Dec 15th, 2007
The Delivery Man
The painting Devon liked the most - the one Devon told Chase he thought should “anchor your wall” - was the one that Chase was the most reluctant about: a girl sits on a bed and stares blankly out a window. Early-morning sunlight fills the room, bathing her in yellow. The girl wears her hair in a ponytail and her tan skin seems smooth until you move in closer and then you see the sores around her mouth and the white scar on her forehead. Outside the window is a sea of pink tile roofs that bleed together so that it’s impossible to distinguish one from the next. The painting’s title: ‘Carly.’
His art and girlfriend Julia, finishing her MBA in New York, are representative of a new life for Chase once he moves to San Francisco. His childhood friend Michele, a prostitute attempting to launch an escort business with another one of his childhood friends Bailey, is his current reality in Las Vegas.
Joe McGinniss Jr.’s debut novel, The Delivery Man is a story about the struggle of the individual to achieve the promise of something better while mired in the the dystopia of his past and present. And what better place to set this struggle than the City of Sin.
Aesthetically, The Delivery Man is on-point. In fact, it is one of the few narratives I’ve managed to finish in a while.
McGinniss does a masterful job structuring his novel, alternating between the present narrative and stark flashbacks - many based on actual interviews that he conducted with teens in Vegas.
McGinniss peppers the narrative with periodic intimations to future events, which keeps the momentum moving squarely forward. In fact, I gobbled it up voraciously in about two days and I have mild ADD.
Not your average Joe
The prose reminds me a bit of Dave Eggers, except less poetic and more edgy and visual.
The texture of the novel is a bit stressful to say the least. I read the majority of the book with a sinking feeling of despair in the pit of my stomach not unlike the feeling I had while watching Leaving Las Vegas, based on a John O’Brien novel or more recently, the feeling I had while watching the first few minutes of Rules of Attraction (the 2002 version), based on a Bret Ellis novel. Come to think of it, I have a feeling it won’t be long until I’m experiencing that same feeling while watching the film adaptation of The Delivery Man.
Ultimately, The Delivery Man is not only a compelling story about a young man’s struggle in Las Vegas, but also a statement about the latent ideology of the ‘MySpace generation,’ one of moral ambiguity and superficial excess, and the growing divide between the MySpace generation and those preceding it.
Now I’m starting to sound disgustingly cliche and that is my cue to stop writing and do something else.
Bottom line - order this book from Amazon or wherever you go to buy your books and you will not be disappointed.
Agreed. This book is a non-stop raw depiction of the underbelly of urban America. A great start for Joe McGinnis Jr.
[...] few weeks back I reviewed Joe McGinniss Jr.’s debut novel The Delivery Man, now available from [...]
cool. sounds interesting, thanks for the review!
While I respect liking this book, I don’t really understand why. What does it provide? What inspiration, what worth? It sucks to me, I read it feeling worse and worse and more confused watching a narrator I wanted to like let 16 year old girls into prostitution. I’m not like a high horse kind of guy, and I guess I respect realism, but don’t really see the point of this book, or liking for that matter.