Reviews of three new books. Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland By James St. James (Simon & Schuster, 286 pages, $23) Club Dead If you're like me, every now and then you need a true-crime fix--the sicker the better. And along comes Disco Bloodbath, a tale so dirty it'll leave you clamoring for the bathtub and a bar of Ivory soap. Disco Bloodbath is Manhattan "celebutante" James St. James' sketchy attempt to get down on paper the even sketchier mid-'80s events--downward spirals, really--leading to the grisly murder of a much-despised hanger-on and drug-dealer by the name of Angel Martinez. The murderer (it's no mystery) is none other than St. James' best friend, club-kid extraordinaire Michael Alig. While St. James attempts to paint a portrait of a murderer, it's cubist at best. Where Disco Bloodbath succeeds is at introducing the reader to a truly foul array of downtown denizens: Peter-Peter Boyfriend-Stealer, Cookie-Puss, Jennytalia and a coke-dealing lesbian from Boston named Mavis. James' bitchy narration and the aforementioned darlings' corrupt antics will have you crying out with laughter. (Not the happy, ha-ha kind, mind you, but that other, ugly kind.) But there's pure poetry in other places, like when he describes the effects of his beloved drug Special K (Ketamine hydrochloride): "There's a lot of unfolding. Everything just slides away, like many curtains opening at once," he writes. The book falls down when a more mature-sounding St. James attempts, in a "what did it all mean" kind of way, to reconcile fabulousness with murder, and to pinpoint which, among many, was the crucial wrong turn. He somewhat sloppily hints that the NYPD didn't investigate the Martinez homicide aggressively enough because their real interest was in shutting down club owner Peter Gatien's nightclubs--not in solving the murder of a drug dealer. But St. James' complaints are hard to understand given the author's own antipathy toward the victim: He wonders why Alig even got involved with a person as an unfabulous as Martinez in the first place (he wore angel wings, for Chrissake). When Alig calls from prison and St. James tells his friend that "This whole murder thingie REALLY...UPSET...ME...," it's hard to believe that he really means it. Michaela Lowthian Like Normal People by Karen E. Bender (Houghton Mifflin, 269 pages, $23) What's Normal? Today, Lena Rose would be called developmentally disabled, but back in the 1930s, she would have been called slow or retarded. Karen E. Bender's engrossing debut novel explores the life of Lena, a beautiful girl who suffered an injury during birth that left her brain damaged. Her mother, Ella, slowly realizes that Lena isn't like other children, so she does the best she can with the resources available. She insists that Lena attend school and take lessons in the social graces. But Mom is realistic: She knows that Lena will never have a normal life like her younger daughter, Vivian. Yet much to Ella's surprise, Lena manages to get married and create an existence that is actually pretty nice, until tragedy strikes. Bender's writing is descriptive, packed with apt and unshakable images. Though her story spans more than 50 years, she uses details and language to capture the flavor of each decade. But Bender's talent is truly apparent in her characterization of a family attempting to be normal, despite one special member. Like Normal People examines such uncomfortable issues as love relationships between mentally disabled people, a mother's need to relinquish control over her children, and just what is considered normal anyway. This author isn't afraid to delve deeply into her subject, deftly presenting it from all angles. The result is a thoroughly and traditionally told story that reveals a fresh take on the human condition. In a world of gimmicky fiction, this novel is abnormally wonderful. Susan Wickstrom   Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen (Alfred A. Knopf, 337 pages, $25) Reading for the Dog Days Carl Hiaasen, where have you been all my life? I don't know how, until now, I've missed this wickedly funny and pointedly political writer. A twice-weekly columnist for the Miami Herald, Hiaasen has turned out several novels set in Florida that go after greedy developers, mercenary landowners and mealy politicians. In this book, Twilly Spree, an independently wealthy eco-terrorist with an anger-management problem, goes on a rampage. He can be thrown into equal levels of self-righteous rage over littering and back-room deals to bulldoze pristine wilderness. His foil is Palmer Stoat, a state lobbyist for the dark side whose ego is surpassed only by his appetite. Their paths cross when Spree sees Stoat toss a burger wrapper out the window of his Land Rover. Things get messy after Spree finds out that the lobbyist is behind an attempt to develop an unspoiled island off of the Florida shore. Hiaasen has a terrific sense of the absurd. The hurdles he throws Spree's way as he attempts to save the world include: a hit man who listens to bootlegged tapes of people dying as they call 911; a cocaine importer-turned-developer with a Barbie doll fetish; and a jellyfish of a governor whose only goal is to keep the money guys happy. In other words, Stoat's black lab Boodles, who gives the book its title, isn't the only sick puppy. Some readers and critics say Sick Puppy is not the best of the lot, and some are wondering if, after seven previous books in the same vein, Hiaasen might be off his game. This neophyte, however, was tickled. Patty Wentz   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published April 26, 2000