A Better Goodbye

by John Schulian

Overview

Sports Illustrated Sports Book of the Year 2015

PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Nick Pafko knows he can't be a professional boxer forever. But he never guessed it would end so quickly, and so wrong. Broke and unemployed, Nick has little choice but to call a number given to him by a friend. On the other end? Scott, a washed-up B-movie actor who runs a so-called massage parlor looking for somebody desperate enough to work security.

Jenny Yee doesn't really mind massage, until the day she finds her coworkers robbed and assaulted. Fearing for her safety, she resolves to never work without security again. With mounting expenses, she knows massage is the fastest way to get paid. When an old massage acquaintance calls Jenny to ask her to work for Scott, she agrees—and before long, she's the top earner.

Scott is an arrogant moron, but he's harmless compared to the thug he calls "friend"—Onus Dupree. When DuPree decides to rob Scott's massage joint, it's the perfect opportunity to beat up Nick and take advantage of Jenny. Can Nick stay true to his promise to protect Jenny? Can he protect himself?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440592058
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	12/04/2015
Pages:	302
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

John Schulian was a nationally syndicated sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times before moving to Hollywood to write and produce TV dramas. He is the award-winning author of the novel A Better Goodbye. His writing has also appeared on the websites Thuglit, The Classic, and The Prague Revue. He lives in Southern California.

Editorial Reviews

"This visceral, gritty noir takes place on the seedy fringes of modern Hollywood. The dialogue is razor sharp, and the characters well developed—the good-hearted Nick is easy to root for. A robbery triggers a grisly showdown as this thriller hurtles toward its nail-biting conclusion." —Publishers Weekly

"Schulian is a former Chicago sports journalist who relocated to L.A....and his first novel tells the tales of a boxer haunted by the man he killed in the ring.... As a low-key look at L.A. lowlife, this has its strong passages." —Booklist

"A Better Goodbye ... [John Schulian's] noirish first novel, is thick with classic lowlifes, including down-on-his-luck boxer Nick Pafko, who has never recovered from killing an opponent in the ring; Schulian's ... stylish writing brings a fresh dimension to the genre." —The Chicago Tribune

"Schulian sketches mood, scene, and character with deft strokes. A Better Goodbye offers a seamy panorama of Los Angeles. Schulian knows its neighborhoods from top to bottom, and he surrounds Nick and Jenny with a large cast of characters who seem unique to L.A. in their collective miasma. You couldn't get a more authentic sense of the city today." —Arts Journal

"In his latest contribution to literature Schulian tackles a new genre—noir fiction—and battles it to a lively draw.... A hard punching page-turner." —Boxing.com

"It's a savvy book about boxing, but it's also a sweet little love story, and as you might expect from a sports writer, it's just really gritty and smart." —SCPR.org

"Unusual but fascinating narrative. Schulian's skills are impressive.... Schulian's debut will appeal to crime fiction readers who want a change from the standard mystery-to-be-solved formula, and to general readers curious about a side of life seldom depicted in fiction. Along with all this, it establishes John Schulian as a novelist well worth watching." —Bookgasm

"The recently released novel combines two of my favorites: L.A. Noir and Schulian.... It should make a great New Year's present for someone who appreciates great writing by a gifted former newspaper sports columnist." —The Daily Herald

"This gem of L.A. noir fiction builds to a deadly showdown between good guy Nick Pafko, a former boxer haunted by the man he killed in the ring, and sleek thug Onus DuPree Jr." —Sports Illustrated, Sports Book of the Year

"Readers looking for an Elmore Leonard-esque good time might prefer sports writer-turned-TV producer (and local kid) John Schulian's novel A Better Goodbye." —LA Magazine

"A Better Goodbye is a terrific book, a detailed and fast-paced trip to the dark sides of Los Angeles. His characters...exist in the shadows, flawed and desperate, dangerous and dreamy." —Rick Kogan, The Chicago Tribune

"A seething portrait of the dirty underbelly of that black magical dreamscape known as Los Angeles." —Broad Street Review

From the Publisher

09/28/2015
This visceral, gritty noir takes place on the seedy fringes of modern Hollywood. Nick Pafko, who was a boxer until he killed an opponent and derailed his promising career, needs a job. Jenny Yee, a clever Korean college student with a penchant for reading Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry, works a lucrative day job in the massage trade. Scott Crandall, a sleazy middle-aged actor still trolling for his first big break, is also a pimp whose stable of working ladies demand protection from a recent violent crime wave. Then there’s Onus DuPree Jr., a psycho ex-jock and ex-con, who has befriended Scott and wants to join the excitement of DuPree’s criminal enterprises. Meanwhile, Scott hires Nick as his security muscle and Jenny as a masseuse; she quickly becomes his biggest draw. To stir the potboiler, Nick and DuPree hate each other from the outset, especially after Nick and Jenny become lovers. Despite the slow buildup and scant use of humor, the dialogue is razor sharp, and the characters well developed—the good-hearted Nick is easy to root for. A robbery triggers a grisly showdown as this thriller hurtles toward its nail-biting conclusion. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

2015-09-23
An ex-boxer on the skids winds up providing security to a massage parlor in this hard-boiled slice of the Los Angeles lower depths. Nick, the former slugger at the center of this debut, is trying to survive on the fringes of LA when a fading actor hires him to provide security at the rub-and-tug joints which constitute his only income. A pair of thugs is terrorizing the city's massage parlors in a spree of robbery and rape. While on his new job, Nick meets Jenny, a college student paying for her studies by working as a masseuse, and also DuPree, a hood who bristles when he finds that Nick is unwilling to let him use the parlor girls the way he's used to. The novel is more focused on the particular private trap in which each character finds him- or herself than on the inevitable showdown between Nick and DuPree. That wouldn't be a problem if the book weren't so humorless and if it weren't drowning in hard-boiled clichés. Nick is the fighter afraid of the violence inside him after a man he fought is left dead, and Jenny, a smart, appealing character who holds herself above her trade, is merely a vessel for the moralism about sex work into which this kind of fiction often falls. The book is so determined to remain grim that it shortchanges its most likable characters. This lowdown SoCal noir winds up like its heroine, so focused on getting the job done that it doesn't provide extras.

Kirkus Reviews