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Joe Ide is a fresh new voice
Book Review
By Derryll White
Ide, Joe (2021). Smoke.
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” -Charles Dickens
Joe Ide has constructed a very clever and intriguing world in which several stories can unfold at the same time without confusing the reader. Isaiah Quintabe, IQ, is off his game, recovering from PTSD. His old partner, Juanell Dodson, is experiencing an identity crisis of enormous magnitude. Grace, IQ’s continuing love/life interest, has her own past haunting her.
All of this and much more takes place in a Los Angeles that most readers will never know. IQ and Dodson are both from ‘the hood.’ A tight ethnic neighbourhood that looks after its own. Joe Ide brings amazing colour and feeling to ‘Smoke.’ His writing, and his ideas, are fresh. The characters are strong and interact in understandable ways.
There is a theme of change. Both IQ and Dodson are looking to change their lives, and Grace is achieving real success as an artist. But Ide asks subtly, what is the cost of change? That is perhaps what makes the novel most appealing. Choices have to be made and are made. Only reading ‘Smoke’ will tell you what they are.
Joe Ide is a fresh new voice, even with five published novels behind him.
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Excerpts from the novel:
THEY SEE THAT SHIT – “Welcome to the get-toe, honey,” Vivian said. “We see that shit every fucking day.”
People from the suburbs would be disgusted by the residents of the Dolphin, Grace thought. Look at them, they’d say, so callous and bloodthirsty. Animals, they’d say. They can’t help it, they’d say. They’re just like that, they’d say. Yes, they’re like that because they see this shit every fucking day. That little boy in the jumper will see this shit every fucking day; stabbings, shootings, beatings, whores and pimps, drunks and crackheads, killers and crazies and abject cruelty. Grow up like that little boy, people of the suburbs. And see what happens to you.
BANKS – But what had all your solid, safe decisions come to? An ordinary boring life. In a damn cubicle all day, opening IRAs and checking accounts, which amounted to no more than filling out a mountain of forms. People didn’t know this but you were under pressure all the time. Management pushed you into opening accounts and issuing credit cards to customers without them knowing about it. They made money by charging unwarranted fees. To hit your sales target, you had to create phony PIN numbers and email addresses to enroll people in online bank services. Was that rewarding? Satisfying? Did it utilize any of your intelligence and creativity? Was it something you could be proud of? No, it wasn’t.
WORK – What worried her was the future. She worked at a large law firm and saw it every day. People putting in sixty- to seventy-hour weeks, everything else a distant second or third. Marriage, kids, fun, love. They became obligations, more like chores. Ah, hell. I forgot her birthday. Ah, hell, the kid’s soccer game is in 20 minutes. Ah, hell, it’s fucking date night. Work was more satisfying. The objectives were clear, the methods were tried-and-true. You did it and were done. Home was a morass of gruelling relationships and conflicting agendas. Judging by Cherise’s superiors, a great career was a four-lane highway to living parallel lives.
LIVING – Isn’t that what everybody wanted? To be the hero of their own lives? Why did people do things at all if not for that reason? To overcome the odds and triumph over extreme adversity, preferably on the evening news cycle. If you didn’t do it in front of an audience, why do it at all? If you didn’t get love from the general public, what was the point? Everything was like that now. Why get married, have a party, have a baby, play a sport, travel, get a puppy, be bipolar, commit suicide or shoot up a classroom full of kids unless you thought it was going viral? Glory and acclaim were happiness. Billy really believe that, although he conceded there were other kinds of happy.
VIOLENCE – Despite what the doctor said, Isaiah knew none of them would really recover. They’d forever be haunted by nightmares, flashbacks and an ever-present sense of danger. Ava would see the riot gun blowing Crowe’s legs to pieces and wake up screaming. The consequences of violence were crippling even when you’re righteous. And they lasted until your heart stopped beating and the pain left you forever.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
