Hard Rain Falling (New York Review Books Classics)

Don Carpenter’s first novel Hard Rain Falling, is almost as bleak as a book can be. The main character, Jack Levitt, was given up at birth by young, troubled parents who both died young. He was raised in an orphanage where kids had to fend for themselves against the cruelty of others. Regarding the religion the orphanage administrators had tried to force on the hungry, unloved children, Jack reflects: It did not take much thinking on their part to see that if Jesus Christ and God approved of the administration of the orphanage, in fact preferred it to home and parents, then they were the enemies of the orphanage children because if that hollow cavity in their souls was the love of God then God was the ultimate murderer of love. Jack runs away from the orphanage at seventeen and hooks up with a crew of drifters in Portland, Oregon. He finds himself right at home with the gamblers, pool sharks and petty thieves who have to hustle their next meal. He drifts into trouble and ends up in juvenile detention. He’s never had any real love in his life, and all he sees is a faceless system of oppression thwarting him at every turn. When he sees a sadistic guard abusing a fellow prisoner, he tries to kill him. For that, he’s punished with solitary confinement, spending months in a tiny underground cell with no light at all. Upon release, he finds himself drifting still. He has no skills, no direction, no understanding of how to make his way in a world where he doesn’t understand the rules. He lives by his appetites, eating, drinking, screwing, sleeping, never sure of where his next dollar will come from. He’s sent to San Quentin for statutory rape, after sleeping with prostitutes he didn’t know were underage. Morally, he has no problem with prostitution. Hadn’t he himself been a prostitute, he reflects at one point, when he was a boxer, beating up other men with whom he had no beef, doing it just for the money and to entertain other men who didn’t care about either fighter? He arrives in San Quentin and finds it to be an extension of the orphanage, of the cold and structured institutional upbringing he had known. He was still trying to absorb the sights and sounds of the prison; it was his new home, and he expected it to be, almost wanted it to be, his home for the rest of his life. Because to think any other way was to hope, and he hoped he had given up hope. In prison, to his surprise, he finds love for the first time. This experience finally opens him up to change on his release. He chooses to stop drifting, to find some purpose. He marries, feels gratitude for what he has, and he thinks to himself: People who hadn’t been through the mud, as he had, and by that he meant people who hadn’t dragged themselves through the mud, hadn’t seen society and man at its and his worst as he surely had, were missing the really rich pleasures of life because they had nothing to compare them to. There is no happy-ever-after ending. Nothing will undo Jack’s fundamental damage. But, faced with a life in which he has no guidance, in which he has to learn everything on his own, the hard way, he does grow and learn. This book has an unusual rawness and a depth of unsparing intensity. It’s a haunting read. Given its humane but unvarnished views on race and homosexuality, I’m surprised any publishing house had the guts to publish it in 1966. I’m equally surprised it went out of print, and I’m grateful to NYRB for bringing it back.

"Hard Rain Falling" is a dark, tough novel about the underside of American Society, set in American Western States. It is the debut novel of Don Carpenter. It was published in the 1960s and spans a time from the 1940s to the 1960s. It has a raw aspect to it and corresponding "street level" crude language and nomenclature. It is of moderate length and is well written. I originally came upon this novel while reading " The Man Who Came Uptown" by George Pelecanos. That novel is of a similar type composed more recently. Mister Pelecanos refers to multiple prior "American Noir" type novels of which I was unfamiliar and decided to read. I read two of the novels, "Hard Rain Falling" and "Northline". Both are dark and gritty. Of the two I prefer "Northline". "Hard Rain Falling" reminds me more of "The Man Who Came Uptown". "Northline" is slightly different than the other two in my estimation. Speaking for myself, there is something mildly addictive to modern American Noir novels. They tend to put me in mind of my own former professional life. I am a retired police detective. I came to feel that I lived two lives at once. I was a married husband and father and at home lived like "Ozzie Nelson" or "Ward Clever". Then I went to work and existed in a sleazy underworld. After awhile, multiple decades, it finally wore me down. I now live a strictly vanilla life. These types of books almost transport me back in time and I find them mesmerizing. I limit myself to reading one such book every three or four months.... If you choose to read this book and really like it, you might find "The Man Who Came Uptown" an interesting novel to compare and contrast with " Hard Rain Falling". I liked all three novels mentioned herein. In order, I liked "Northline" most, "The Man Who Came Uptown" second, and " Hard Rain Falling" third. Thank You for taking the time to read this review.

I was looking for something similar to Dostoevsky and this recommendation came up for a more modern work. Book was ok. Well written and told a good story. The characters are very real. I was disappointed in what the book turned into towards the end though. I wouldn’t read it again.

Halfway through the book and it’s excellent. A very straightforward style. Gritty and a bit depressing, but worth the read. One piece of advice, is do not read the introduction. It gives the entire story away.

One of the best. page-turner, hard-scrabble adventure interracial love-story between Jack Levitt, a down-and-out fighter who finds his ‘salvation/fate’ in his attachment and ultimate love for a handsome, black, pool hustler—both men are ‘good’ at what they do—fighting and pool—but their ‘pride in craft’ bring them up against the headwinds of their respective markets. After Billy is killed saving Jack’s life in San Quentin, Jack engages family life in a faux interlude—and then epiphany, in serch of Billie’s pool cue. Of the Keruoac, Algren genre, the best.

I came to “Hard Rain Falling” via Nick Hornby’s column in The Believer and am grateful to him. It’s the story of Jack Leavitt, an orphan from birth. We follow him from his years as a teenage thug to inmate at San Quentin to ex-con and struggling husband and father. We watch as he grows as a person, yearning for a freedom and life he never grasps. Other characters come and go, primarily his friend and later cellmate, Billy Lancing, a pool prodigy turned criminal, and Sally, the woman who becomes his wife and the mother of his child, but it’s about Jack’s struggle against himself and society, and an indictment of a system that leaves some doomed from the beginning. If you’re looking for a feel good story, this isn’t it but it is brilliant in its darkness and worth a read.

A cult classic of sorts, more so if read back in the '60s, although maybe somewhat dated today. There is an honesty in this book that is hard to find in a great deal of literature from any time period. Likewise, to read serious, almost heart-rendering philosophy about life coming from what amounts to a mostly low-life character is refreshing and challenging to any reader. Why? Because much of what Jack thinks about is so very true: life can so deterministic whether we believe it or not and most decisions taken still lead to eventual despair, not just for his class but for the better off folks as well. Jack was born a loser (as were most of his early colleagues) and despite efforts to better himself through marriage and fatherhood is unable to do so. The book's ending is not satisfying, as the reader has no idea what happens to Jack, but that may be Mr. Carpenter's point - Jack himself has no future for he didn't really have much of a past; on the other hand, the wealthy strata of society, Myron, Jack's ex Sally and now Jack's son will carry on enjoying life at least superficially. Ditch the cover, though...a '70s Maverick on a book set in the '60s!!!!

Highly recommend. As a male trying to get into fiction reading, this was suggested. It's been great so far. Dont always need to read about history or WW2