amie Coates is an inquisitive, sensitive young fellow, but a bit of a typical slacker. He gets by unambitiously in San Francisco, living in a cheap hotel room funded by washing dishes or driving a cab. But all this is to change when he meets a man named Elias. Elias claims to be from the lost continent of Lemuria. He possesses strange powers, including the ability to teleport with a mere gesture of his hand. Allied with Elias are colorful figures all around the globe—including a sexy woman named Anna and an assistant named Winks—all linked in a nebulous struggle against the Committee, a group of despotic, greedy killers who are intent on ruling the planet and who have infiltrated various levels of government in the United States and elsewhere.
Something about Jamie makes Elias enlist him as an agent on the side of good. Before he can blink, Jamie is sent to Southeast Asia to become spiritually baptized in the secrets of Elias' path. Luckily for Jamie, these initiatory rituals consist mainly of hanging with the exotic local girls and some intense navel-gazing, as well as schmoozing with certain outlaw figures. But eventually these unlikely practices do produce a new Jamie, more philosophically deep and physically capable. He's ready for his first assignment, which is to track down a Committee killer known as El Que Vela, He Who Flies, an assassin able to assume avian form. Jamie succeeds in this mission. But stronger opponents await.
However, two comedic Committee thugs who definitely present no great problems to Jamie are a pair nicknamed Donuts and Tweety. Drunken, bumbling nitwits, their exploits are farcical. They are sent to murder a female writer in Sri Lanka who has tumbled to the Committee's secrets, and Jamie becomes the woman's protector. This mission too is accomplished to Elias's satisfaction. But now Jamie will face his biggest hurdle: the thing that was once a human named Bob Malloy, but which is now an alien creature dubbed the Importer Star, or IS. The IS's body is a conduit for an alien invasion, and only Jamie and friends can stop him to save the world.
Mildly transgressive pulp
This novel by U.K. punk rocker Johnny Strike (his band is named The Crime) comes with an endorsement from the grandpappy of the transgressive set, ol' Bill Lee hisself. That William Burroughs would enjoy this tale is no surprise, since it reads like Burroughs Lite. But that's no slur or knock against Strike, who does a fine job in capturing the kind of deadpan, tranked-out ambiance of a typical Burroughs novel. Strike has down pat all the idiosyncratic major motifs that made Burroughs so hypnotic: alien invasions through odd means; dehumanization; altered states of consciousness; kinky sex; outlaw codes of honor, and so forth. But he manages to cast his own unique spotlight on these crannies of human and extra-human existence.
The fact that Jamie is an amiable, engaging sort helps a lot. He's never snotty or supercilious, but rather maintains a charming freshness and naivete through all his weird adventures. The other characters are sketched with equal deftness. Donuts and Tweety are goofballs out of some Westlake or Leonard novel, while private eye Dan Roscoe comes straight from classic noir. The villains receive lesser definition, but serve their purpose well enough
The key to success in this kind of novel is that while the larger meaning of events remains ambiguous, the events themselves must be narrated with utter clarity. And here's where Strike shines. His foreign locales are depicted with a brightness of surface and a sense of hidden depths that bespeak firsthand experience. The same is true of the grubby streets of San Francisco. Strike's similes and sensory detailings are never overdone or strained, but always on target. Additionally, there is a subtle use of symbolism throughout the book. Count how many times, for instance, garish Hawaiian shirts crop up, and who's wearing them. This book does not merely meander—although it does its fair share of that stoner activity—but travels toward an omega point of meaning, even if it never quite reaches it, leaving us wishing for a possible sequel.
Anyone who enjoys the work of William Vollman, Steve Erickson, Paul Bowles or Steve Aylett will find much to admire in Strike's guided tour of infernal hotspots.
