[books] George Dawes Green, The Juror (1995)

This book sucked. And the movie probably sucked worse. I can't believe that this was a best seller. First of all, it's written like a screenplay, which is really irritating. Green either has no attention span of his own, or is counting on his readers not having one. Second, the characters are just silly. Every stereotypical Italian is in this book, which I found kind of offensive, and I don't offend easily. They have nonchalant gangsters, little old ladies using bad English, and plenty of cousins and uncles and guys named Eddie and Joey and Vinny. It's pathetic. Green also goes for the down-on-his-luck alcoholic detective, with the beat-up car and the cigarettes. It reminded me of the live action version of Cornfed in the made-for-TV movie Duckman got to make when he saved the president. The juror herself, Annie Laird, isn't too bad, but the clincher is the Taoist Italian known as the Teacher, who will be played by Alec Baldwin. This guy is just painful. Laughable. Totally implausible. He apparently knows everything. And can manipulate anyone to do anything.

Another thing I found really irritating about this book is the portrayal of men versus women. All of the women, with the exception of the little old Italian lady, are stunningly beautiful, and all of them turn to jelly in the hands of the Teacher. It's just silly. There's the exotic travel agent girlfriend who hires Slavko, the private dick, to see if her boyfriend Eben (actually the Teacher) is seeing another woman. There's Juliet, Annie's best friend, a strong-willed 6' plus redhead doctor, who is seduced by the Teacher under yet another bogus name, as he pushes all of her buttons after meeting her at a poetry reading. He didn't have her under total surveillance, but he knew exactly what turned her on. Why? Because he's some kind of embodiment of the perfect man? Come on. Annie, our heroine and struggling artist, is taken by would-be patron Zach Lyde (didn't he play guitar for Ozzy Osbourne?), yet another pseudonym for, you guessed it, the Teacher. And Green's big plot building device is to kill someone. Anyone. Even if they could save this book from being really, really stupid. Everyone dies in this book. And telling you that doesn't even give anything away, because there's no real substance here anyway. I'm not a quitter, and that's the only reason I finished this book. It was a painful experience. I should be appalled that the movie did well, but if there's anything that box office receipts and record sales have taught me, it's that there's no accounting for taste.