by DAVID BENIOFF
Set in modern-day New York, this fantastic morality tale focuses on drug dealer Monty Brogan who�s on the cusp of serving a 7-year jail sentence, indulging in one last, emotionally tense night on both the town and tiles with his friends before his time begins.
You�d think the obvious thing to do would be to run away, skip town to go and anonymously build a new life for himself elsewhere without the criminal ties of his past� but he�s tied to NYC because of his father, who runs a bar, and who he doesn�t want to let down � as though he�s not let him down enough already. And then there are his friends, who are good friends, though all his relationships are tested to breaking point in this one snowy night, as his family and friends reminisce about the good times whilst sizing-up the bad.
This is author Benioff�s first novel and his writing style is remarkable in that his conjuring of such brilliant characters and facets of New York in all its seasonal glory is wickedly vivid. Deep down the lead character in Monty is a good man and it shows. He�s sorry for what he�s done, obviously dreading the thought of going to jail. If only he could escape the inevitable, but it�s impossible and he knows it, as �he passes a diner on Second Avenue. A beautiful girl seated in a booth smiles at him, her chin propped on a menu � but it�s too late, she can no longer help. In twenty-four hours he boards a bus for Otisville. Tomorrow at noon he surrenders his name for a number. The beautiful girl is a curse. Her face will haunt him for seven years.�
What�s worse, even some of those people he holds the closest seem to end up betraying Monty. They, too, have their own problems, as one of his friends Slattery �watches his own spectral reflection in the window, a balding ghost in the fallen snow.� Another good mate of Monty�s is Jakob and he�s just as disillusioned with city life as he is with Monty�s fall from grace, reflecting from the confines of a restaurant in which they�re eating� �The waiter lives here in furious exile; my best friend is a berserker; the man passing by the window is heading home to murder his wife. It�s a city of maniacs. But Jakob knows he will never leave.�
�Montgomery loves his city best when the snow if falling, when the sidewalks are tracked with overlapping frontprints and the tops of tall buildings are swallowed by clouds.� Benioff�s writing is nothing if not wistful in spurts, and then prophetic reality can be slammed into context at any given moment as Monty furiously gets mad with both himself and the city at large, raging �Fuck this city and everyone in it� let the Arabs bomb it all to rubble.� Bearing in mind that this novel was first published in 2000, Benioff might just be a latter day Nostradamus given that shocking wish on Monty�s part that literally came true just a year after this novel's publication.
On a less depressing note, �The 25th Hour� (suggesting that it's already too late?) is an unforgettable work of sheer drama that isn�t to be overlooked. David Benioff has every right to feel proud of his obvious writing talent in creating such atmosphere and bringing the city of New York colourfully to life through dealing with a bunch of such interestingly tragic characters.
(Steve Rudd)
ISBN 0-340-82228-7 (HODDER & STOUGHTON)
PS, �The 25th Hour� has been adapted for the big screen,
with Monty played by �Fight Club�-er Ed Norton.