Dope by Sara Gran
Dope is Sara Gran’s third novel, published by GP Putnam. Set in New York in 1950 it tells the story of Josephine Flannigan. She goes by Joe; she ‘s a Hells Kitchen girl, daughter of a hooker, sister to a fashion model who dumped the life for a shot at the big time. Joe is paid a thousand dollars to locate the daughter of a Westchester couple who fear their college coed, Nadine, has vanished into the maw of the big town’s nasty drug scene.
Nadine is hanging around with Jerry McFall, tough guy, pimp, and general bad ass. Joe starts asking around, hitting the junkie hot spots from the Lower East Side to Bryant Park to Harlem. Joe’s been clean for two years so this is no picnic for her; her search for Nadine brings her close to the places she doesn’t want to be, to the railroad flats where people shoot, nod, drift and die with what remains of their humanity. Joe knows this world which is why the nice people from the suburbs hired her in the first place.
Sara Gran lets the reader run with her setup until the hook is in deep. Joe makes progress after talking to the taxi dancers at the Royale a run down theater off Times Square where rundown theaters go to die. Jerry McFall punched Nadine around leaving her bruised and bloodied, unable to work. If you grew up in any kind of neighborhood you knew guys like Jerry; the best you could hope for is a piano falls from the sky when Jerry steps out to light a cigarette. Yeah, that never happens.
What does happen turns the story around, making Joe the pursued rather than pursuer. Sara Gran makes artistry appear simple with straight forward prose that blends the grit of the story with an elegant economy of style. Few things are as complex and difficult to render as simplicity; a novel can be a labyrinth with many false starts and scenic byways. This one stays on course making the restrictions of the first person point of view work to advantage. When Joe sees a familiar face wearing a grimy suit and filthy shirt she can throw the knockout punch with the line he is my husband.
Joe is a loner; her friends and allies are broken beyond repair yet she understands their limitations because she shares them; Dope presents a world fractured by a common need, of youth and promise lost. Wolves are always at the door and that door is wide open. Cops, pimps, hustlers, and junkies push Joe around secure in the knowledge that she is powerless. No spoilers about the story’s resolution; suffice to say that the ending does justice to what preceded it, that the climax flows from the narrative with logic and impact.
The story falters once or twice in scenes where Joe steps out of character for what feel like forced moments of doubt. Doubt is fine, but it might have been distributed rather than compressed into the narrative in large doses. I’m talking about a handful of paragraphs in the entire book, which is an indicator of how well Dope is written. This is like pointing out how a pitcher throws a perfect game, but has a few three ball counts along the way. If Sara Gran wasn’t so damned skilled a writer, and Dope so good a book, there would nothing left to say except Sara, get busy with your next one. I’m looking forward to it.