June 14th, 2009 by NerdOfNoir
BSC Review
There’s only one word for Gary Phillips’ The Jook and that word is fucking cool (you had to believe the Nerd would spice up said word with some Grade-A poop-mouth, am I right?). This fucking beast is just oozing with cool. I haven’t read any other shit from Gary Phillips yet, but if his other books are half as cool as The Jook, you can bet the fucking farm the Nerd’s gonna be on top of that shit toot-sweet.
The Jook tells the story of Zelmont Raines, a Super Bowl-winning wide receiver that’s fallen on hard times. He’s just been sent home to L.A. after getting the boot from the European leagues following his hip getting out of whack for the umpteenth time. Dude’s got bills and no money to pay them with, what with blowing all his NFL coin on drugs, alimony and lawyers (He swears she said she was legal). But Los Angeles is getting a new franchise called the Barons and nobody – not even the devoutly Christian NFL commissioner that hates the shit out of him – can stop Zelmont from trying out.
Surely he can make the team and start living the high life once again, fucked up hip or no.
But then a pretty little thing working for the owner of the Barons named Wilma Wells starts whispering in ol’ Zelmont’s ear, saying that there’s an easier way to gain the green. Namely, by ripping off some mobbed up NFL big wigs for cool millions…
So you have this classic femme fatale noir story with the neat twist of the main character being an ex-bad boy (well, not so “ex-“ I suppose) football player. That’s enough for me to recc this shit right there, but Phillips also loads this motherfucker up with tons of crazy sex scenes and gloriously violent, cinematic action sequences. Then there’s the fucking nutso heist shit towards the end and…
So yeah, you could say the Nerd dug this shit.
But what really makes it all work is Zelmont Raines himself. He’s telling his own story in a voice that is tres fucking cool, every other line dripping with distilled badassery. Zelmont’s a cocky motherfucker with flaws out the ass, but he’s so fucking enviably awesome (only a God like Jim Brown or Fred Williamson in the seventies could truly do him justice on the big screen) that you’re totally with him to the bitter end.
Like a double of Maker’s on the rocks, The Jook goes down easy then rocks your shit something fierce right afterward. It’s straight up hot sex, blazing action, and classic noir told in a bracingly modern, unabashedly cool way (I wish there were more words capable of expressing “cool”-ness, but there just fucking isn’t, dear reader).
So trust the Nerd, dear reader: your ass wants some of this shit right here. Your ass wants it in the right fucking now.
