In St Bruno very few can be trusted, not even the people on your own side. Influence of birth and background are strong, but that background dictates that self-preservation is your only real instinct. After the first killing, the violence in the city escalates, and Shade follows a trail of mayhem through the unyielding streets of Frogtown and further, into the depths of the Marais du Croche itself, a place anyone with any sense stays away from. The violence in Under the Bright Lights is graphic and hard-hitting. But this is no tale of mindless violence committed for the fun of it.
Violence is necessary and as such accepted.
There is an air of fatalism, even among the victims. Among these men there is little concern for justice or motivation. Violence is the only conceivable answer. The question isn't even asked anymore. The beauty and lyricism of Woodrell's prose, often surprising in the context of the story itself, and the real feeling for the characters and lives these people live, raises Under the Bright Lights well above many other novels with similar subject matter.