Patrick K. Jassoy, It Isn’t Easy Being Johnny Style

It Isn't Easy Being Johnny Style

Patrick K. Jassoy

Booklocker, 2003, 173 pp.

ISBN: 1591131529

Life in Chicago has not been easy for Johnny Style, but he has always made the best of it even growing up with a drunk of a father. The Mayor, whichever Daley or crony is in charge, should have declared the Style family as a disaster area as Johnny's school days were filled with punks, young hoods, and wannabe wise guys such as Santana Santiago a high school drug dealer. Thus Johnny knows the lowlifes including his family who fail to reach the bottom rung of the social food chain. Perhaps that is why Johnny is a cynic expecting the worst from everyone.

Johnny has always bent and broke rules so he applies his best skill at a profession that makes great use of breaking and entering; he becomes a private sleuth. Though he knows death first hand, Johnny feels helpless when he watches his only real pal Jimmy die. Jimmy's death sends Johnny seeking revenge against his high school archenemy Santiago, who has turned into an adult drug dealing punk. To Santiago, the game of vengeance started with Anita Nicole Anders.

This gritty urban noir stars a very pessimistic (that's being optimistic) individual whom readers will not like due to his gloomy persona. Johnny Style is as negative of a lead character as one might find in a novel. The talent of Patrick K. Jassoy is that this powerful story line amidst the mean streets that Bueller would avoid catches the attention of the audience from the start and never lets go until the final confrontation. It is easy to appreciate the author even though it isn't easy to root for anyone.

Harriet Klausner