Adoption Noir: A Review of Ed Lynsky’s "Ask the Dice"
I’m a fan of adoptee noir, so it was a pleasant surprise to find Ask the Dice a member of that growing subgenre. No doubt some adoption deformers will get the vapors at the thought of a hit man who just happens to be adopted (hit man, might be too benevolent–from the way Tommy Mack Zane tells it, the number of dead pile up in the hundreds), but as a Bastard I found it refreshing and so un-PC. Even better, he’s a TRA hit man, black and adopted by a white Washington DC couple out of an “orphan home” in Champagne’s Folly, Texas, his landing point after his parents mysteriously committed suicide, giving him an extra layer or two of adoptee angst and screwed upedness. He clearly loves his adoptive parents Amanda and Phil Zane, but feels apart, different. Being 5 or 6 years old and finding his mother Nela hanging in the kitchen a week after his father Bradford shot himself doesn’t help.Thankfully, Tommy Mack suffers no primal wound and doesn’t blame his career choice on adoption. But back to the book. Tommy Mack is a contract killer for the blind, dirty-minded, and mysterious Watson Og (love the name!) Continue Reading →