Citizen Vince A novel

It's October 1980, and laid-back loner Vince Camden never misses a morning making maple bars at the doughnut shop he manages in Spokane, Washington. And he rarely misses a night relieving locals of their bankrolls at an after-hours poker game, selling his hooker pals pot at cost, and running a lucrative credit-card theft ring. Vince has landed in eastern Washington via the witness-protection plan, and he is starting to like the simple pleasures, including receiving his first voter-registration card. So even when a hit man, a local cop, and Mob-boss-in-waiting John Gotti get Vince in their crosshairs, he keeps trying to figure out if he should pull the lever for Reagan or Carter. This tale of unlikely redemption works because of Walter's virtuoso command of character and dialogue--along with a wicked second-act twist. The novel is also a gritty love letter to Spokane and all the other second-tier cities where residents don't realize how good they've got it, and with its Capara-like spirit, it serves as a surprisingly satisfying antidote to the avalanche of cynical chatter emanating from this year's political campaigns and commentators. --Frank Sennett Copyright 2004 Booklist

Even though he is a low-level criminal hiding out in witness protection, Vince Camden is a likable fellow, trying to figure out his life and fix all he has done wrong. It is eight days before the 1980 election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, and Vince, who has just received his voter registration card under his new name, has decided that he needs to vote since it will make him a "real" citizen. As he desperately tries to decide between the two candidates, he must also deal with a hit man who has blown his cover, handle a love life that involves a needy call girl, travel to New York City to make amends to the mob, and, finally, accept that his life as a baker in a small town is really not such a bad thing. What makes Walter's third novel (after Over Tumbled Graves and Land of the Blind) so enjoyable is Vince, a flawed but sympathetic character trying to find redemption. Recommended for most fiction collections.-Marianne Fitzgerald, Anne Arundel Cty. Schs., Annapolis, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A petty thief bucks one system to join another. Notching his first felony at 15, Marty Hagen, the quintessential New York City street kid, has a rap sheet to be reckoned with by the time he's 36. Not that there's anything really lurid on it--certainly nothing violent--it's just nonstop. And then suddenly, almost by accident, Marty becomes a person of interest to the feds, a circumstance that leads to a new name, a new location, and the makings of a new life. Farewell Marty, hail Vince (Camden), reborn, as it were, courtesy of the Witness Protection Program. Though at first Spokane, Washington, rattles his urban sensibilities ("Everyone drives everywhere, even the ladies"), Vince soon grows fond. He gets to like the quirkiness, discovers that the measured pace suits him after all, allowing time for an interest in things that would once have seemed exotic: presidential politics, for instance. The time is 1980, eight days short of the election between Reagan and Carter, and Vince plans to do what he's never done before: vote. Moreover, there are women in his life, two of them, actually, good women in their differing ways. He even likes the kooky job the feds have found for him, donut maker--manager of the estimable Donut Make you Hungry establishment. Then, after two equable years, enter Ray (Sticks) Scatieri, hit-man extraordinaire, emissary from the mob, with an overdue bill in his bloodied hands. Well, exactly who sent him? Why now? Is there a way Vince can square himself in time to render the contract null and void? The answers are admirably unpredictable. This, in fact, is a story full of wonderful small surprises--among them Vince's way of finally achieving citizenhood. Dispassionate and compassionate by turns, and always engrossing. Walter's best by far (Land of the Blind, 2003, etc.). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Citizen Vince Chapter One One day you know more dead people than live ones. The thought greets Vince Camden as he sits up in bed, frantic, casting around a dark bedroom for proof of his existence and finding only props: nightstand, dresser, ashtray, clock. Vince breathes heavily. Sweats in the cool air. Rubs his eyes to shake the dust of these musings, not a dream exactly, this late-sleep panic -- fine glass thin as paper, shattered and swirling, cutting as it blows away. Vince Camden pops his jaw, leans over, and turns off the alarm just as the one, five, and nine begin their fall. Each morning at 1:59 he sits up like this and turns off the clock radio in the split second before two and the shrill blast of alarm. He wonders: How is a thing like that possible? And yet ... if you can manage such a trick -- every morning waking up a few ticks before your alarm goes off -- why couldn't you count all the dead people you know? Start with Grandparents. Two sets. One grandfather had a second wife. That's five. Vince runs a toothbrush over his molars. Mother and father. Seven. Does a stillborn sister count? No. A person has to have been alive to be dead. By the time he finishes his shower, blow-dries his hair, and gets dressed -- gray slacks, longsleeve black dress shirt, two buttons open -- he's gone through family, neighbors, and former associates: already thirty-four people he knows to be dead. Wonders if that's high, if it's normal to know so many dead people. Normal. That word tails him from a safe distance most days. He opens a drawer and pulls out a stack of forged credit cards, looks at the names on the cards: Thomas A. Spaulding. Lane Bailey. Margaret Gold. He imagines Margaret Gold's lovely normal life, a crocheted afghan tossed over the back of her sofa. How many dead people could Margaret Gold possibly know? Vince counts out ten credit cards -- including Margaret Gold's -- and puts these in the pocket of his windbreaker. Fills the other pocket with Ziploc bags of marijuana. It's 2:16 in the morning when Vince slides his watch onto his wrist, careful not to catch the thick hair on his forearm. Oh yeah, Davie Lincoln -- retarded kid used to carry money in his mouth while he ran errands for Coletti in the neighborhood. Choked on a half-dollar. Thirty-five. Vince stands in the tiny foyer of his tiny house, if you can call a coatrack and a mail slot a foyer. Zips his windbreaker and snaps his cuffs out like a Vegas dealer leaving the table. Steps out into the world. About Vince Camden: he is thirty-six and white. Single. Six feet tall, 160 pounds, broad-shouldered and thin, like a martini glass. Brown and blue, as the police reports have recorded his hair and eyes. His mouth curls at the right corner, thick eyebrows go their own way, and this casts his face in perpetual smirk, so that every woman who has ever been involved with him eventually arrives at the same expression, hands on hips, head cocked: Please. Be serious. Vince is employed in midlevel management, food industry: baking division -- donuts. Generally, there is less to making donuts than one might assume. But Vince likes it, likes getting to work at 4:30 in the morning and finishing before lunch. He feels as if he's gotten one over on the world, leaving his place of employment for lunch and simply not coming back. He's realizing this is a fixed part of his personality, this desire to get one over on the world. Maybe there is a hooky gene. Outside, he pulls the collar of his windbreaker against his cheeks. Cold this morning: late October. Freezing, in fact -- the steam leaks from his mouth and reminds him of an elementary school experiment with dry ice, which reminds him of Mr. Harlow, his fifth-grade teacher. Hanged himself after it became common knowledge that he was a bit too fond of his male students. Thirty-six. It's a serene world from your front steps at 2:20 in the morning: dim porch lights on houses black with sleep; sidewalks split the dark dewed lawns. But the night has a grimmer hold on Vince's imagination, and he shivers with the creeping sensation -- even as he reminds himself it's impossible -- that he's on the menu tonight. " So what ... YOU want me to do this thing or not?" The two men stare across the bench seat of a burgundy Cadillac Seville. The driver asks: "How much would something like that cost?" The bigger man, in the passenger seat, is impatient, restless, but he pauses to think. It's a fair question. After all, it is 1980, and the service industries are mired in this stagnant economy, too. Are the criminal sectors subject to the same sad market forces: inflation, deflation, stagflation? Recession? Do thugs suffer double-digit unemployment? Do criminals feel malaise? "Gratis," quotes the passenger. "Gratis?" repeats the driver, shifting in the leather seat. "Yeah." And after a pause: "Means free." "I know what it means. I was just surprised. That's all. You're saying you'll help me out with this guy for free?" "I'm saying we'll work something out." "But it won't cost me anything?" "We'll work it out." And it says something about the man driving the Cadillac that in addition to not knowing what the word gratis means, he also doesn't realize that nothing is free. Citizen Vince . Copyright © by Jess Walter. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Citizen Vince by Jess Walter All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. 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