JC: What are your best and worst qualities? Sure, it’s pretty standard stuff for college application essays and job interviews. You’ve answered at least a couple of versions of it over the years. But your answers were not much like Addison Schact’s – the mercurial protagonist of Sam Munson’s The November Criminals. After all, most of you are not caustic, pot-dealing cynics resolved upon solving the death of your classmate who you really don’t know that well in the first place.
Most of you.
But that’s Addison. He’s got a list of clients that includes most of your kids, he lives an parentless existence, he’s sleeping with his girl friend (not girlfriend!) Digger, and he’s got a joke guaranteed to offend just about anyone. He’s assured – everything’s under control – so why shouldn’t he be able to solve and unsolvable murder.
Addison’s way out of his depth. It all comes unravelled as he looks for answers that aren’t forthcoming. He joins a long line of truthtelling adolescents, unsettled and pissed at the bullshit around them. He takes pleasure in rocking the suburban boat, and only realizes too late that when the boat capsizes, he’s as fucked as the guy he was trying to soak.
Echoes of Holden Caulfield abound in The November Criminals, as well as the teenage detective in James Fuerst’s Huge. The real achievement is the way Munson nails Addison’s voice: earnest and furious at some times, meandering and precocious at others, but hilarious most of the time.
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