cover image Watching

Watching

John Ryan. Hastings House Book Publishers, $22 (192pp) ISBN 978-0-8038-9398-6

""I am a voyeur and a bi-sexual foot fetishist. I am also a member of the American Association of Retired Persons... there are no more than twenty people in all Manhattan who even know my name.... Every night, I go to one of the adult movie arcades on 42nd Street."" With these fragmentary excerpts from the opening passages of this muted, Bukowski-esque noir, Ryan--better known for his humor (The Little Brothers of St. Mortimer)--defines the lonely existence of Hell's Kitchen denizen Billy ""The Gimp"" O'Leary, a New York-born ex-boxer, retired after working 32 years making pickle jar lids in the Bronx. Set down as a haphazardly kept personal journal, the narrative slithers forward in time present, bringing to life a cheerless population of sexual eccentrics, sleazy con artists and murderous psychos. The result, at first cheaply intriguing, soon expends most of its energy trying to shock. But all the depravity, homelessness and violence becomes less alarming than symptomatic of Ryan's apparent fascination with his tale's own seediness. To Ryan's credit, the grotesque inhabitants of this vanishing, neon wasteland are realized with a kindly affection, but this depressing slice-of-life never manages to make the reader care much about their erotic quirks--or about the would-be-bohemian, underground man who drags their dull proclivities to light. (Sept.)