cover image The Blow-Off

The Blow-Off

Jim Knipfel. Simon & Schuster, $15 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5413-7

The curmudgeonly narrator of Knipfel's pulpy horror-comedy would hate knowing he's such amusing company. Hank Kalabander may have had a dark past, but he's settled into a comfortably disgruntled life in Brooklyn as the crime blotter writer at the Brooklyn Hornet. After publishing the questionable account of an inebriated local who claimed to be accosted by a hairy beast by the Gowanus Canal, Hank thinks nothing more of the bit until a brazen freelancer lifts Hank's scoop and turns the blotter item into a tabloid phenomenon. The tale of the Gowanus Beast catches fire, fanned by TV reports and more sightings, prompting Hank to try to prove there is, in fact, no creature terrorizing the city, even as his old friend, a carnival barker, arrives with plans to tame the beast and incorporate it into his show. As Hank's fears for the city%E2%80%94gentrification, overcrowding, elimination of his beloved grit%E2%80%94rage unchecked, the beast-mania cranks into hysteria, fueled by the very press Hank now tries to distance himself from. Knipfel (These Children Who Come at You with Knives) balances the ugly, the frightening, and the unseemly to give readers a morbidly playful story with a surprising amount of heart. (July)