Rating: 
Summary: QUIRKY, GOTHIC, GOOD
Review: "...this was not an ordinary citizen of Beverly Hills...He probably never threatened anyone in his life. He would skip that step."That brief passage from TRAIN describes Miller Packard, a detective, who befriends a young black caddy named Lionel Walk, nicknamed "Train", and serves as an example of Pete Dexter's raw, spare writing. Set in pre-integration California, TRAIN examines the societal relationship between the races that existed then, using a noir style as the vehicle. Given that background, TRAIN in particular is a love story and the story of a friendship between Train and Packard. Golf is also featured prominently in the novel and Mr. Dexter knows his golf, using terms and insights into the game that give this almost a sports novel feel. At times violent and at times quirky, almost gothic, TRAIN also explores the human psyche with a sharp understanding of people and their motives, both base and higher. If you enjoy excellent writing, a fast-paced story, penetrating character analysis, realistic action and high-stakes golf, be sure to catch this five-star train for a good read.
Rating:
Summary: QUIRKY, GOTHIC, GOOD
Review: "...this was not an ordinary citizen of Beverly Hills...He probably never threatened anyone in his life. He would skip that step." That brief passage from TRAIN describes Miller Packard, a detective, who befriends a young black caddy named Lionel Walk, nicknamed "Train", and serves as an example of Pete Dexter's raw, spare writing. Set in pre-integration California, TRAIN examines the societal relationship between the races that existed then, using a noir style as the vehicle. Given that background, TRAIN in particular is a love story and the story of a friendship between Train and Packard. Golf is also featured prominently in the novel and Mr. Dexter knows his golf, using terms and insights into the game that give this almost a sports novel feel. At times violent and at times quirky, almost gothic, TRAIN also explores the human psyche with a sharp understanding of people and their motives, both base and higher. If you enjoy excellent writing, a fast-paced story, penetrating character analysis, realistic action and high-stakes golf, be sure to catch this five-star train for a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast and entertaining
Review: A cross between Elmore Leonard and Walter Moseley, Train is peopled with colorful characters and paced with ironic incidents.While I thoroughly enjoyed the book, loved the ending, I'm not sure where a National Book Award came from. maybe I need to look up the criteria for that one. I do agree with other reviewers that the plot got lost somewhere around the 2/3 mark.The explosive climax made the plot a moot point. I was sorry, however, not to learn more about these characters and how they fared as America moved into the 60s.
Rating:
Summary: Golf noir
Review: At 17, Lionel Walk, known as Train, plays golf like he was born with a club in his hand. His swing is effortless; his skill uncanny. Like a young Tiger Woods, he ought to have it made in the shade. But there's a problem. It's 1953 and Train is a black kid from Watts with an abusive stepfather. "Civil rights" is not a term anyone is familiar with and Train would be barred from play on most golf courses in the country. He's a caddy at Brookline, LA's most exclusive country club. Enter Miller Packard. Train, who comes up with names for most of his "totes," dubs him "the Mile Away Man," for his distracted air. The reader has already met Packard in a prologue chapter set in Philadelphia five years earlier. A war veteran who spent five days in the Pacific Ocean after his ship went down, Packard became a firefighter, famous for the risks he took. But the rush grew stale. "And so, needing a hobby, Packard became a runner.
"Here was Packard's training schedule: Midnight, he would walk into a neighborhood where he did not belong, say Kensington or the Devil's Pocket. He'd sit down in a bar, order a beer, and insult one of the locals. The easiest way to insult one was to use a word he didn't understand. Avuncular, bulbous, crescendo. Say the word avuncular and the next thing you knew, fifteen of them had bats and were chasing you down the street, screaming, 'Kill the queer.' " Eventually, even this becomes too tame for Packard. That's the sort of guy he is. But Train doesn't know any of that. If he did it might make him a bit more wary. There's enough everyday danger in Train's life without going looking for trouble. He doesn't know Packard is a police sergeant either. If he had, he'd have steered clear of him, despite his easy confidence and respectful manners. But he doesn't steer clear of him; Train even takes a beating trying to fulfill Packard's expectations of integrity. Then a woman is raped, and two men killed by a couple of the caddies at Brookline and all of them are fired. Packard, the cop on the scene, becomes involved with the widow, and Train, homeless and shaken by his own capacity for violence, takes up with Plural, a brain-damaged ex-fighter who makes him feel safer. His and Packard's lives diverge. Train finds another golf course, a better one, for him. It's an integrated development with housing, but money is tight and no one knows anything about managing a golf course. Train soon has a free hand with the place. He has to bring Plural along, though, feeling responsible for the man, and Plural, always unpredictable, is now blind too. So, even as things are looking up, that edgy feeling remains; disaster just around the next bend. Then along comes Packard, ready for a new challenge in his life. He moves Train and Plural into his new wife's guest house in Beverly Hills, and begins championing Train at golf matches around the country, winning thousands. "He [Train] liked winning, and he liked hearing the excuses. He liked that feeling when he took the heart out of other players with shots they never thought of hitting. He liked it every time he make them reassess him up.
"He begun trying to think of some way to keep it like this, looking beyond tomorrow. Begun to think like it was his." The reader knows just as well as Train does that that's not likely, and there's no saying what Packard knows. After the first chapter we never see inside his head again, and his motivations are a mystery to the other characters. It's obvious why he wants to run Train, but why put the two young black men - one a scary looking, violent and unpredictable ex-fighter - into proximity with a woman who's been raped and seen her husband killed by two young black men? Is he just stirring the pot to see what rises? Packard, though he seems to have less than the normal range of human feeling, fascinates. Train is the one who engages. He's a young man with looks, talent, brains, heart, and complexity - all of it canceled out by the color of his skin. Dexter's story, and Train's life, turns on racism. Casual, brutal and inescapable. In Dexter's hands golf is a study of human nature, most of it bad. Sneers and temper fits and excuses from losers: arrogance and insults from winners. There's cheating, lying, and trying too hard. Occasionally there's respect and good sportsmanship. Though the tale is LA noir at its bleakest, the writing is comic (yes, blackly so) and there are a lot of funny golf moments:
"That was all you wanted in your head to swing a golf club, a light breeze to empty things out.
"Didn't mean you had to be stupid to play the game, but it didn't hurt." Dexter, winner of the National Book Award for "Paris Trout" has come up with a solid page-turner, which turns on one of his favorite themes - the damage racism can do to a man, a community and a culture.
Rating: 
Summary: Double Bogie
Review: Dexter has a style all his own, thus the 2 stars. Otherwise, I found the prose more dime story dramatics. Novels that get wrapped up in gutter talk belong in the trash.
This book is trash.
Rating: 
Summary: Pete Dexter gets flattened by a Train
Review: I have been a fan of Pete Dexter's since I read the first sentence of Deadwood. Dexter is a major talent and his novels Paper Boy and Deadwood, along with the screenplay for Mulholland Falls, rank with the best fiction produced in the last two decades. If his picture did not appear on the back cover I would not believe that he wrote Train. It may be the worst novel by a good writer of the new century. Parts of it make no sense whatsoever. The lead character is a sergeant in the sheriff's department for no apparent reason except to give him a reason to be included in a violent boat scene that is a major part of the plot. He does no other police work for the rest of the book and it is never so much as mentioned again, except for a passing reference when he offers to make sure that a murder witness and assault victim does not have to give the police a statement concerning the matter. Now, there is no way that a mere sergeant could guarantee such a thing in any case, but since he is living with (and sleeping with) the witness at the time, and is himself a major figure in the case it would be an absolute impossibility. It is so absurd that it makes one wonder if Dexter or an editor even bothered to read it. The inclusion of the black caddy, who is nothing but filler, is a disaster in every way, from Dexter's laughable attempts to write black street slang to the idea that the caddy is the greatest pure golfer in the world even though he never plays. Maybe this is Dexter's tip of the hat to the "noble savage" theory, but who knows? That type of sloppy writing is a sign that the writer either does not know how to write or doesn't care enough to try. Dexter knows how to write, and there are a couple of short scenes that are as good as anything Dexter has ever written, but the book as a whole is a mess and a major failure in Dexter's career.
Rating:
Summary: Not real crazy about this one
Review: I picked this up in the library, just seeing the binding and thinking it was about trains. After reading the description and seeing the (misleading) "National Book Award Winner" caption on the cover, I decided to check it out. I haven't read any of the author's other books and I may check them out at some point, given the glowing reviews from others, but I did not find much enjoyment in this book. There were a few nuggets, but this book seemed a loose gathering of various substories, mixed with gratuitious sex and violence. The author does a great job of character development, though and that's what kept me reading to the end, which was a disappointment in itself, as well. My recommendation: Skip this one.
Rating:
Summary: Not real crazy about this one
Review: I picked this up in the library, just seeing the binding and thinking it was about trains. After reading the description and seeing the (misleading) "National Book Award Winner" caption on the cover, I decided to check it out. I haven't read any of the author's other books and I may check them out at some point, given the glowing reviews from others, but I did not find much enjoyment in this book. There were a few nuggets, but this book seemed a loose gathering of various substories, mixed with gratuitious sex and violence. The author does a great job of character development, though and that's what kept me reading to the end, which was a disappointment in itself, as well. My recommendation: Skip this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Dexter is out of material; Very disappointing.
Review: I think Dexter is one of our best living writers and very much looked forward to reading this book. Sorry to say, but everything Dexter does in "Train" he has done before but to much better effect. Despite some brilliant scenes and fine funny moments, the overall story is hollow, emotionally and intellectually. It is grotesquely violent in a way that overwhelms everything else. I gave three stars because even a bad Dexter book is better than most of what passes for fiction these days. Perhaps, he needed the money.
Rating:
Summary: Subtly Strong
Review: I thought this was a very clever book in that, it's a story largely about racism in the 1950's yet, you never really get an overwhelming feeling that that is what the story is about. It's a subtle story made up of many unsubtle scenes and it's only when you get to the end that you realise that every major event was determined due to some racist discussion or action. It's Los Angeles 1953 and we are focussed on two main protagonists. The first is Lionel Walk, or Train, as he is more commonly known. Train is a young black man who works at the exclusive Brookline Country Club. We follow his fortunes first as a caddy and then as a greenkeeper and later as his relationship and feelings of responsibility for a fellow caddy known as Plural. The other is Detective Sergeant Miller Packard, an incredibly enigmatic man who seems to exude authority and confidence. He always appears to be in total control of every situation right up to the moment he loses the handle with disastrous consequences. Their paths cross a number of times and although these encounters proved mutually beneficial to both men, there always seemed to be an unsatisfactory ending whenever they parted. Scenes of quiet amusement are followed by scenes of extreme violence wrenching the emotions from empathy to sympathy in an instant. I had a problem with the ending, feeling it was wrapped up incredibly quickly and leaving way too many questions unanswered for my liking. Apart from this quibble I found I was completely engrossed from the opening line.
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