UM Book Club: The King of Methlehem by Mark Lindquist - Part IV
September 26, 2007 by Greg
Part IV
Pages: 179 - 235 (the end)
Characters
- Howard Schulz - Meth cook
- Wyatt James - Detective
- Martin - Initial tweaker narc turning informant
- Midget - New narc found at identity theft scene
- Amber - Second tweaker narc
- Brandy - Howard’s current meth lab host
- Porche - Brandy’s 12 year old daughter
- Joe - Brandy’s 10 year old son
- Suki - Wyatt’s girlfriend
- Mike Lawson - Prosecutor
The final installment of this book wraps up most things, but not all. We experience a few interactions that are simply dropped from the plot line. Howard visits Suki at her work and leaves her with a message for Wyatt. Wyatt gives Amber permission to start using again in order to get a warrant to raid Howard’s lab. However, neither of these points are revisited as the plot moves in a different direction. I found this an interesting twist.
After reading through this book, I won’t be picking up another one of Mark Lindquist’s novels. I felt like I’ve spent 6 hours watching MTV Films present Meth in Tacoma. MTV may actually be too relevant, perhaps VH1 would be a better choice.
Points:
- Why did Howard buy an electric chainsaw to cut off Martin’s finger? Would a gas powered saw have made more sense?
- Earlier in the novel, Brandy mentions that she has quit stripping because it was a young girls job. Later, Suki explains how subjective it is to gauge your own age in the strip club, but it is glad she left before she got too old.
- When howard first attempts to seduce Porche, he produces a bag of meth with a superman logo. He says it is from one of his personal cooks and is of good quality. Later in the story, Martin is moving meth for Howard, stamped with a superman logo. Throughout the story the R.E.M. superman lyric is sung by Howard. What is the significance?
Cheers at ya greg. I went into this book with high hopes. The jacket seemed to talk howard up into being this some sort of smooth drug dealer that never materialized. Way too much over developing the wrong characters while leaving others totally without any sort of personality. did the wrong sorts of things and too much of the music “shout outs”. ended up reading the book in basically 1 session hoping that it would get better and realizing by the end, nope that’s the way it is…
Goat, I agree to a point. I was actually engaged at first; getting a peek under the covers of the whole meth lifestyle. By the end though, so much had become cliched and just positively trite it was hard to forgive. The feather at the end? Oh my God. Hellz no.
I think people could have an easier understanding of the meth madness by watching Spun. (Props to the friends I discussed this point with Saturday night over some beers at the new Belgium pub in town..Cheeky indeed
)