Hard Rain Falling

Set largely in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and California penal institutions in the fifties and early sixties, the gritty and sporadically violent novel traces the coming of age of Jack Levitt, from his breakout from the hellish orphanage where he grew up to Northwest pool halls to San Quentin. While it gives an inside view of these dubious venues (including a convincing tale of prison love life), the book also goes deep inside Levitt, an introspective, violent and mercurial young man. And it does so sympathetically and at times humorously. As in the scene where Levitt, uneducated, broke, and a recent jailbird without prospects, goes a lonely three-day drunk in a seedy hotel room, swilling whiskey from quart bottles, regurgitating and drinking more. He has recently broken the jaw of his only "friend," thrown out an under-aged girl smitten with him after having his pleasure with her, and faces arrest on capital kidnapping charges. Cold and sick, he drifts in and out of consciousness, examining his hopeless situation, seeing has nothing to live for, contemplating suicide. Yet his drunken introspection finally leads to an epiphany of sorts: "Bull****," he said aloud. "Bull****. I'm just in a bad mood." But while we see Levitt grow intellectual and morally we also glimpse his philosophical nature, his struggle to divine the power of love, loyalty, knowledge and freedom. He's smart enough to recognize the force of institutions as he moves through them--the orphanage, the billiard hall, the jail, the prison, the government and ultimately marriage. He finds that it's not just the people--you could kill all of them, he suggests, and nothing would change--but the rules, both written and unwritten, i.e., culture, that matter most, intangible yet potent. He also muses on individual crime, for which powerless people like Levitt get punished, and the crimes of society and the powerful, which get applauded or ignored. But most compelling for me about the novel was the time-traveling back to the American fifties, the rough-edged, convincing dialogue and a view of the gritty underside of West Coast life a half century past--including the sordid life inside orphanages and prisons. Like most all literature, according to Arthur Miller, it tries to answer the question-in this case for Jack Levitt-"How do you make for yourself a home?" While Levitt doesn't come to a solid answer, he rules out a few things, and the reader is left with the feeling that he just may figure it out some day.

"Hard Rain Falling" is not a book with a page-turner plot but there is something in the quality of the writing that brings you in. This is a world of men, not people at all I understand. Tough guys in pool halls who end up in jail, having a lot of sex and coming to terms with the truth that no institution, man or god cares how it all turns out for them. And yet, because of the quality of the writing, I can empathize because though my life is far less dramatic, I too understand that no protective force cares how it all turns out for me either. So the only question left is, in an life where you are born into limited resources, where great forces tie down your choices regardless of your talent or will, how are you going to live it? For the characters in the book, the question is often answered for them but even in the small worlds they're doomed to reside in--literally at times the size of a jail cell--they somehow find the courage to get through another day or even choose death over life, not out of depression but in one instance, out of human connection. The book is a "New York Review of Books Classic" with the physical quality of the paperback better than most. If you are like me and have a very limited number of novels you can read a year, this one is highly recommended.

This story is very dark, but also contains a lot of insight into the prison system, reform schools and the individuals that are incarcerated. Would recommend for anyone with an interest in psychology or criminal justice.

Sometimes books enter the out-of-print category because they aren't any good and no one wants to read them. Sometimes the book is good (or even superb) and nobody will bother to read it anyway. This book falls into the second category. The plot of "Hard Rain Falling" is linear: in other words, "that" follows logically and immediately from "this". The book is written in the French style of "roman dur" (a "hard novel", a la Georges Simenon). It is terse, set in grim and gray surroundings and is stark in its descriptions. There are, for the most part, few words wasted. Jack Levitt, the protagonist, is a "hard case" orphan born of hard case parents. As anticipated, Jack's life follows an Oedipal-like trajectory (i.e, a fate which he apparently cannot escape, not that he is especially motivated to do so). Only the most obtuse reader could fail to anticipate the bad end which Carpenter has pre-ordained from the patently bad beginning. Jack drinks too much, resents too much, fights too much, bucks society too much, is too individualistic and, later on, spends too much time engaged in introspection: a toxic combination of character traits, indeed. Aside from all that, he falls into a homosexual relationship with Billy Lancing (the other major character) while in prison. He later marries a red-hot "nympho" rich woman with whom (yes, you guessed it) he has a child who he seems to love (but later on evidently forgets). Sally, the woman in question, then leaves him, taking the child along for a "better life" with a rich, philosophically-inclined patron. She dumps him as well and takes up again with her first husband, a bit-part but quite successful actor. The child's fate can be surmised, namely a likely reprise of Jack's. This depressing scenario closes the circle of fate on Jack. While Carpenter doesn't spell it out in the end, its pretty clear Jack is doomed to a hard, mean and short life. Billy Lancing is a Mischlinge (in Nazi terminology), that is, he is a mixed-race black man. Billy has a natural talent in billiards which he parlays into a career as a small-time pool shark. He crosses Jack's path early in his career. Paths cross again later on in San Quentin prison. Billy is cast in the role of a character foil: a genuine talent (Jack has none), but also doomed by circumstances of race, environment and character flaws. Though obviously endowed with considerable intelligence along with his billiards acumen, he chucks his better options in the garbage to continue the intermittently thrilling and ultimately unrewarding path he selected at a very young age. In short, like Jack, he understands much but has learned nothing. Billy also serves as the vehicle which allows the author entree into the demi-monde of mid-twentieth century pool halls, which is the general backdrop for the novel. Like Ian Fleming, too much ink is spilled in extravagant descriptions of various games of chance. While some of the interior monologues and dialogu

For many people reading "Hard Rain Falling" will offer the thrill of discovering a brilliant unheard of author. It was for me. The novel grabs you with the force of its authenticity and maintains its hold through the power of both Don Carpenter's beautiful writing as well as the depth of his insight. The characters grow and evolve, sometimes in surprising directions, but they always come across as being fully realized and emotionally complex. They are constantly brutalized by the world they live in, and the passages describing some of their experiences are harrowing. It is at times oppressive in its intensity but there isn't a false note. The novel's introduction is written by George Pelecanos, who was one of the writers for HBO's amazing series, "The Wire." This is fitting. Both the novel and the series share a focus on the violent struggle and tortured inner lives of characters living in an unforgiving world. Both also ask questions about who we really are and what meaning we are to make of all we endure. "Hard Rain Falling" is the best novel I've read in a long time. It's excellence makes me want to read it again and seek out the author's other work.