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Outlaw Ballads

Brian Townsley
4.86/5 (7 ratings)
Read Now Download Now
Outlaw Ballads by Brian Townsley, is a collection of short stories that pick up where Townsley's debut novel, Trunk Full of Zeroes left off. Ex-cop, and penultimate toughguy, Sonny Haynes, waits in self-imposed exile from Los Angeles, where he is wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of his wife and her lover.

Sonny takes a job as a hotel detective for the Starlite Hotel & Resort in Palm Springs, well within the 90 mile rule imposed on working actors and actresses of 1950's Hollywood. Sonny moonlights, for Hollywood producer, Saul Bernstein, but clearly has something against actors, as anyone in Lala land is likely to develop, though Sonny's beef seems personal. He harbors a post-WWII xenophobia of Italians, which probably stems more from being surrounded by "spaghetti-headed" mafioso than Mussolini. Everyone in the desert is packing heat, but few have the mettle to use it. Even in an atmosphere awash in toughguys, "He did what other men boasted of."

Sonny struggles with sobriety. In some stories he's on the wagon, in others it seems, he's trapped under the wheels. He's acutely aware of his aging body, his butchwaxed hair, and the abundance of tattoos which make him auspicious even in the seediest circles of the Atomic Age. That doesn't prevent him from leveraging his appearance when needed, scratching the tear drop at his temple to intimidate the normals.

A soundtrack laced with Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams evokes the lonesomeness of the desert as well as Sonny's cowboy-style isolation; his trusty Merc(ury) may as well have a saddle instead of a driver's seat. As we watch Sonny shake down shakedown artists and get the better of button men, we get the feeling that he's trapped in this existence. When Sonny rescues a German Shepherd dubbed Zeus from a world of violence and an early grave, he's clearly trying to save himself from the same fate.

Sonny doesn't leave a room without making sure he's "hatted," which seems less like Gabriel Byrne's preoccupation with losing his fedora (and his soul) in Miller's Crossing, than warpaint, disguising the warrior from a disapproving god. He often thinks of his late wife, hoping that she's in heaven, but as he watches a house of horrors burn to the ground in Outlaw Ballads' final stanza, we are much more aware of the existence of hell.
Format:
Paperback
Pages:
284 pages
Publication:
2022
Publisher:
Edition:
Language:
eng
ISBN10:
ISBN13:
9798218102906
kindle Asin:
B0BPN6TMJZ

Outlaw Ballads

Brian Townsley
4.86/5 (7 ratings)
Read Download
Outlaw Ballads by Brian Townsley, is a collection of short stories that pick up where Townsley's debut novel, Trunk Full of Zeroes left off. Ex-cop, and penultimate toughguy, Sonny Haynes, waits in self-imposed exile from Los Angeles, where he is wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of his wife and her lover.

Sonny takes a job as a hotel detective for the Starlite Hotel & Resort in Palm Springs, well within the 90 mile rule imposed on working actors and actresses of 1950's Hollywood. Sonny moonlights, for Hollywood producer, Saul Bernstein, but clearly has something against actors, as anyone in Lala land is likely to develop, though Sonny's beef seems personal. He harbors a post-WWII xenophobia of Italians, which probably stems more from being surrounded by "spaghetti-headed" mafioso than Mussolini. Everyone in the desert is packing heat, but few have the mettle to use it. Even in an atmosphere awash in toughguys, "He did what other men boasted of."

Sonny struggles with sobriety. In some stories he's on the wagon, in others it seems, he's trapped under the wheels. He's acutely aware of his aging body, his butchwaxed hair, and the abundance of tattoos which make him auspicious even in the seediest circles of the Atomic Age. That doesn't prevent him from leveraging his appearance when needed, scratching the tear drop at his temple to intimidate the normals.

A soundtrack laced with Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams evokes the lonesomeness of the desert as well as Sonny's cowboy-style isolation; his trusty Merc(ury) may as well have a saddle instead of a driver's seat. As we watch Sonny shake down shakedown artists and get the better of button men, we get the feeling that he's trapped in this existence. When Sonny rescues a German Shepherd dubbed Zeus from a world of violence and an early grave, he's clearly trying to save himself from the same fate.

Sonny doesn't leave a room without making sure he's "hatted," which seems less like Gabriel Byrne's preoccupation with losing his fedora (and his soul) in Miller's Crossing, than warpaint, disguising the warrior from a disapproving god. He often thinks of his late wife, hoping that she's in heaven, but as he watches a house of horrors burn to the ground in Outlaw Ballads' final stanza, we are much more aware of the existence of hell.
Format:
Paperback
Pages:
284 pages
Publication:
2022
Publisher:
Edition:
Language:
eng
ISBN10:
ISBN13:
9798218102906
kindle Asin:
B0BPN6TMJZ

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