Safe Return Doubtful

This was Bukowski’s last novel, published in 1994 shortly before his death. It was written over the previous three years during which he had quite serious health problems, and so understandably is rather fragmented. One is left with the feeling that aware of his approaching demise, he had hurried to get it out. Thankfully though, as it does bear some of his trademark memorable passages.

It is a parody of cheap pulp fiction. I quickly add that I really enjoy some pulp, but the best of it is self-deprecating, and without any laugh out loud comedic moments, can be crammed with dark wit.

Nicky Belane is a tenacious and (of course) alcoholic private investigator in LA in the 90s who ends up juggling multiple absurd investigations at once. At the time we join him, he is tracking down a French writer who has been dead for years, investigating a body-snatching alien, while at the same time hunting something called ‘the red sparrow’.

Really, those plot lines are the least reason to read this novel. As often, Bukowksi is taunting the literary scene. If it has a message, again understandably, it is that death is never far away.
Whereas much of his humour falls flat, maybe as it’s now a bit dated, his cynicism, grime, and brutal honesty are very much evident. In his earlier work for which he is most renowned, he may not treat his female characters very well, but his male characters often come out even worse. And this is the case here.
It’s a novel for Bukowksi completists. For me, those few signature passages made it well worth while..

We waited and waited. All of us. Didn’t the shrink know that waiting was one of the things that drove people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn’t have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink’s office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one.

and such gems as..

“Belane, are you nuts?” “Who knows? Insanity is comparative. Who sets the norm?”

My GoodReads score 4 / 5