Some choice bits from the end of Sweet La-La Land
Hooligan went out and gathered up Canaan and Whistler. The two cops walked Whistler back through the alley to the highway, one on each side. It was like escorting a dead man. There was no feeling of life in him. He just shuffled along, staring at the rain falling in front of him as though that were all there would ever be in the world again. The strange persistence of the rain.
…
They were huddles together on the broken catwalk on the pitted roof, under an evening sky going sulphur yellow form the pollution that hardly ever left the air, like the last two survivors of a city destroyed by nuclear holocaust.
…
“How about Bitsy? Where’s Bitsy?”
“He’s in jail.”
“Whaaat?”
“He done it.”
“Done what?”
“Done it to Mimi on the roof. Later on they proved he killed Moo and that woman from Magdalene House too,” Roach said.
“That lady what came around with the hot chocolate and the big nigger.” (Latter is JoJo)
…
“How could they all come together in the same place at the same time, so that all the terrible things that could happen happen?” Bosco asked, his hand laying on a copy of Oedipus, After Sophocles. “Sometimes you hear about them finding a body somewhere and you think that’s the picture, but it ain’t the picture. It’s just the trailer.”
….
“Hey,” said Bosco, “the worst corner of hell is home sweet home to some poor soul.”
——————————
Finished the book. Hopeless tragedy is the key phrase. As I said, not noir but rather a human black hole.
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