks up her three-and-a-half-year-old sister named Tiffany.
Always fearful they’ll be caught by either the police or the ex-boss and his thugs, the unlikely trio finally arrives in Galveston. Roy shaves his head, assumes a new name, and they stay in a seedy motel five blocks from the beach. Roy takes the girls to J.C. Penney in the mall and buys them a few clothes and bathing suits. They swim in the Gulf and picnic at the beach. And for a moment, Roy feels like part of a family.
The other motel guests are drifters and down-and-outers, but two old sisters and the owner of the motel take an interest in Roxy and Tiffany. Roy tries to get Roxy a respectable job downtown, so she can take care of Tiffany. He knows he’s either going to be killed by his ex-boss or die of his cancer, and he can’t continue to help them.
Pizzolatto makes you care about Roy, even with all his considerable flaws, and that is one of this writer’s greatest triumphs.
Galveston depicts a harsh world, and it’s sometimes tough reading, but Pizzolatto’s writing is so hauntingly real that I could feel the sunburn on my back and taste the salt on my skin.
