Some major over-writing happening here: “The windshield had a crack that traversed our view of the road like the Rio Grande Delnorte separates Mexico from America. It drove like a block of ice sliding down a flight of stairs leading to hell.” Larry loves those similes. Pity, cause there’s great potential. ’79 Torino is one of those road trip books that, when they’re done properly, thrive on understatement. At its best, this type of writing puts the reader in the driver’s seat, gives him a good look around and lets him ponder the strange, mundane wonders of the world. Larry, however, refuses to let us take a turn driving. He feels the need to tell the reader exactly how to think about everything: his Ford Torino, the things that happen to him in his Ford Torino, the things he encounters while driving in his Ford Torino. Larry has a couple of other chapbooks, “Sex-o-Matic Trouble” and “Lessons From Home” which are basically the same. It’s Larry telling you what he thinks and feels about San Francisco, about Dukes of Hazzard, about everything. To tell the truth, I don’t care what Larry thinks and feels. I don’t care if he believes that “male adolescence is just a training ground for blowing our loads as hard and as far as we can.” Don’t think, Larry. Just tell me what you see and let me do the thinking. (KS)
chapbook, $3, Larry Whittaker, Prosthetic Press, 1221 Drummond St., Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1V8,