Dreams Die First

The novel begins in the first person. The narrator is Gareth Brendan, a Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret, unemployed in Los Angeles and not even sure what day he woke on. On a rainy evening a naked young man is sleeping beside his bed and he cannot remember how it happened. Gareth heads for the unemployment office: he hands his sixty-dollar weekly cheque to his uncle John Lonergan and gets fifty dollars cash instead of paying ten as commission. At the cheque office he meets the Mexican-American clerk Verita.

After he collects the cheque, Lonergan's «collector» Bill tells Gareth «you have no credit from now on» and says his uncle is waiting for him in his office at midnight. Gareth spends the evening with Verita, then meets Lonergan at the Silver Stud bar. His uncle is a man with a faint voice, gold-rimmed glasses and a «Brooks Brothers» jacket; Gareth has been «in his grip» since childhood, and his father, unwilling to go to prison for him, threw himself out of a window.

Lonergan makes him a strange offer: to buy the weekly «The Hollywood Express». The paper is a half-thing nobody buys, and Lonergan will manage only its advertising; the rest is Gareth's. Gareth quickly sees that there is a laundering scheme behind it: cash «black money» will be washed as advertising revenue, and he will be given only ten percent. «I need to think about it,» he says.

In the morning Verita goes with him. The paper's office is in an old warehouse on Santa Monica Boulevard, its owner Joe Persky is tired, in debt and has kept no books. To get information out of him Bill literally goes at him with his fists. Verita, as an accountant, puts all the documents in order in a day and finds that Persky owes Lonergan 19 thousand, suppliers 8 thousand and the state 37 thousand dollars, a total of 64 thousand. Gareth says «I won't be part of this mess» and leaves, saying «if Lonergan wants it, let him buy it with his own money».

On returning home another surprise awaits: the young man he did not know, Bobby, has not gone away in the night; he has cleaned the flat, prepared dinner and dressed smartly. Bobby is the son of the rich and famous television preacher Sam Gannon; his father cannot accept that he is gay. Gareth recalls that nothing in fact happened with the boy, only that they talked and drank for a night. Bobby is in love with him and says «I want to be your slave».

That evening Lonergan himself comes to the flat and sends Bill along. Gareth senses Bill's blow beforehand, puts him on the floor, presses a knife to his throat and takes his gun. Then the conversation is set up differently: Lonergan accepts that the paper's debts be wiped and twenty percent of the revenue go to Gareth. Gareth begins to see the folly, but the wish to earn money has a hold on him. Verita tells him «the stars have aligned, your life will change».

At night, under cocaine, Gareth talks with Bobby and Verita about the future paper. His plan is to create a publication «between the underground press and Playboy»: to enter the «mildly unpleasant» side of society and convey the truth to the reader without getting dirty. He offers Bobby the post of «technical secretary». The idea gives him a strange strength; he feels there is «no work left to do on earth». He spends the night with Verita, and in the morning realises that Bobby took part in the night too.

• The prose runs in the first person, with short sentences and a conversational tone; dialogue makes up much of the book
• The newspaper and magazine business, advertising tricks and distribution bargains are the liveliest and most convincing parts
• The characters are types and schematic: the mob boss, the capable accountant, the naive youth, the cunning uncle
• The unmasking of the gambling–narcotics–mob chain is somewhat hurried and leans on coincidence
• The sex scenes, drugs and violence recur often in the plot and sometimes seem purposeless