A fascinating book and, I think, enlightening for any fan of Fuller’s films. I consider myself a devotee of his tho I’ve only seen seven of his many films so far (the first six he made + THE BIG RED ONE). It’s delightful to meet him in another medium, and the prose style is so him; staccato like the rapid fire of a gun, sprinting so fast he drops pronouns as he goes:
[The cop] jerked Paul to his feet, thumped Paul’s arms above his head, frisked him for gun, seized wallet, plucked the book from his hands, checked the book for a gun, tossed book on bench, checked bushes behind bench, turned trash bin upside down, dumped bottles, plastic bags, condoms, trash, on ground, kicked around for the gun, pushed down Paul’s upright arms. (13)
It’s a perfect fit for the propulsive nature of this story, which bursts out of the gate with a bang, quite literally — a gunshot fired by a baby!!! — and sustains this breakneck pace throughout. The baby, lying in its carriage, has just killed its father by pulling the tail of its toy monkey, which was rigged up to a gun hidden between the baby’s legs. Also on the scene: the baby’s beautiful blonde mother, Michelle, and the mob “bagman” Paul Page, who’s been watching & loving her from afar since he first saw her pushing her carriage in Central Park two months ago. Paul suffers from what he calls “brainquakes,” hallucinations that are starting to bleed into his everyday reality to potentially devastating effect, and his life is his job — at least until he first lays eyes on Michelle. Little does Paul know that the murder was orchestrated by the baby’s real father, small-time criminal Eddie Cody, to free Michelle from her abusive husband — and when he intervenes to help Michelle, who he (rather creepily) calls “Ivory Face,” he finds himself drawn into a complex scheme that will claim the life of every sympathetic character in the book.
There are plenty of these: Paul’s boss, the beautiful and ruthlessly competent Rebecca, who got him his job as a favor to his father Barney after he helped her out of a tight spot years ago & remains fiercely loyal to Barney’s memory — and to his son, as a result. When one of her bagmen steals $50,000 to care for his child, who has cancer, she doesn’t kill him — yet. She replaces the money herself and gives him twenty months to pay her back. If he hasn’t, then she’ll kill him. Then there’s Helen Zara, the six-foot “first black female Homicide Detective First Class,” ruthless in her own way — willing to break just about any law in pursuit of justice. And there’s Paul himself; repeatedly called a “cipher,” with a blank face that the people to whom he makes his drops couldn’t pick out of a lineup even though they’ve known him for years. Mute from birth, taught laboriously and lovingly to speak by his parents, he mercy-killed his 97-year-old mother who was dying of cancer & lives — I love this detail — in a lower Manhattan shack, surrounded by skyscrapers, “close to the ground, lost, forgotten” (121). His life is his work: as the Boss puts it to him, “No girls. No wife. Not now, not ever. No friends. No ambition. No hobbies. No alcohol. No dope. No gambling. No debts. No talk when delivering the mail. No borrowing from the bag. No quitting. No selling your experiences when you retire. Never tell anyone you’re a bagman” (59). Paul follows these rules to the letter — until he meets Michelle. He woos her with red roses & poems he composed himself (his favorite poet is Emily Dickinson and he recites If I can stop one heart from breaking from memory); she’s drawn to him at first, but after a brainquake threatens her baby, he confesses that he’s a bagman in an effort to explain, to make her understand him. That’s when Michelle decides to dupe him, to exploit his love and steal his money with Eddie’s help. And she almost — almost — succeeds; thwarted, in the end, by the mob hitman known as Father Flanagan, who kills in the guise of a priest and likes to crucify his victims with iron spikes.
This book is littered with bodies: almost everyone dies. Rebecca, the Boss, protecting Paul. Zara, in pursuit of Father Flanagan. Paul himself, in the grip of the last and murderous brainquake that will end his life. It’s a brutal book, splattered liberally with blood — especially the last pages, in which one predator prepares to gobble up another (the last "shot” is vividly cinematic). But it’s also a compassionate one. Many characters, like Paul and Michelle’s surrogate father, a former French Resistance fighter and current tugboat captain called Lafitte, are wracked with guilt for their past sins (Paul for the death of a young man who was trying to steal from him; Lafitte for a moment of cowardice that cost a beloved hero his life). These are people who care deeply about others: their parents, their children, their friends, their heroes, their saviors. It’s a violent world, but one in which the more noble emotions run deep, and motivate just as much as the baser impulses, such as greed.
Brainquake is spectacularly over the top, often in ways that strain credulity — but that’s part of its charm. (At one point, Zara sees the skeleton of a fly in an X-ray!!!) In the latter half of the book, Paul and Michelle flee to Paris, followed by Father Flanagan, Zara, and Eddie — and somehow, in a massive city of millions, manage to run into each other multiple times. There is literally no way the plot could work if not for these coincidences, which pile up to the point where you just want to laugh out loud. But it doesn't really matter.
