The Dead Beat by Cody James – review

In the wake of Punked Books’ English Slacker making it onto the Not the Booker Prize shortlist, some of the other small independents involved have decided to get together to create more awareness of our publications, as they’re rarely (if ever) featured in the national press. As a result of this, I have decided to write a review of one of the other Not the Booker shortlisted titles, The Dead Beat by Cody James, which is published by Eight Cuts Gallery.
The Dead Beat is set in San Francisco in 1997, at a time when the comet Hale Bopp is very prominent in the night sky. Cody James reminds us of the hysteria that this celestial body caused in some quarters when she mentions the mass suicide undertaken by members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in nearby San Diego, as they thought that this would be their only means of transporting themselves to the alien space craft that they believed was travelling in the comet’s wake. The Dead Beat‘s Xavi (like many then and since) finds their sacrifice to be ridiculous, especially with regards to their pop cultural references to Star Trek, as they each wore “Away Team” armbands when they committed suicide. Suicide is rather a fundamental theme in the book, as several of the characters are afflicted with suicidal tendencies. For instance, we’re told that Adam’s mother tried to commit suicide before she was institutionalised, while Xavi takes an overdose of sedatives, and Sean has tried to kill himself on several occasions. Dan Holloway, the publisher of The Dead Beat, addresses this theme in his introduction to the book when he states that Cody James has attempted suicide four times. So, one can very much believe Cody James when she states in the interview that opens the book that “The truth is that three of the main characters are me”, as she is obviously following that authorial mantra of writing what she knows about from her own life. Most of The Dead Beat‘s characters are male, and for much of the novella, Cody James does a brilliant job at portraying the male psyche, although some readers may well flinch at the violent emotions that Ginny arouses in Adam. The only time when I thought that Cody’s depiction of Adam wasn’t convincing was when he inflicted cigarette burns on his body, as I thought that this kind of self-harm was mainly restricted to women (although I’ve just done a bit of research online, and found that this isn’t the case). Dan Holloway’s introduction states that Cody’s representation of women is sometimes regarded as being misogynistic; however, I think Adam’s violence towards Ginny and his self-harm are more likely to be examples of where Cody’s intermittent self-hatred has spilled over into the text.
Yet The Dead Beat is far from just being a manifestation of various parts of Cody James’ character, since I also regard it as being a portrait of the city in which it is set. The novella’s protagonists are the grandchildren of the Beat generation, who are still wasted from the excesses of the Summer of Love, and although they’re suicidal, they’re more into the Cure than the Grateful Dead. The house in which Adam and his friends live is very much an embodiment of this decay, especially since it provides a welcome home to a multitude of cockroaches (and thus is not an ideal environment for Xavi, who’s obsessed with cleanliness, especially when high). Obviously, this is just one aspect of San Francisco that we’re looking at, albeit rather decrepit (I have a couple of San Franciscan friends who are very house-proud, although they’ve admittedly got far better jobs than any of the characters in The Dead Beat). Readers wanting to check out more fictional portraits of San Francisco would do well to check out one of our titles: Abattoir Jack by Christopher Neilan, another author who’s been very much influenced by the Beat generation (although Christopher’s British, you wouldn’t be able to tell this from the text, as his voice is very authentic).
There are a few typos in the edition of The Dead Beat that I read, which were probably to due with its conversion to  pdf, especially with regards to several instances where an em dash has turned into a square box (likewise there’s a minor error in the free pdf that I created to promote Chris Morton’s English Slacker during the Not the Booker Prize, in that I accidentally deleted the page numbers from the final chapter – however, since this error doesn’t occur in the print edition of the book, it doesn’t really matter). Also, I very much suspect that The Dead Beat doesn’t quite fit the Not the Booker Prize criteria of being a full-length novel written by a Commonwealth citizen. However, not allowing American authors to compete for the Man Booker prize has always been a moot point, and besides, it’s far too late for The Dead Beat to be withdrawn from the Not the Booker prize for these minor technicalities. Sam Jordison certainly doesn’t take any prisoners, and I thought his review of The Dead Beat, along with some of the other reader comments, to be quite harsh (especially from those who hadn’t bothered to read it!). I, for one, very much enjoyed Cody James’ voice in The Dead Beat, and very much welcome her participation in the prize for affording this opportunity for me to read her work.
Kevin Mahoney
Publisher and Founder of Punked Books