Standup Guy

A long way back, when I was 16 or so, I was on a family vacation to the Florida Keys, bored out of my mind. My grandfather lent me a paperback murder mystery novel he'd just finished - your standard airport bookstore trash, but I didn't know such a genre even existed at the time - and I read it and enjoyed it and even felt sort of - ugh - older and wiser and more mature for having read it. (Four-hundred pages! Sex and crime! Grandfather literature!) It was a book by an author named Stuart Woods, a guy I'd never heard of (and still really haven't, all things considered) and I ended up "borrowing" and reading two more Stuart Woods novels somewhere over the next couple of years. (I distinctly remember reading one during my freshman year of college, which would have been just two years later, and oh holy shit how time dragged then and flies now.)

Fast forward to a couple summers back, I'm up in Maine visiting the grandparents when my grandmother says there's a huge pile of paperback books from the last few years they're going to throw away if no one wants them, so go ahead and pick through it if you'd like. I take home with me a copy of American Sniper (oh boy) and two more Stuart Woods books. Why not revisit them? Marissa immediately winces at the Stuart Woods picks and asks, "but why?" It's a valid question! Y'all know my tastes - Heller, Vonnegut, Atwood, Murakami, Perrotta, Hemingway, Camus, with the occasional dash of sci-fi or YA (what's the difference?) and of course a few experiments along the way. Michael Crichton and Dan Brown are as close as I come to "airport bookstore literature," and have you seen my batting average on those books? Yowza!

The thing about Dan Brown and Michael Crichton - even at their worst, they're telling interesting stories. A zany caper in the Uffizi is patently absurd pulp, but it's interesting pulp, sort of. And a story about man-eating nanoparticles gone rogue is dumb as hell, but it hints at philosophical questions, at least, even if it never addresses or answers them. But Stuart Woods? Nothing. None of any of that. Just stories about khaki-wearing men's men solving crimes for sexy lady clients while drinking hard liquor and flying back and forth a lot. It's lanyard literature. It's four-hundred pages of generic political thriller action movie, stuffed to the gills with phone calls and breakfast. I think what it is, really, is lifestyle porn for old men; there are an alarming number of direct references to J. Crew and Brooks Brothers in this book, no kidding.

We all like to say that our tastes evolve with time, grow more refined, and so on, but never have I seen more direct evidence of this than in my own reaction to this particular novel, Stuart Woods' Standup Guy, which I'm almost positive was ghostwritten by someone else, since otherwise Stuart Woods is popping out four or five books a year these days at the age of 79. Good for him! Anyway, yeah - ten to fifteen years ago I was reading this guy's novels and at the very least enjoying them. These last few days, on the other hand, I tore through Standup Guy almost laughing out loud the entire way through. These books are decidedly not for me!

Since showing is more powerful than telling, and since sharing is the greatest gift of all, I will now present to you all the first sentence of every chapter in this book. Really helps you get a feel for Stuart Woods and his writing style, everything [sic].

Oh, and the main character's name is "Stone Barrington" which is just fucking awesome. See? Lifestyle porn already.

1. Stone Barrington made it from his bed to his desk by ten a.m., after something of a struggle with jet lag.
2. Stone wore a dark suit and tie, because he didn't know who else was invited.
3. Kate came back at five minutes before the hour and handed Stone a sheet of paper.
4. Stone took his breakfast tray off the dumbwaiter, along with two morning papers, the New York Times and the Daily News.
5. Stone arrived at Patroon as Dino was getting out of his car, a large black SUV. He clapped his friend on the back. "No more town car?"
6. Stone's ass had barely touched his office chair the following morning, when Joan buzzed.
7. Less than an hour had passed, and Joan had returned from making her bank deposit. She buzzed Stone.
8. Stone had a sandwich at his desk, then Joan came in with the New York Post, which he subscribed to but rarely read. Today would be an exception.9. Stone was having his usual breakfast in bed when his private line rang. Caller ID said the U.K. was calling.
10. Shortly before lunch, Joan buzzed.
11. Stone polished off his Dover sole and took another sip of the Far Niente Chardonnay.
12. The president of the United States finished his scrambled eggs and sausages and started on his coffee. He could eat sausages for breakfast because the first lady was in New York.13. Sunday morning, and Stone's phone was ringing.
14. Stone sucked in a breath and clenched his teeth as Holly took a curve on the Sawmill River Parkway.
15. When Stone awoke the following morning, Holly was gone, and her side of the bed had been neatly made up.
16. Dino Bacchetti attended a meeting at an uptown precinct, and among the subjects discussed was the shooting of Sean Donnelly.
17. Stone got to P.J. Clarke's early, so he bellied up to the bar to wait for the others.
18. Stone let them into the house, entered the alarm code, and took their coats.
19. John Fratelli sat in a deck chair on a terrace of the Breakers, a monumental turn-of-the-twentieth-century hotel built by Henry Flagler, the partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil.
20. Secret Service special agent Alvin Griggs rapped on his boss's door and was invited in and offered a chair and coffee.
21. Onofrio "Bats" Buono, whose sobriquet arose from his wanton use of that instrument when collecting debts, took the call in the little office behind the chop shop he ran in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
22. Jack Coulter, née John Fratelli, checked his image in the mirror before leaving his apartment. He had lost twenty pounds since leaving prison, ten of them since buying his Brooks Brothers suits.23. John Fratelli awoke the following morning, and something was nagging at the back of his mind. It came to him: IRS. He showered and dressed and had his first shave of the day, then he called New York on his throwaway cell phone.24. Howard Silver stood at the hundred-dollar window at Hialeah and took one last look at the odds board.
25. Stone's day was closing, and he called Holly Barker.
26. Alvin Griggs was called into his boss's office during what would ordinarily have been his coffee break, and told to sit down.
27. Stone was awakened, as the first rays of dawn came through slatted blinds, by a cool hand on his warm crotch, to which he immediately responded.
28. Harry Moss's ears were burning. He had just been rudely escorted out of the Breakers beach club because he was not a member, and it was embarrassing.
29. Now Stone was faced with a problem: he had an itch to go to London for a few days, but on the other hand, he had a very similar itch to stay closer to Hank Cromwell.
30. Dino and Viv showed up for drinks at the appointed time, as was their wont, let themselves into the house with Dino's key, and entered the study, where Stone was reading a book. He looked up as they entered, then got up and built them drinks.
31. The following morning at seven thirty, Stone walked out his front door and had a look up and down the block.
32. The car belonging to Derek and Charles was an old London taxicab with the taxi sign removed.
33. Emma was on her cell phone all the way to the dinner party, at a house in Eaton Square, so Stone didn't have to talk, which was just as well, as he was dumbstruck.34. Emma woke Stone the following morning by the simple device of biting him on a nipple. Nature took its course, a couple of times.35. John Fratelli sat on the edge of his bed, feeling sick.
36. Stone was back at his house before John Fratelli called.
37. Dino was out front in his unmarked police SUV on time.
38. New Fairfield was an actual wide place in the road, not a metaphor.
39. Stone watched Hank take a deep breath.
40. John Fratelli was dressing for dinner when his cell phone rang.
41. Stone was at his desk when Dino called.
42. Manny called the number, and Willard Crowder answered on the second ring.
43. Stone got downstairs to his office at the usual time, and there was a pink memo slip on his desk: call Dan Sparks.
44. Stone thought about it for a few minutes before he made the call.
45. Jack Coulter was in the Breakers' gym, working out, as he had done every day in prison, except he did not now use weights to achieve bulk.
46. Herbie Fisher sat in his office, cradled by his Eames lounge chair, reading a letter for his signature. His secretary buzzed.
47. Stone called John Fratelli on his throwaway cell phone.
48. Joan Buzzed. "Mike Freeman on one."
49. Harry Moss sat on his usual stool at his usual Sports Bar and had his usual Cutty Sark and water.
50. Stone's bell rang a couple of minutes after seven, as he was walking down the stairs.
51. Stone smelled leather, and he couldn't understand why.
52. Jack and Hillary finished their round and went back to the clubhouse for lunch.
53. Stone had managed to doze off.
54. What the fuck?" a man's voice said.55. Hank and Parese were driving north on the Sawmill River Parkway in the van.
56. Stone, Dino, and Viv had a good dinner and waited for Dan Sparks to call back.
57. Stone sat in the backseat with Viv. He didn't know why he was so tired; after all, he'd spent the day on the sofa in his office.
58. The group sat around the living room of the lake cottage. It was after one a.m., and the medical examiner's wagon had already left with Parese's body. They were all having a drink from the cabin's booze supply.
59. Stone and Dino got the two suitcases out of the SUV and rolled them into Stone's office.
60. Stone slept through the afternoon. He woke around six p.m. and reflected on the past few days and weeks. Three people were dead, one of them someone he had grown fond of, before she had betrayed him for money.61. Stone was at his desk at ten a.m., and his first call was to Mike Freeman.

Holy shit, why did I just do that?

Some of my personal favorites are in bold.

You get the picture. Forget the bland, basic sentence structure. Ignore the bad grammar an abundant commas. Taken on content alone, every single sentence in this book is about cars, drinking, falling asleep or waking up, sex, secretaries, meals, newspapers, and phone calls. The only food described in any detail are breakfast meats and eggs. At one point Stone and his pals "had a good dinner." The phrase "throwaway cell phone" appears twice, and that's just in these chapter openers. "The following morning" is written five times. Thirteen of the sixty-one openers include the word "call" and an additional three include "phone." There are several references to Stone being tired, and still he finds the time for two one-night stands.

Old man lifestyle porn, indeed.