Sex, Gender & Stupid Crimes
in Vancouver's Cityscape
by Zoë Landale
UBC Alumni Chronicle, Spring 1993
Stupid Crimes by Dennis E. Bolen MFA'89 (Anvil Press, $10.95, paper) is endearing, full of foul-mouthed characters, and a great read. Bolen, like his protagonist, Barry Delta, is a parole officer. He writes from the inside about petty criminals and their foolish, horrifying, and sometimes very funny run-ins with the law. No matter how stupid and inept his parolees, the author allows them to keep their dignity. Honest and compassionate, Bolen pushes his writing far beyond the tawdriness of 7-Elevens and murder. In literary terms, he takes chances and makes them work. This is a beautifully crafted book.
The dialogue sizzles. Set in Vancouver, this is an underworld Bolen knows intimately. I kept picking it up and losing myself in it for half an hour, emerging laughing, shaking my head or both. I learned more than I wanted to about jail.
The book itself has a loose, episodic format: Delta and his love life, a whole galaxy of parolees who recur in crime after crime, who end up in one anther's stories. I loved the strange short insertion, headed with titles like "One Thing That Angers Barry Delta Is Having To Fit Into the Cracks," and "Barry Delta Knows That This Is Not a Dangerous Job." The one quibble I had with the book was why Wayne, the Rummy Bandit, doesn't cut someone from jail in on where he's hidden his stash.
Stupid Crimes has been optioned by the William Morris Agency in LA and the rumour is that Harrison Ford will be the leading man. (I told you Bolen was good.)
|
