Watermelon Row Author:Michael Holmes Twenty-four hours is a lot of time to kill. Tomorrow, a life will hang in the balance. Watermelon Row, a suspenseful, intricately plotted novel, tracks a day in the life of three men on the brink of violence and ruin. — It tails Ed Harrison, a tough old man in his seventies, Scott Venn, a yuppie lawyer/sports agent, and Peter James, an unemployed... more » loser, surveilling their dubious stories 'round the clock, from the relative sanctuary of their own beds to the place where they all fell most at home: The Rail?their favourite strip club?and their stage-side seats in "watermelon row."
Strangers whose lives curiously dovetail, each man needs to escape himself. In booze. In the illusion of sex. But, hellbent on self-destruction, somebody goes too far.
In the tradition of Martin Amis's Success and John O'Brien's Leaving Las Vegas, Michael Holmes offers a brutally candid view of desperate living. Watermelon Row is both haute noir, and a work of surprising beauty and grace.« less