The Delivery Man (novel) - Reviews

Reviews

Amongst the reviews the reaction is largely positive as can be seen in the New York Times Sunday Book Review which named the book a "NY Times Editor's Choice" in January 2008.

"The Madonna-whore complex is seldom as well defined as in “The Delivery Man,” Joe McGinniss Jr.’s brisk, bleak debut novel...Like its closest spiritual forebear, Bret Easton Ellis' encyclopedically inertial “Less Than Zero” (1985), “The Delivery Man” offers unflinching glimpses at mores in free fall, shock treatment in service to a woozy morality tale...McGinniss manages to whip the yearning and confusion of the woefully inarticulate Chase into dramatic, even gripping fare...Who is to blame for such destructive behavior? The finger pointing leads, unsurprisingly, to the older men who come to Vegas to indulge nightmarishly elaborate desires, accommodated by a surreal environment in which teenagers are marketed on MySpace...Searing...Memorable...Not for the faint of heart."

The "San Francisco Chronicle" review.

"The Delivery Man" is a fast read, sometimes a fun read...McGinniss has a natural storyteller's conviction...The Delivery Man is about Las Vegas as a stand-in for America's dark side: the stifling hot suburbs, the hum of electricity, the kids who sneak into strip shows and the grandmas who leave poker chips as inheritance"

A positive reception is apparent in the "Las Vegas Weekly" review.

"McGinniss has obviously done his research, and he comfortably maneuvers through the city’s neighborhoods. And after a while, he manages to balance his commitments to setting and plot, making the argument that the characters’ dysfunctions are an extension of the former."

and the "LA Times" in its review seeks to understand the authors motivation and stylistic approach.

"It's a slick read. McGinniss doesn't spend much time developing emotional relevance for any of his characters – there's no good or bad here, just levels of horrific degradation."

The national monthly magazines "Marie Claire" and "Penthouse" give the novel exceedingly positive reviews, with Penthouse going so far as to call it, "that rare first novel that could well become a classic."

""At first glance, this debut novel looks like a good, short read for the next time you're waiting at the airport. It's an insider's guide to the dark underbelly of twenty-first-century Las Vegas, brimming with brand names, hard bodies, hard drugs, and heavy doses of sex and violence. If that's all you're looking for, The Delivery Man won't disappoint. . . . . . . But once you finish it, you won't be able to get it out of your mind-McGinniss uses his fast-paced, B-movie plotline to explore how the flip side of the American dream can often be an inescapable nightmare, much like F. Scott Fitzgerald manipulated the melodrama of The Great Gatsby. In fact, The Delivery Man, like Gatsby, is the story of a lost generation. While Fitzgerald's flappers danced as fast as they could before their world collapsed in Depression and war, McGinniss's losers are stranded in an empty landscape of dead sex, coked-out emotion, and pointless danger. To his credit, McGinniss refuses to take the easy, ironic way out favored by so many contemporary writers who distance the reader from the characters. You see these doomed, wretched people for what they are, and then McGinniss allows them to break your heart. The Delivery Man is that rare first novel that could well become a classic."

- Peter Bloch, Penthouse, January 2008

"Put on your blinders at Borders and head right to this gem... The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr. It's sex, drugs, and a slew of lost souls in this engrossing story of a 25-year-old known only as Chase. An out-of-luck wannabe artist, he retreats to his hometown – that being Vegas, a downward spiral ensues, thanks to madams and more. Since no less a connoisseur of depraved excess than Bret Easton Ellis helped McGinniss Jr. score a publisher,could The Delivery Man be this decade's Less Than Zero?" – Marie Claire

• Marie Claire,
• Las Vegas Weekly