"The Paperboy" Doesn't Quite Deliver...

The other day, I was perusing the video collection in my local library and came across a movie that I had never heard about - The Paperboy (2012) and because one of the stars is John Cusack (a favorite of mine), I brought it home to watch. But before watching the video, I did a bit of research and, unsurprisingly, found out that the movie is based on a novel written by Pete Dexter. I decided to read the book before watching the movie, because generally speaking the novels are better than the movies. 

Synopsis: "The sun is rising over Moat County, Florida, when Sheriff Thurmond Call is found on the highway, gutted like an alligator. A local redneck is tried, sentenced, and set to fry. Then Ward James, hotshot investigative reporter for the Miami Times, returns to his rural hometown with a death row femme fatale who promises him the story of the decade. She’s armed with explosive evidence, aiming to free—and meet—her convicted 'fiancé'. With Ward’s disillusioned younger brother Jack as their driver, they barrel down Florida’s back roads and seamy places in search of The Story, racing flat out into a shocking head-on collision between character and fate as truth takes a back seat to headline news." (Amazon.com)

Review:  While I enjoyed reading this book, there were a couple of things that bothered me about it.  It starts off as sort of a murder mystery, with a pair of reporters investigating the conviction of a backwoods Deliverance-type character in the murder of a unpopular, racist sheriff in a sparsely populated county in Florida. The narrator is the brother of one of the reporters. The plot eventually moves away from this theme, and becomes sort of jammed between a character study of the narrator and his brother, an indictment of media morality, and some sort of Greek-style tragedy. The overall effect is that the book wanders a bit, and doesn't seem to be able to decide what it's trying to do. It almost seems like whenever the book gets perilously close to making a statement, it backs off and goes in a different direction. This is something of a pet peeve of mine, as I think sometimes writers do this kind of thing to seem mysterious and profound, under the assumption that being understandable means being simple and shallow. But in reality, it's just annoying.

Other than that, the book was well written and for the most part the characters were interesting, although most of them were not very likable. I think the book would have been better if the narrator's brother Ward, who was perhaps the central figure of the book, had a detectable personality instead of just acting like a journalistic robot. The book was saved by the narrator, whom it was possible to sympathize with, and even like a bit.

Overall I would mildly recommend it, but it is not a must read.

Rating:  3 out of 5 stars

This novel was the first Pete Dexter book that I've ever read and it's not making me run out and pick up any of his other books. As for the movie, it suffers from the same fate as the book.  It just doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up.  A good cast with a weak story and mediocre dialogue.  Skip it unless you are really bored!  The New Yorker posted a really funny and spot on review of the movie - a far better review than I could ever write!