A few months ago, I purchased a copy of the 90 day novel by Alan Watt and gave it a go. But that's a different book review, and must wait until I've completed the day-by-day writing exercises.
After spending a large amount of time following Watt's advice on writing, which seemed solid or I wouldn't have bought the 90 day novel, I decided I needed to read Diamond Dogs. Yes, I can be a bit backward. A normal person would purchase a book on writing after developing admiration for an author's work.
It's been a while since I literally couldn't put a book down; Diamond Dogs meets that overused description. I read and read and didn't want to stop. At first I thought it was a short book, because the percentage-complete indicator on my Kindle climbed alarmingly fast. But Diamond Dogs is a full length novel.
Now, here is something to think about. Diamond Dogs, the Kindle version I read, has a lot of typos. I'm not good at picking these things up when reading for pleasure, but there seems to be a problem with name capitalization. For example "It was a shock when grace Daly started screaming." Or when the protagonist's football coach keeps yelling at him, but the name is never capitalized. This happens so often I assume it must be intentional. I know its distracting.
I found myself wondering if this smattering of lowercase names was a stylistic abuse of grammar I'd just never seen before. There are also some formatting issues, lines that go mid sentence into a new paragraph and whatnot.
This isn't an indie book. It won France's 2004 Prix Printemps (best foreign novel).
So there are typos. (I'm not bothered by typos, especially if the story is good. It's just annoying that indie authors get abused for this kind of thing, but traditionally published authors don't.)
There is also a lot of what writing coaches call "telling," or so it seems on the surface. Yet, I couldn't stop reading. The "telling," much of it back story, is artfully done and mixed with visuals and action, so perhaps that is why it works so well. There's still a lot of telling. Read it and see.
Diamond Dogs is a dark book. The protagonist is not likable. His father is worse. The Las Vegas segment gets a little too weird, but the story stumbles free of the blind alley just like the characters do and no serious harm is done. And some of the Las Vegas build up and pay off is crucial to the story.
I'd recommend this book to friends.
I wish there were more novels by Alan Watt. I'd read them.
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