The Phantom Father: A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: A loving father, a bewildered son.
Review: After reading the two fictional accounts of gangsters by Stephen Hunter, I thought I might read about a real one for a change. I bought this book primarily as the pictures showed the man as a normal human being, more resembling the government men in the old movies than a killer.

It is touted as a 'memoir' but it is merely short remembrances of the author about himself, not so much about his 'good' father. His note about the Japanese form shosetsu being described as "a piece of autobiography or a set of memoirs, somewhat embroidered and colored but essentially nonfiction."

While shosetsu contains elements of fiction, it is "a rather more flexible and generous and catholic term than 'novel'." This book belongs to this genre and should be approached as such, he writes.

Why should so-called historians get away with embroidering and elaborating on the facts and present this as nonfiction. Our local historian does just that constantly, and most folks believe that what he is writing is the truth.

This most-prolific writer does just that with his childhood remembrances. Seems to me he had a privileged and good life; maybe the father moved on to create another family, but he did not abandon or forget his firstborn son.

I just wish he had presented more of the humanness of Rudy Winston whose specialty was the liquor business (man, he would fit in here in Knoxville where the yuppie newcomers sit out on the sidewalk on Gay Street and drink hard liquor openly -- and get away with it).

He was a fine-looking man, and his son is handsome enough to be in one of those movies he has collaborated on with David Lynch.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps his best book
Review: Gifford's fiction is often an unholy pastiche of styles and devices, and this technique is perfectly suited for his memoir PHANTOM FATHER... I highly recommend it. Deserves a space on a short bookshelf that includes Angela's Ashes and The Liars' Club.

Rating:
Summary: Oh my God it's full of stars
Review: Let us begin straight to the point. You do not want to read this book. Trust me. It is totally uninventive, poorly written, characters look like they just got out from a movie of a 'F' production, story is dull, and it doesn't keep the reader attracted to the book. I do not know for the other Gifford books, but this one definitely shouldn't be called a book, and especially shouldn't be sold to anyone. Only reason this book got two stars is a hint of an atmosfere that you could sniff somehow but it constantly keeps losing itself. If you still want to buy this book, than the main story is: Ava Varazo is a member of a Mexican revolution and in an attempt to find the money (steal it) from a American bordel owner, she meets Mudo DelRay, after she cheats him and locks him in the trunk she returns into her village La Villania where she continues to struggle against goverment. There are few more characters in the book, and all of them somehow crosses paths with Ava (some on a broader scale).
And the final warning, to not buy this book, read it if you must, but do it in the library (you'll need just few hours).

Rating:
Summary: Reptilian Saturday Nite Sex & Violence Stomp
Review: Whoa! There's a lot going on here in paucas palabras. We're in one of those border nightmares where Texas, Arizona, and Mexico all ooze together into some kind of sharp southwestern guisado with enough lard and chiles to singe your lips and leave a brownish cloud around your cabeza. Add jeans that are too tight, old cars, bad norteno music, and chicas that are muy guapa and hot to trot -- and you get Barry Gifford, the Sage of Big Tuna, at his very best.

I've seen David Lynch's WILD AT HEART and LOST HIGHWAYS, both based on Gifford books, but straight Gifford hits you right upside the gut with a haymaker.

The hot relationship between DelRay Mudo and Ava Varazo is interrupted when the latter blows away her pimp, Indio Desacato, and runs off to La Villania (Nasty), Mexico, to take up with an obscure political cause. Everything goes to hell when Cobra Box, her associate, goes to Bad Leopard, Idaho, to buy guns. Nobody ultimately gets together with anybody: just overheated bodies caroming around in a ranchero beat with the occasional gratuitous sex or violence. As Cairo Fly put it in his diary that closes the book, "Is it possible for a person's soul to stray away or be stolen and without it the person has no peace in their heart? I feel I am one of those now."

There is something mesmerizing about Gifford's staccato chapters. Try too hard to follow the story, and you wind up like Thankful Priest with a bullet in your head in some godforsaken south of the border hellhole. No, man, just keep going to the beat. Sometimes, you fall off the edge of the world; sometimes you get good Tequila with your chilaquiles.

I've got to get me some more of those Gifford books -- if this one's any indicator.