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T A B L E+T A L K

"People snarling, wild opinions flung around, lines drawn in the sand": Garrison Keillor and Salon readers have it out in Table Talk over "Sister Carrie"

F E A T U R E

"Sister Carrie"
By Garrison Keillor
Why did they ever ban a book this bad?
(10/13/97)

R E C E N T L Y

The Subtle Knife
By Philip Pullman
Fiction
(10/14/97)

The Last Time I Wore a Dress
By Daphne Scholinski (with Jane Meredith Adams)
Nonfiction
(10/13/97)

Stone Cowboy
By Mark Jacobs
Fiction
(10/10/97)

My Brother: A Memoir
By Jamaica Kincaid
Nonfiction
(10/09/97)

As Though I Had Wings
By Chet Baker
Nonfiction
(10/08/97)

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bleeding london

348 PAGES

BY ROB SPILLMAN | no one satirizes consumption so savagely and completely as Geoff Nicholson. In his 10 earlier, fiendishly funny chronicles of obsession, Nicholson has stuck it to foot fetishists ("Footsuckers"), VW Bug freaks ("Still Life With Volkswagon") and compulsive shoppers ("Everything and More"). Now Nicholson goes after the entire city of London.

In typical Nicholsonian style, "Bleeding London" is full of seemingly incongruous plot lines. First there is Stuart London, an improbably named tour company owner whose London-mania compels him to walk up and down every single street in the city. Then there's Mick, a smart small-town thug whose stripper girlfriend informs him that six rich cretins raped her in a London strip club. Mick proceeds to scour the city he considers to be a version of hell for the offending parties. We also have Judy Tanaka, a half-Japanese, half-British woman who is possessed by a deeply felt urge to have sex in every part of London. The three disparate story lines crisscross like irrational foreign subway lines, taking the reader on a wild, unsettling ride, from posh new money tackiness to filthy public toilets in the slimiest of slums. Layers of hidden history are haphazardly revealed -- Pepys' journal figures in, as do Jack the Ripper, Joe Orton, Marianne Faithful and dozens of other famous and infamous pilgrims.

The three lines become entangled when Judy gets hired as a guide for Stuart's company, has a high-exposure affair with the boss, is dumped, then winds up helping Mick with his search in exchange for Mick exacting revenge for her broken heart. There's plenty of Nicholson's usual antipathy for the rich, but also a surprising amount of atypical brutality. Mick violently humiliates each of the six creeps in different, very personal ways (the restaurant reviewer is assaulted with food, the marine enthusiast's boat is sunk with him handcuffed to the wheel), and as we slowly learn more of his girlfriend's ulterior motives, the funny-despite-the-awfulness punishment loses much of its cathartic appeal.

Still, "Bleeding London" hurtles forward like few literary novels, astonishing in its reach and frenzied humor, only slightly disappointing when it comes to its anticlimactic denouement. Like its subject, "Bleeding London" is a wild mess of high and low, kitsch and polish, and absolutely worth a visit.
SALON | Oct. 15, 1997

Rob Spillman lives in New York. He is a regular contributor to Salon.