No Never No More edition by Michael Malone Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : No Never No More edition by Michael Malone Literature Fiction eBooks 
New York City, 1999. Manhattan was undergoing a momentous transformation, with crime at record lows, the city awash in dot-com buzz, and young professionals taking over the city’s sketchier precincts – and pushing their longtime residents further to the fringes. Yet some things stayed the same. Declan Coulter, raised by his fiery Belfast-born mother in an Alphabet City tenement, is a holdout to an earlier era. He’s an urban hick who refuses to refer to his neighborhood by its trendy new “East Village” moniker. He’s a rugby player and an aspiring writer, with some success penning an oddly autobiographical children’s book series called Honey Bunny, but no luck getting his novel, featuring the working title The Apathy and the Ecstasy, going. Blending Nick Hornby’s hysterical peeks inside the male psyche and Irvine Welsh’s warts-and-all portraits of the colorful denizens of the urban underbelly, No Never No More portrays Declan’s struggles to repair each of the trashed relationships in his life, including that with his mother, as well as his loathed ex-girlfriend, Tisa, before his 30th birthday arrives. Also on his agenda finishing the novel, completing his hated “half-a-tat” – an unfinished Irish harp tattoo on his back that symbolizes both his fear of needles and his inability to complete tasks – and getting the upper hand on his growing addiction to the various substances available on the wrong side of Avenue A. From the still-seedy shadows along Tompkins Square Park to the unique bonds between rugby teammates, the sights, sounds and smells jump off the page. A Bright Lights, Big City for the ‘90s, No Never No More introduces one of the more memorable anti-heroes in fiction.
No Never No More edition by Michael Malone Literature Fiction eBooks
“No Never No More,” by Michael Malone, is a story about transition. Both the protagonist and his neighborhood share a parallel course with progress. Declan Coulter approaches 30 at the same time his precious East Village is becoming – to the horror of any battle-hardened local – gentrified. Surprisingly, the neighborhood, historically one of the most violent, drug-infested areas of NYC, is accepting its fate better than its native son.The main character’s poor decisions, leading to one act of self-flagellation after another, seem logical as per Declan’s stream-of-consciousness justifications. Much like the neighborhood, Declan’s club rugby team plays an essential role in the story, and its up to the reader to decide how much his sport’s drinking culture and his zip code are culpable in his downward spiral. The same can be asked of his romances, as well as his career as a low-level editor for a low-level wine magazine. Surely, at times, girlfriends, friends, and bosses treat Declan poorly, but I suspect he has a knack for bringing out the worst in people. And just as Declan reaches physical, professional, personal and psychic rock bottom, his (potential) deus ex machina arrives from an unlikely and intriguing source.
Declan wears his localism in unique ways. He volunteers at a drug clinic, supporting mostly locals like himself (in adjacent Alphabet City, where he grew up, but the distinction from the East Village is negligible in 1999), and corrects anyone that refers to the neighborhood as the “East Village” with “Lower East Side,” as if he and his mother just survived the 1904 General Slocum disaster. The author touches on the local’s dilemma: he wants to see his neighborhood improve and become safer, but he also feels resentment toward newcomers, who immediately enjoy the spoils without initiation. And keeping to the anachronistic theme, Declan uses index cards to organize his relationship resolutions (a very effective, suspense-building narrative technique by the author) at the same time his contemporaries are trying out Palm Pilots.
Just to give an example of the author’s attention to detail, Mr. Malone’s description of drinking Pabst beer at Homestead bar as "blissfully unironic" shows vision while capturing the past. I’m not sure when he wrote, or even thought of, this passage, but if he understood the Hipster fascination with irony as early as the late 1990s/early 2000s, he could find work as an anthropologist or a sociologist (I’m sure not whether to concentrate on the can or the irony).
I confess that I was a little confused, at times, with some of the narrative non-linearity in the story, especially in the first half, but by the second half, Mr. Malone relies more on good, old-fashioned narrative than in medias res, playing to his strength as a straight-up storyteller. Mr. Malone may have intended to time shift with such surreal fluidity, then just think of “No Never No More” as “Going after Caccioto” meets “High Fidelity.”
I rate this book and unflinching 5 Stars, based on the following: Mr. Malone is an independent author, whose novel is comparable to an independent film, where polish is less important than the story – where grit, imperfection and messiness make it more human – most appropriate for a story set in the East Village in the late 1990s. Also, the book has an extremely strong ending (I am hesitant to say more). Mr. Malone built a universe of supporting characters with enough nuance to feel real, and I was genuinely interested in what comes next, something many established novelists fail to accomplish. Much fertile ground remains in this era for the author and I look forward to Mr. Malone’s next grainy snapshot of life in one of New York City’s (if not the country’s) most culturally influential neighborhoods.
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No Never No More edition by Michael Malone Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Like walking into a rowdy NYC pub and meeting a dozen new friends, No Never No More picks you up, and keeps you humming right along with Declan Coulter, and his witty microcosm of friends and family. From the gritty streets of New York's Lower East Side, to the rugby pitch of Randall's Island, Malone rapidly reconstructs the blurry sights, sounds and smells, of coming of age.
Declan Coulter, the antihero of Malone's terrific debut novel, is knocking on the door of the big three-oh as a work in progress...to say the least. Malone takes us on Declan's wild, self-destructive ride as he deals with underemployment, heartache, a broken family, and day-to-day life in a not-quite-yet gentrified Alphabet City in the weeks before his momentous birthday. Through Coulter, Malone engages the reader with the unique vibe of Lower East Side Manhattan in the late 90s, with the complexities of male friendships (yes they can be complex), and, most interestingly, of the internal monologue of an introspective young(ish) guy finding his way in the Big City.
This story caught me off guard. This went more down the path of Trainspotting than A Bronx Tale. Still, the story was good and captured the feel of the LES and the mix it was at that time. Having played rugby in that area I remember the walks home where as a group of "big" guys we still looked over our shoulders.
If you have lived in or near the area around that time it is definitely worth the read.
As someone who lived, worked and played in the East Village (sorry, the Lower East Side) during the mid-late 90s I can fairly safely say that author Malone accurately evokes the sights, sounds and smells in all their spectacular and squalid glory. Protagonist Declan Coulter takes us on on an epic journey through the neighborhood dive bars and eastern European diners, junkies and squatter punks and leaves us feeling all the filthier - and better - for it. For those of who were there, 'No Never No More' comes on like the memory of the not-so-welcome hangover that we all pine for now we're that older and lead more sensible lives. I for one read the book with a smile on my face and half a bottle of scotch in my belly.
towards the end the story gets more interesting but for me it's a little bit too much of the same.
Thought it would be interesting reading about the life of a young New Yorker. Not so. I was glad I wasn't 30ish and looking for a guy - he would not be the one!
Not for me...too drab..city life sounds horrible........
“No Never No More,” by Michael Malone, is a story about transition. Both the protagonist and his neighborhood share a parallel course with progress. Declan Coulter approaches 30 at the same time his precious East Village is becoming – to the horror of any battle-hardened local – gentrified. Surprisingly, the neighborhood, historically one of the most violent, drug-infested areas of NYC, is accepting its fate better than its native son.
The main character’s poor decisions, leading to one act of self-flagellation after another, seem logical as per Declan’s stream-of-consciousness justifications. Much like the neighborhood, Declan’s club rugby team plays an essential role in the story, and its up to the reader to decide how much his sport’s drinking culture and his zip code are culpable in his downward spiral. The same can be asked of his romances, as well as his career as a low-level editor for a low-level wine magazine. Surely, at times, girlfriends, friends, and bosses treat Declan poorly, but I suspect he has a knack for bringing out the worst in people. And just as Declan reaches physical, professional, personal and psychic rock bottom, his (potential) deus ex machina arrives from an unlikely and intriguing source.
Declan wears his localism in unique ways. He volunteers at a drug clinic, supporting mostly locals like himself (in adjacent Alphabet City, where he grew up, but the distinction from the East Village is negligible in 1999), and corrects anyone that refers to the neighborhood as the “East Village” with “Lower East Side,” as if he and his mother just survived the 1904 General Slocum disaster. The author touches on the local’s dilemma he wants to see his neighborhood improve and become safer, but he also feels resentment toward newcomers, who immediately enjoy the spoils without initiation. And keeping to the anachronistic theme, Declan uses index cards to organize his relationship resolutions (a very effective, suspense-building narrative technique by the author) at the same time his contemporaries are trying out Palm Pilots.
Just to give an example of the author’s attention to detail, Mr. Malone’s description of drinking Pabst beer at Homestead bar as "blissfully unironic" shows vision while capturing the past. I’m not sure when he wrote, or even thought of, this passage, but if he understood the Hipster fascination with irony as early as the late 1990s/early 2000s, he could find work as an anthropologist or a sociologist (I’m sure not whether to concentrate on the can or the irony).
I confess that I was a little confused, at times, with some of the narrative non-linearity in the story, especially in the first half, but by the second half, Mr. Malone relies more on good, old-fashioned narrative than in medias res, playing to his strength as a straight-up storyteller. Mr. Malone may have intended to time shift with such surreal fluidity, then just think of “No Never No More” as “Going after Caccioto” meets “High Fidelity.”
I rate this book and unflinching 5 Stars, based on the following Mr. Malone is an independent author, whose novel is comparable to an independent film, where polish is less important than the story – where grit, imperfection and messiness make it more human – most appropriate for a story set in the East Village in the late 1990s. Also, the book has an extremely strong ending (I am hesitant to say more). Mr. Malone built a universe of supporting characters with enough nuance to feel real, and I was genuinely interested in what comes next, something many established novelists fail to accomplish. Much fertile ground remains in this era for the author and I look forward to Mr. Malone’s next grainy snapshot of life in one of New York City’s (if not the country’s) most culturally influential neighborhoods.
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