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MATCHSTICK MEN
by Eric Garcia
Villard, December 2002
228 pages
$22.95
ISBN: 0375505229


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Roy and Frankie are a pair of mismatched conmen. They know all the swindles, the grifts, the scams, and are equally happy relieving marks of the odd $20 with an off-the-cuff card trick down the local diner, as they are selling fake art for thousands of dollars a pop. Frankie is sharp suited, flash, and spends money as though it’s going out of fashion. Roy is obsessive-compulsive, a sloppy dresser and carefully saves every penny. They both have an overwhelming desire for cash, and a disdain for the rest of the world - particularly the gullible marks who fall for their schemes. However, when Roy discovers he has a teenage daughter things change. As he gets to know her, he realises that he wants to get out of the business and make a better life for himself and Angela. Frankie persuades him to do one last, big job and retire in a blaze of glory.

Matchstick Men is a sleazy story of a pair of low lifes - people who would sell their granny for $5, yet Garcia manages to make his characters likeable, and the book is full of humour but is very poignant at the same time. It’s written in the present tense which suits it down to the ground as it has the effect of taking you into the strange place that is Roy’s head. You suffer along with him when he forgets to take his medication, sees dirt everywhere, and has to check over and over that he's locked the door. The use of present tense gives the book a very immediate feel, and, if I didn’t already know the book had been made into a film (due out in Summer 2003 and starring Nicholas Cage and Sam Rockwell), I would have thought it would make an excellent movie.

The plot is a straightforward one - the twists and turns are expected, given the nature of the matchstick man's trade. I was disappointed with the ending - not that it’s badly written, I would just have preferred it to end differently. As a result, the book left me feeling slightly dissatisfied, but I’m sure it won’t strike most readers that way. Overall I really enjoyed the book as the plot was secondary for me. What was important was the wonderful character of Roy - his illness, his growing love for his newly discovered daughter, and his decision to be a different man in the future. A funny, touching book. It’s very different from Garcia's REX series with its hard-boiled dinosaur PI, but it’s equally entertaining.

Reviewed by Donna Moore, January 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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