Rating: 
Summary: Train
Review: I'm sorry. I don't know what book some of the reviewers have been reading, but it's not this one. I found the first 16 pages so boring I couldn't think of a reason to read the 17th.
Rating: 
Summary: darkest side of life
Review: In 1953, eighteen year old black caddy Lionel "Train" Walk works at the exclusive Brookline course in Los Angeles. The membership is quite homogenous and consists of racists, elitists and sexists who like the staff and the other caddies treat Train. with contempt bordering on the wrong side of abuse except police sergeant Miller Packard. Train realizes from the first hole that Packard is the "Mile Away Man" because he has a fair game, but Miller has no concentration for the sport. However, Miller pays better attention than anyone realizes as he concludes that his caddy has real skills for the sport.Train is fired from Brookline, but scores a job as a groundskeeper at dilapidated Paradise Developments. He helps renovate the course, but loses his position due to a tragic accident. Packard wants to help the lad so he turns Train into a golf hustler. As they travel the country together, they win thousands on the youngster's skills, but soon Train will learn once again the violent underbelly of the leisure game he plays. Perhaps no author can display the darkest side of life as easily as award winning Pete Dexter can. TRAIN is a fast-paced eighteen holes starring strong characters trying to do the right thing, but the message is even charity can turn abusive. The story line is a warning that a caring method with a seemingly constructive output does not necessarily mean a positive outcome. Readers will appreciate this deep dark character study, but be warned that Mr. Dexter will escort you to the most profound, deepest, but darkest corner of the soul. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Violence and Tenderness
Review: In the grand tradition of Los Angeles noir, Pete Dexter's new novel Train, is framed in black and white by the minds eye. Yet Dexter has applied his considerable skill to softening the edges; it is delicately written noir. Train is Lionel Walk, a black caddy at a posh Brentwood country club, whose world seems populated only by malevolent forces: the crass racism of the country club members, the criminal element among his fellow caddies, and the undisguised malice of his mother's lover. In the same city, and yet, of course, in another world entirely, a woman named Norah is brutally attacked and her husband is murdered while they are on their yacht, anchored off the coast. Norah manages to escape into the arms of a mysterious cop, Miller Packard, whom Train will later dub "Mile Away Man," which sets the book careening towards its inevitable conclusion. Packard is brilliantly written as both heroic rescuer and herald of malignant chaos. The mystery inherent in this book is not of the whodunit variety - we know from the start who commits the murder on the yacht - rather it is to see which of the forces that seem to inhabit Packard will win out in the end. In fact, one of the strengths of the book is Dexter's ability to embody his characters with such ethereal qualities. Packard seems as though he has been touched by some unmentioned force that torments him. Train, meanwhile, has been similarly touched, and though this force is of pure benevolence, one cannot be sure if it will be strong enough to lift him from his circumstances. Train turns out to be, of all things, a golf prodigy, which would be a lucrative gift for almost anyone except someone in Train's circumstances. Instead, his unaccountable proficiency serves only to further enmesh his life with that of Packard and Norah and a blind former boxer named Plural. Train is bleak but captivating. The book unfolds in front of you, and you find yourself not wanting to look away.
Rating:
Summary: Train Ride to Catastrophe
Review: It's 1953 and Lionel Walk Jr., nicknamed "Train," is a seventeen-year-old black caddy at the exclusive Brookline Country Club, one of the better golf clubs in L.A. Though only a caddy who must cater to the white patrons, he has a gift for the game, but because of his color he doesn't get much chance to play it. Train gets in trouble when two other caddies murder a Beverly Hills millionaire and rape the man's wife. The police bring him in for questioning and it looks like they want to implicate him in the crime, so when he sees a chance to slip out of the interrogation room, Train choo choos on out of there. Sgt. Miller Packard is an emotionally burnt out loner with no scruples, who survived five days in the sea when the Indianapolis went down, watching fellow sailors being killed by sharks, wondering if his number was going to come up. He is the first officer to arrive on the scene of the rape and murder, and he calmly executes the bad guys to avoid the complications of a rape trial. Then he falls for the dead man's wife, Norah, she falls for him and they move in together. Packard recognizes Train's golfing prowess and becomes his manager and together they make a lot of money on the underground gambling circuit, but Train is easily taken advantage of and his share of the loot is soon lost or stolen. Then after Train beats his abusive stepfather almost to death, Packard lets him and a friend, who is an elderly, punch-drunk ex-prizefighter, move into the guest cottage behind the house where he and Norah are living, much to the chagrin of Miller's all white neighbors. Despite the occasional detour, we know that the lives of these bloodied and wounded people are racing down the tracks to a catastrophic climax, but even as I knew it, I couldn't put the book down. Mr. Dexter had me hooked from page one and kept me on the line long after I'd finished with his excellent novel. Haley Lawford, S/V Cheerleader Too
Rating:
Summary: Stark, violent, compelling-a great psychologial thriller.
Review: It's pretty clear from reading other reviews for Train that people either really like or really dislike this book. I really liked it, although I can see why some wouldn't. Train is the story of three people caught in a relationship triangle that is coincidentally both tenuous and gripping. Train is actually a caddy on a ritzy LA golf course named Lionel Walk. The book opens with him caddying for a group that includes a La COP'Miller Packard. The caddy and the cop develop a quick bond out on the course. The relationship develops further as two of Train's companions at the course kidnap and Norah Still and her husband on their luxury boat-raping Norah and killing her husband. Packard gets the case and falls in love'or at least falls in something'with Norah. This swirl of event keeps the three in loose yet intense contact throughout the book. The underlying themes involve racism, brutality, love and, to be honest, abnormal psychology as all three of these characters carry significant psychic baggage that forms their behaviors and thoughts and directs them into places and situations that normal folks would care to visit. The book stands as a very elegant character study. Moreover, it presents a very rich and compelling noir vision of 1950's LA. The book contains scenes of brutal, explicit violence. There is an abundance of generalized but not particularly explicit sexual situations. This is not a book for the faint hearted but fo those who can take it it's a fascinating look into the realm of the seriously disaffected urban flotsam of 1950's LA.
Rating:
Summary: Stark, violent, compelling-a great psychologial thriller.
Review: It�s pretty clear from reading other reviews for Train that people either really like or really dislike this book. I really liked it, although I can see why some wouldn�t. Train is the story of three people caught in a relationship triangle that is coincidentally both tenuous and gripping. Train is actually a caddy on a ritzy LA golf course named Lionel Walk. The book opens with him caddying for a group that includes a La COP�Miller Packard. The caddy and the cop develop a quick bond out on the course. The relationship develops further as two of Train�s companions at the course kidnap and Norah Still and her husband on their luxury boat-raping Norah and killing her husband. Packard gets the case and falls in love�or at least falls in something�with Norah. This swirl of event keeps the three in loose yet intense contact throughout the book. The underlying themes involve racism, brutality, love and, to be honest, abnormal psychology as all three of these characters carry significant psychic baggage that forms their behaviors and thoughts and directs them into places and situations that normal folks would care to visit. The book stands as a very elegant character study. Moreover, it presents a very rich and compelling noir vision of 1950�s LA. The book contains scenes of brutal, explicit violence. There is an abundance of generalized but not particularly explicit sexual situations. This is not a book for the faint hearted but fo those who can take it it�s a fascinating look into the realm of the seriously disaffected urban flotsam of 1950�s LA.
Rating: 
Summary: An Honest But Bleak Journey
Review: Miller Packard plays games with himself. He pushes life right up to the edge and then balances there as long as possible. His life is a mess. When he meets black caddy Lionel "Train" Walk, he hasn't lost his propensity for drama and has discovered a talented young golfer prohibited by an invisible yet ever present color barrier. As the story progresses, complicated Packard strikes up a relationship with Nora, a woman who survives a terrible attack in which she is raped and two black men kill her husband. Tension builds when Packard begins to either expose or exploit Train's golfing talents for profit - neglecting Nora. Three lives dance in an ugly, circular motion. Climb aboard for a bleak ride through the lives of confused souls. In this well-written story, happiness seems an elusive proposition. This raw story is told without apology from a decidedly male perspective. Don't expect the journey to be pretty. Expect it to be honest.
Rating: 
Summary: weak plot but compelling characters
Review: not nearly as interesting and contained a plot as dexter's Brotherly Love, but the characters are just weird enough to inch their way into your consciousness. wasn't too wild about Train, the black golfer/caddy, but his side-kick Plural, an old fighter (do all dexter's novels reference fighting in some way?), who's gradually going blind and has an obsession with poultry, is cool. and the effed-up romance of norah and miller is as interesting -- and ultimately as damaging -- as a car crash.
Rating:
Summary: weak plot but compelling characters
Review: not nearly as interesting and contained a plot as dexter's Brotherly Love, but the characters are just weird enough to inch their way into your consciousness. wasn't too wild about Train, the black golfer/caddy, but his side-kick Plural, an old fighter (do all dexter's novels reference fighting in some way?), who's gradually going blind and has an obsession with poultry, is cool. and the effed-up romance of norah and miller is as interesting -- and ultimately as damaging -- as a car crash.
Rating:
Summary: Sex, murder and nihilism in violent Los Angeles.
Review: Pete Dexter introduces us to a dark, violent and cruel Los Angeles, as a takes us on a ride through a city that churns with racism and subversive emotion. This isn't one of my favourite books of the year, but I admire it for its doggedness and tenacity, and for Dexter's ability to really paint a vivid picture of a city where racial unrest is never far from the surface and where people will do whatever they can to survive in a seemingly harsh and uncaring world. The novel's focus is on three remarkably different people, with each affecting the other in remarkably different ways. Sergeant Miller Packer is unassuming and tough. He befriends Nora after two Negroes murder her husband and brutally rape her, then embarks on an exceedingly erotic and tempestuous affair with her in an attempt to make her forget her past and the terrible incident that has marked her both physically and spiritually. Packer also befriends Lionel Walk or Train, the protagonist of the title, a young African-American caddie who works at a local, elite Los Angeles golf course. Packer adopts Train because, he not only sees something wonderful in his golfing skills and wants to help him, but he also sees Train's natural skills as a way of making a quick buck on the lucrative underground gambling circuit. As the novel progresses, the tensions rise between Packer and Nora, as Packer starts to devote more time to Train and his astonishingly proficient golfing skills. Nora, disaffected, newly pregnant, and relying on medication to get her through the days, starts to gradually loose control with devastating consequences both for Packer and for Train. With short, sharp chapters, Dexter gradually builds the tension throughout, so that just when you think that something good might happen, some horribly violent incident comes along which shakes you to the core and sabotages any possibility of achieving happiness for these characters. Moving gracefully between the golf courses Brookline, the Paradise Development, and Watts, Darktown and Beverly Hills, Dexter deftly shows the kinds of racial and economic divides that existed in Los Angeles in the 1950's. From the racism of the white golf players, and the corruption and bigotry of the police to the petty concerns of the rich Beverly Hills neighbours of Nora and Packer's, Dexter portrays a complete picture of the kinds if insensitivities that exist in society. In fact, his vision is so undoubtedly bleak that one wonders whether he is seeing any hope at all for the world. This vision is really bought to the forefront when Train's blind best friend, Plural states towards the end of the novel that" the world is a hungry place, man. And whatever kind of thing you is, there's something out there that likes to eat it." This observation pretty well wraps up the themes of Train. No matter what, there's always someone out there who is going to exploit and take advantage of you; human nature is uncaring and society is really on the brink. As a portrait of three very conflicted characters, Train is nihilism at its best. Michael
| 
