Review by Booklist Review
Fuller, the legendary film director whose fascinating oeuvre includes the noir classic Pickup on South Street (1953), wrote this novel toward the end of his life, during a self-imposed exile in France. Published as Cerebro-choc in 1993, it hasn't appeared in its original English until now. Paul Page is a bagman who battles pirates as he moves huge sums of money around New York City. He lives as an ascetic but has two secrets that could cost him his job and his life: he's in love, and he suffers from seizures he calls brainquakes. Events erupt, and he finds himself running for his life with the girl and a huge sum of cash. They escape to France but is his lover playing him for a sucker? The bravura opening is a knockout, and Fuller's Mob-bossed New York is entertaining, but once the action moves overseas, the story bogs down until its hail-of-bullets ending. At a shorter length, this would have been a wonderfully wild ride. Still, it has its moments, and Fuller fans will find it hard to resist.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
First published in French in 1993, this so-called "lost" novel from director Fuller (1912-1997) is, like his work for the big screen, rough around the edges and blunt as a head butt. In a plot that echoes that of Fuller's best-known film, Pickup on South Street, Paul Page suffers "brainquakes"-seizures during which he responds violently to horrifying visions. Paul is working as a bagman for the mob in New York City, making money drops, when he falls in love with Michelle Troy, a gangster's widow. Believing Michelle's life to be in danger, Paul flees to Paris with her and $10 million of mob money. In hot pursuit is a mob assassin who dresses as a priest and crucifies his victims. The writing is pulpy and the violence brutal, but Fuller explodes a few surprises to keep the plot unpredictable, and his mordant asides on crime and corruption elevate this tale above much standard genre fare. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Paul Page is a bagman, a delivery courier for organized criminals, with an unmemorable face and a knack for disappearing in a crowd. He never missed a drop, never failed to make a delivery-until he fell in love with a dangerous woman. When Paul and a mob widow go on the run with millions in stolen cash, they aren't just running from the cops or the tireless hit man who dresses like a priest and crucifies his targets. They're also trying to stay ahead of Paul's "brainquakes," debilitating head pains that cause him to do violent things. This novel by Fuller (1912-97), the influential director of such classic and controversial films as The Big Red One, Shock Corridor, and White Dog, is published for the first time in English (it was first released in French in 1993) and is a real throwback of a crime novel, full of violence and colorful dialog. The only knock on what is an otherwise exciting and unpredictable story is that while some characters like Paul and the hit man are wonderfully originally drawn, others come off as stock wise guys or femmes fatales. But this can be forgiven as part of the genre's charm. -VERDICT Recommended for fans of the more visceral pulp and hard-boiled fiction, like Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me.-Peter Petruski, Cumberland Cty. Lib. Syst., Carlisle, PA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A bagman with recurring brain seizures falls in love with a Mafia widow and flees with organized crime money. Fuller (The Dark Page, 2007, etc.) was an iconoclastic movie director whose work influenced film legends like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. This book, discovered after his death in 1997, offers classic noir fiction filled with shadowy underworld dealings and an antihero immersed in criminal culture. Although he was born with a mysterious brain condition that causes uncontrollable seizures, Paul Page follows all the rules of his job as bagman in his gangland dealings. He survives attempted hijackings, he's always on time with his deliveries, and he never thinks about double-crossing his boss. Things change when Paul falls for Michelle, a mysterious and beautiful woman who becomes a widow before his eyes. Michelle's husband is killed over an unpaid debt, and it seems that Paul can offer the two things that will save her from a similar fate: physical protection and quick cash. When he's told to deliver $10 million, he must decide between allegiance to the only job he's ever known and following the woman he loves. When Paul takes off with the cash, an elite hit man disguised as a priest is put on his trail. As his characters make a series of shifting alliances, Fuller creates the kind of converging narratives and memorable personalities that will seem familiar to any Tarantino fan.A hard-boiled story filled with quick dialogue and rich archetypal characters. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
