Greg Olear - "Totally Killer"
It’s tough to remember a time without iPods, digital cameras, the Internet and Google; a time when state-of-the-art cell phones were the size of shoeboxes. For some people, this is impossible to imagine.
In Totally Killer, Greg Olear’s (pronounced OH-lee-ahr) rousing debut (equal parts noir crime novel and biting satire), we’re taken back to New York City’s East Village in 1991 through the eyes of recently jilted press photo librarian Todd Lander, who is suddenly dropped by his live-in girlfriend. Through an acquaintance, he’s set up with a new roommate. Enter Taylor Schmidt, a wet-behind-the-ears college grad from Missouri who lands on Lander’s doorstep to help out with the rent -- and to fuel his masturbatory fantasies. “Once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky, you meet a woman who just does it for you. That was Taylor Schmidt. The chick oozed pheromones. She was sex. And not just for me. Everybody she ever met wanted to sleep with her. Everybody, not just every guy.”
At times, Todd’s perpetually horny 20-something male point of view reads like a Penthouse Forum letter, as if Olear wants drive home the fact that his narrator’s brain and libido (invariably linked) are stuck in *boing!* mode.
From the superb prologue, Olear sets things in motion: 1991 is 2009 all over again, with a war in Iraq that only a Bush understands and economic hard times -- just as today, New York was a tough place back then to be young and unemployed.
Taylor, English Lit degree in hand, searches unsuccessfully for the perfect publishing job. A mysterious envelope arrives in her mail box with a single ornate card enclosed: “JOBS TO KILL FOR. Had it with other agencies? Try Quid Pro Quo.” You can see it coming, but it’s a fun and thrilling ride just the same.
Through Quid Pro Quo, Taylor lands a sweet, high-paying gig at a publishing house where she does not much except edit a sleepy historical novel by first-time novelist Roger Gale. (Greg Olear is both a a very clever writer and fond of anagrams.) She falls for boss and mentor, Asher Krug, who whisks her around town in his Jaguar, teaching her the finer things in life: fine wines, premium steaks, and how to anonymously assassinate aging Baby Boomers to make way for GenXers. Pink Slips, the offings are termed. Turns out, killing gets Taylor off in interesting ways -- she’s *totally* into it. Yes, “totally killer.”
How does Todd let us in on all that’s happened? Taylor, like Anais Nin, is an obsessive diarist, and Todd, an obsessive character in his own right, does much snooping. Although he gets in on the Quid Pro Quo action (shy of giving a Pink Slip), he spends much of his time pining after Taylor and masturbating.
Despite some of the novel’s transparent plot twists, Taylor’s violent demise is completely unexpected, and the pop culture references appear in swarms like locusts devouring a pioneer farmer’s wheat crop.
The final chapter will have your head spinning with eerily plausible conspiracy theories. By the epilogue, we realize Todd is forever stuck in the East Village of 1991 trying to remember every detail about the late Taylor Schmidt. “Remembering is my only job, and it’s hard work. We are hardwired to let go of the past, to release ourselves from history; the only way to withstand our pain is to forget our pain.
Olear certainly knows the Manhattan of the early ‘90s, and he’s a whip-smart writer with plenty of theories. Totally Killer is a thoroughly engaging novel. The ”Totally Killer“ mix tape after the title page is also a nice touch.
