God's Pocket

By Pete Dexter

Book Overview

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE In this striking debut from the author of the National Book Award winner Paris Trout, Pete Dexter chronicles a murder and its consequences in the fictional blue-collar Philadelphia neighborhood of God's Pocket. Leon Hubbard makes other men nervous, talking to himself or anyone who will listen about the things he's cut with his straight razor. So when he crosses the wrong guy on a South Philly construction site and winds up with his head caved in, everyone is content to bury the bad news with the body. Everyone, that is, except Leon's mother--and a local newspaper columnist hoping the story will resurrect his career. Only a mother could love a man like Leon. But only an outsider could expect to change anything in God's Pocket. Praise for God's Pocket "Riveting . . . a first-class first novel . . . highlighted by superior writing, dialogue that rings true, and a highly believable background." --Associated Press " God's Pocket sings, snarls, mugs, wisecracks, buys you a drink, steals your wallet, and takes you home to meet the folks." --Richard Price "My own favorite among Mr. Dexter's work remains God's Pocket, which I continue to admire for its rich, well-nigh Dickensian mixture of verisimilitude, real-life absurdity, horror and romance." --Robert Stone, The New York Times Book Review "Rollicking . . . a tough Philadelphia neighborhood comes to life in these pages." -- Playboy

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812987365
• ISBN13: 9780812987362
• Release Date: November 2014
• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

MUST READ.

Its a must read page-flipper. It arrived yesterday and I finished it today. I've read most of Dexter's books and this is the pick of the litter.

Modern Master

I wrote this last year for Forgotton Books at Pattinase. GP is back in print; there is a God. GOD'S POCKET, like all Pete Dexter's novels, ends sans sunshine. Should Pete ever find a ray at the end, his sales would increase tenfold. I would read them three times instead of twice. I would still marvel at the sentences, at the characterizations, at the overwhelming sense of place, but I wouldn't feel like my mom forgot my birthday for the third year in a row. Rereading Dennis Lehane's Mystic River, I have to believe his spectacular opening twenty years later pays homage to God's Pocket. Pete was living in South Philadelphia at the time and set the novel where he was, the same way I do mine. No, set is the wrong word, that's what I do. Drenched or soaked or maybe swallowed does God's Pocket justice; so lights-out, totally there that I knew this section of South Philadelphia in thirty pages like I know Chicago after fifty years. For my money, these two novels are the Old and New Testament if you want to read or write place as a character, urban America without the apologies or the fashion statements. Style? The seamlessness of Elmore Leonard at his best, but with the bite of the early masters, the truth between the lines, slowly closing the doors, dimming the lights, walking you down an alley until you're naked and alone. If they ever find a vaccine for grinding, inevitable hopelessness, it will have been extracted from Pete's dead-on renditions. Charlie Newton Author: CALUMET CITY

beautifully written

This is a beautifully written story of a decent man, who happens to become a low level mob associate, retailing stolen meat. It has a fast moving plot, emotional power, and, at times, laugh out loud humor. The man is not much of a thinker, a "simple man", and the prose style tends to shorter sentences and paragraphs. The words are well chosen, and there is a nuanced portrayal of the man's wife, and their relationship. "God's Pocket" is the neighborhood where the couple lives. Dexter is very harsh on it, and I wouldn't blame someone from there for thinking Dexter was biased: not one of the neighborhood people is sympathetic. I would also have wished the newspaperman character was more sympathetic; he is a drunk, so his portrayal is believable, but like another reviewer, I am not convinced his character need have been written as it was.

Fantastic Book

I've read a lot of books in the line of city/street type fiction and Dexter has it down cold on the likes of Richard Price and even Pellecanos. It's a very lived in book and a very funny book and every single character is eerily believable. I can't understand why this book doesn't have more reviews. Hopefully readers just assume it speaks for itself, since it's as close as you can come to a classic. Wish he'd left the newspaper guy out though. The book is stronger than rockets without him.

Tom Leinenweber

God's Pocket is a tremendous book. A great look at an insular society and an outsider's mistake in trying to understand it.