www.philipquinn.ca
"Writer "
The Skeleton Dance
Broken Pencil:The Magazine of Zine Culture and the Independent Arts
By Nathaniel G. Moore
This novel coughs up the dregs of Toronto's pre-millennial streets and
introduces us to a world of drug dealing lawyers, transsexual deviants and
delivers it all with a noir touch, leaving this reviewer feeling suffocated
and
thrilled all at the same time. The abject action rarely lets up in this,
Philip
Quinn's latest novel The Skeleton Dance. Robert Walker, the novel's
protagonist,
is a drug-addicted ad writer who always seems to be on the verge of
intensified
trouble. You could call him down and out, it would be a fair assessment.
The reader is close to all the dirty-doings through and through, whether or
not
one can sympathize with the circumstances depicted in the pages of the book
doesn't really matter, it's all happening at hyper-speed, death-obsessed
narration, with barbed dialogue and characters pitted against one another
with
the calculating cruelty of a brutal war. Robert seems to latch onto people
he
cannot trust, the drugs don't help his situation either, he becomes more and
more of a junkie as the story progresses, and his childhood best friend the
lawyer Klin, one of the book's most compelling characters, seems unwilling
to
help him from hitting rock bottom, even though he posts his bail when Robert
gets into a car crash and is found with a weapon.
The novel is amusing, disturbing and full of all the grit you'd expect from
Quinn, but it's not for weaklings, that's for sure. The sex and violence is
so
harsh at times, you'll be cringing as you turn the page to see just how
cruel
and unusual things are going to get.
Rarely do these monstrous creatures come up for clean air.
