reviews
Joey Piss Pot
It’s mob fiction so there will be blood, but those settings are expected. The draw with Stella’s books is character development, not page after page describing a surveillance route with 12 tails in the rearview mirror. It’s the verbal back and forth that plants you in your chair. Clever, brutal, lean, creative, profane, authentic, hard. Makes you think you’re eavesdropping on a reality that only Stella knows and lays out for the reader that makes you wonder . . . “Where has this guy been?” Remember Bum Phillips, the long-ago head football coach of the Houston Oilers? When asked whether his running back, Earl Campbell was in a class by himself, Phillips replied, ‘I don’t know, but it sure doesn’t take long for the roll call.” In that class of riveting writers that put you right adjacent to the characters, made sure you add Stella alongside of the likes of George V. Higgins, Elmore Leonard, Cormac McCarthy, George Pelaconos and newcomers to school SA Cosby and Brian Panowich.The Voices In My Head.
They say versatility is one of the hallmarks of a great writer, and I would add verisimilitude — despite his incomprehensible choice in football team, Charlie Stella has added another incredible work to his already-bursting catalog. This “fictional memoir” is the perfect antidote to a culture awash in carefully curated BS, in which we hide the warts of life behind photoshop and photo filters. If you’re interested in the story of an incredibly interesting life told with unflinching honesty—even despite its label as “fiction”—then go out and get this book ASAP. I promise you won’t be disappointed!! Charlie is the real deal, and his latest is a stunner! (Ted Flanagan, author of Every Hidden Thing)
Let me start by saying THE VOICES IN MY HEAD is an accomplishment. I could never have written anything like this, and not just because my upbringing was so much more tranquil. Leaving himself out there as he has, with no apologies nor justifications, took balls, I can’t imagine. No punches are pulled about the affection Stella has for his late mother, nor the unconditional love she had for him. His father, not so much.
What struck more than anything were the similarities between us. There’s the love of music and baseball. We shared a love of Mahler’s first two symphonies, the second of which Stella quotes beautifully, poignantly, and effectively in VOICES.
We also share general insecurities that display themselves in what one can probably describe as Imposter’s Syndrome. All of that and more gave me a natural empathy for the main character. Seeing the painful ways in which our lives diverged from a commonalities, made this a hard book to read at times.
Writers often talk about the courage it took to write something when they really mean they’re going to say something that will make some people uncomfortable, and may not be a popular opinion. This book took courage. As memoirs go, there’s neither titillation nor dishing. Except for his father, everyone comes off pretty well, the responsibility for past differences or hurts accepted by the author. It’s written in such a manner one can only wish young Charlie could have read it as he was going through the events described, to be cautioned as to where his decisions would lead. Too late for that, there are still a lot of people who will benefit from exactly such a reading.
Dana King (author of the Penn River series)
No one writes quite like Charlie Stella. In his soon to be published, fictional autobiography/memoir, The Voices in My Head, the reader will be treated to some of the author’s very best writing. Filled with Charlie Stella’s extraordinary gift for honest dialogue, no nonsense prose, and powerful realism. A gritty, tour-de-force, told through the eyes of “Little Jesus,” as his mother called him, but just one of the many voices in his head. Hilarious dark humor, shocking at times, heartbreaking at other times, yet always entertaining. A masterful, stunning creation from Charlie Stella, as he tells the powerful story of his life. Once started, hell to put down.
–Marvin Minkler – Modern First Editions
Rough Riders
This is a fast and furious thriller that brings back the antagonists in Eddie’s World in a good, the bad and the ugly storyline. Rotating between the northern Great Plains and the New York area, fans will enjoy this action-packed noir although the Feds are too scandalously uncaring about collateral damage or simply deadly avarice. — Harriet Klausner
Rough Riders is the most complicated of Stella’s stories, and it takes some concentration to keep straight who is doing what to whom early on. Hang in there. Everything falls together, leading to a climax dispersed along several fronts, switching points of view every page or so to show simultaneous actions from multiple perspectives with a dexterity Leonard would be proud of. It’s a little different from Stella’s usual fare, but a welcome addition to his output. (If you’re looking for a more standard entry point into his oeuvre, try Shakedown or Johnny Porno.) Stella has been around, and is still willing to try out new things and stretch himself, as is shown by his enrollment in an MFA program in his fifties. Let’s hope he still dips his toe into the crime fiction pool at least once in a while. He’s a good one. – Dana King (author of the Penn River series)
Johnny Porno
Set in New York City in 1973, Stella’s vibrant seventh crime novel catches the cadence and daily grind of organized crime grunts. John Albano, who lost his carpenter job and his union card because he punched out his foreman, now collects cash receipts for the mob from illicit screenings of Deep Throat, the mob-produced pornographic film that reputedly would earn more than $600 million. Still struggling to pay his bills as well as child support for his beloved son, Albano considers getting more involved with the Mafia, despite his qualms. Stella (Mafiya) tosses an eclectic cast of characters into the mix, including Albano’s remarried ex-wife and police investigators looking into the mobster Albano reports to, Eddie Vento. Though implausible subplots at times threaten to overwhelm the main plot, admirers of Elmore Leonard and George V. Higgins will be happy.(Apr.) — Publishers Weekly
Don’t be fooled by the title—it’s just a gangster moniker. Elmore Leonard fans are going to love Stella’s entirely original contribution to the slice-of-criminal-life genre, down-and-dirty division. After the release of Deep Throat, the low-budget porn flick starring Linda Lovelace that captured the hearts and genitals of a nation, as well as making a substantial amount of cash, the Mob suddenly realizes that the legal situation in 1973 makes “fuck movies” viable and highly marketable to the masses. It’s no longer necessary to show them in rented warehouses. So enter entertainment purveyor and bagman John Albano, soon rechristened “Johnny Porno,” and a cast of gangsters all recruiting “talent” and following the money. This is the seventh novel from Stella (Mafiya, 2008), who has made the underside of the New York underworld his home. –Elliott Swanson (Booklist)
Rough Riders
Fans of the leaner, meaner novels of Elmore Leonard from 20 years ago have great reading waiting in every new Stella. – Publishers Weekly