Nick Tosches -- Where should I start?

Hellfire.

Word to that.
Unsung Heroes is a lot of fun too. Dino as well.
Trinities is his only good novel.

Hellfire, easily. Next try Dino.

Whoops, I mean Cut Numbers not Trinities. Haven't read Trinities.

King of the Jews is a weird one that definitely takes off on his rambling style in Where Dead Voices. Some parts of it rank among my favorite Toshces moments, but others are a bit too self-righteous. Definitely worth a read, though.

Hellfire, definitely. I also loved the, admittedly more erratic, Where Dead Voices Gather. I think Unsung Heroes is overrated, but I seem to be in the minority. There's a search and desttroy thread on him somewhere...

I just finished Cut Numbers a few weeks ago and was surprised by how good it was. not that i doubted tosches, just a general fear of 1st novels and books on gangsters.

i agree with the erratic/rambling assessment of Where Dead Voices..., but enjoy it very much for that.

I started with the Reader, and understandably suggest it as a launchpad. I found Unsung Heroes...less than compelling, but it was my 1st step after the reader. I don't know what i expected, but assume those expectations may have been too high

i'm a big fan of "country," which if i'm not mistaken was his first book, and which is a fabulous bit of rambling, irreverent scholarship that opened my eyes to a lot of the more interesting, and less talked about, corners of early country, rock and blues.

I didn't like Dino that much, and absolutely hated his novel In The Hand Of Dante, but I remember The Devil And Sonny Liston as being about half decent.

also, read Hubert Selby's book of short stories.

jams did you ever read that korshak article in the NT reader?

i just finished where dead voices gather and thought it was hilarious. in a good way. the more tangential and rambling it got, the more i liked it. i just picked up king of the jews from the library...

Among the biographies (I think they're all the same book, each using unwitting historical figures as vehicles for saying essentially the same stuff) Hellfire was definitely the mosy well executed and entertaining (and, one suspects, the closest to his heart). But I think Where Dead Voices Gather is one of the best pieces of American Musicology (though a very stylized one) I've ever read. I think his fiction is sortof awful.

i never did, slocki! i found it and started it, but got distracted elsewhere. i shall return. and thanks for reminding me! and hi!

let me know when you have! and hi back!

start with "Unsung Heroes." Then "Hellfire." Then "Country." Maybe "Dino."

The "Reader" is kind of godawful--a lot of bad poetry, letters, etc. The George Jones profile is really good, though, but not worth the price of the book. I don't like "Trinities" but do like "Cut Numbers" a lot. "Hand of Dante" is...uh, what is it? "Dead Voices" and the Sonny Liston book are Nick at his most self-indulgent--I basically think he's quite good, but he's fucking lost it the last few years. I applaud his love of nylons and, as someone above says, his use of interchangeable historical figures to illustrate his views on the ga-ga mediocrity of postwar America, Dean Martin over Sinatra, Liston over Ali. Pretty much a one-joke thing after "Dino" if you ask me, and tiresome.

But at his best he's a funny motherfucker and whether or not some of it is accurate or not (many say NT falls down on his research), I'm always grateful for funny.