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Title: The Ax by Donald E. Westlake ISBN: 0-446-60608-1 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (79 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent, though macabre story. Satiric social commentary.
Comment: This is a disturbing book, and it's haunted me for the two or three days since I first read it. I'm a veteran fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, murder & suspense reader, so there isn't much that'll make me put a book down in the middle of a page, take a deep breath, exhale and close my eyes. This book did.
Burke Devore is a desperate, angry man, deeply frightened at the prospect of personal and professional worthlessness now that he's been handed the pink slip and "chopped" from middle management at the plant he dedicated over twenty years of his life to.
I've always imagined life is a series of identity crises punctuated by moments of boredom now and then. Any major change can precipitate that crisis: birthdays, breakups, graduation, accidents, college, marriage, the loss of loved ones, new jobs and the loss of old jobs.
Devore has a major identity crisis on his hands. He lost this job, and decides to manage his crisis rather... aggressively. After a dozen fruitless interviews, rather than take unemployment sitting down, Devore decides to thin the ranks of his competitors with his own two hands.
The scheme and plot Westlake builds out of this angst seemed all-too-real for me. I recognize, in Devore, a portrait of my next door neighbor, my boss, maybe even myself--if I were pushed farther than I could cope.
After 329 pages of forced identification with a protagonist whose actions I found repugnant, author Donald Westlake finally reveals his hand. In three deft paragraphs Westlake outlines the premise for his story that, if true and if accepted, lead to the logical moral outcome the preceding 328 pages painfully described.
Briefly put: if ends justify means, then there is no action so violent, no moral code so abhorrent and no transgression so felonious that it cannot be endured or even embraced. Indeed if ends justify means then self preservation (whatever than means to you) is justification enough for even the most inhumane act you can imagine.
In the end I realized this book is! a satire, in the tradition of Jonathan Swift. The book is a joke, a dark, macabre joke, and despite the "billboards" hung out before even page one, I very nearly didn't "get" it.
Don't leave this book laying around for your children to read, Avoid it if you are on a prescription for seratonin-reuptake-inhibitors, and don't read it if your stomach can't handle a large cup of dark-roasted satire.
But if you like to think about stories after you read them, then this book's for you.
Rating: 5
Summary: A stunning, convincing portrait of a man driven to murder.
Comment: Although a departure from Westlake's usual openly comical crime novels, The Ax is perhaps his finest book yet. The portrait of Burke Devore, an average man driven beyond the limits of despair by being "downsized" out of his middle-class life -- his family falling apart and only continued unemployment in his future -- is wholly convincing and absolutely chilling. Westlake perfectly captures the emotions of a man trapped in that situation and Devore's solution to his problems by murdering his way back to employment and his accustomed way of life seems utterly, horribly reasonable. The writing is excellent and draws the reader on and on, deeper and deeper. The Ax is a startling incisive indictment of the costs of the 1990's mania for "downsizing" or as Burke Devore sees it, the insanity of discarding the society's most productive workers in the prime of their productivity, all to feed the avarice of stockholders and CEO's who believe the end justifies the means
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant, bizarre and disturbing
Comment: I'm a big fan of Donald Westlake. I love his comic crime novels where I find myself rooting for the slightly inept bad guys to get away with their crimes. When I decided to read The Ax, it never ocurred to me that I'd end up rooting for Burke Devore to get away with multiple murders.
This is a book about one man, written entirely in the first person. A man who believes he can rely on no one but himself. In that vein all the other characers are merely shadows, or stick figures. They exist only through Burke's eyes. He IS the book.
Burke is a former production line manager in a paper mill who was laid off in the mid-nineties and has been unemployed for two years at the time of the novel (1997). He is at end of his rope -- his unemployment has run out and so, it seems, have his job prospects.
Burke decides to take matters into his own hands. He places an ad in a trade journal to evaluate the competition. Then, he decides to just get rid of them. He selects the job that he wants and then he kills off the competition AND the incumbent.
Burke goes on a killing spree through New York, Conn., and Mass. He kills the competition in broad daylight by the side of the road and in a crowded parking lot. He kills in a deserted mall parking lot and he even blows up a house.
The fact that Burke gets away with all these murders is completely implausable. The fact that the cops don't catch him and that he even manages to get rid of the evidence of his son's (unrelated) breaking and entering is unlikely. The fact that the search of the house that follows his son's crime raises no questions in the minds of the police is ridiculous. But it doesn't really matter. The fact that it is so unlikely that he'll get away with it all makes us identify with Burke all the more.
As the book progressed, I found myself disturbed by how much I could identify with Burke. I've never been laid off -- I work for one of those places that used to provide 'lifetime employment.' Not anymore. I can imagine myself laid off, desperate, looking for a job, as my family loses more and more opportunity and my retirement plans slip away. Can't most all of us?
Most of us can't imagine taking Burke's reasoning to the final end -- that the end of providing for his family (at one point in the book, Burke bristles when the judge says that Burke's son "comes from poverty.") justifies any means, even murder. But, many of us can identify with his desperation.
This is satire at its finest -- dark, disturbing and with an edge of truth. This book could certainly be read simply as a book about a serial killer, but it is truly much more than that. It is a book about Every Man for the age of downsizing, much as Death of a Salesman was about the Every Man of its time.
You might find it disturbing, but do read this book. Donald Westlake has outdone himself this time.
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Title: Put a Lid on It by Donald E. Westlake ISBN: 0446612057 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: The Hook by Donald E. Westlake ISBN: 0446609560 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Don't Ask (Dortmunder Novels (Paperback)) by Donald E. Westlake ISBN: 0446400955 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1994 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Smoke by Donald E. Westlake ISBN: 044640344X Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: What's the Worst That Could Happen? (Dortmunder Novels (Paperback)) by Donald E. Westlake ISBN: 0446604712 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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