En lättläst klassiker. Fin kärlekshistoria med inslag av grit-lit och kriminalroman. Bra. ( )

I actually liked the movie better for once.

Road-trip mytho-poeticism rendered almost entirely in dialogue, but without all that much criminal activity (and nowhere near the same feeling of sinister stakes the Lynch film brings out). This is not surprising, considering Barry Gifford started out on the poetry side of things, but this does read like a first novel, even if it apparently isn’t. There are a lot of thoughts and low-key philosophy thrown in that walks the line between profundity and dirt-bag wisdom.

It works well as a supplement to the David Lynch film in that the things I enjoy in each are completely different, though it took me a while to mentally age down Sailor and Lulu from their Cage/Dern incarnations. Probably the thing I most enjoy is that the only main character Gifford doesn’t try to inhabit is the obvious (potential) authorial stand-in, Sailor. Gifford is much more interested in Lulu, her mother, and Johnny Farragut, and that gives things a nearly feminist cast, which, one year before Thelma and Louise makes this amongst the first road-trip narratives primarily concerned with the female experience of it, albeit one written by a man.
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Here we are introduced to Sailor and Lula- a pair of young free spirits hitting the road and heading west. I thought it would be a more violent and action orientated tale but it was a mostly an easy-going journey, until Sailor, an ex-con, decides to break the law again. I saw the film Wild at Heart many years ago. I am a big David Lynch fan but that one didn’t work for me. That said, once I discovered that the film was based on a series of books, I thought I might want to give one a try. I am glad I did, plus they are novella size, so you can get through them quickly. ( )

I read this back in the day in the lead up to seeing the film adaptation. I really shouldn't have bothered. Wild at Heart, following the adventures of Sailor and Lulu, never scales any great heights and made me wonder what indeed the film producers saw in the book to consider outlaying millions into filming it. ( )