What Makes You Die
Recalling in some ways Piccirilli’s down-and-out novelist in Every Shallow Cut (2011), this one’s about a screenwriter, Tommy Pic, whose early successes are ancient history. Alcoholic and overweight, he’s been living in his mother’s basement on Long Island; when we meet him, he’s waking up in a mental hospital. He’s haunted by the ghosts of his father, a paperboy, a girl who went missing when he was 10, and a Komodo dragon called Gideon, whom Tommy once tried to cut out of his stomach with a steak knife. Though Tommy is barely keeping it together, his agent, also on the skids, believes Tommy’s new screenplay is just the thing to get them both back on top. And it might even be good—unfortunately, Tommy can’t remember writing one word of it. Dreamlike and disorienting, this short book crackles with energy and displays the author’s gift for voice and well-turned phrases. He doesn’t quite bring it off in the end—he starts a lot that he doesn’t finish—but it’s still worthwhile. Prolific and versatile, Piccirilli is a true original. --Keir Graff