'Big Machine' is a Big, Mean Story by Victor LaValle

San Francisco Bay Guardian | September 2, 2009
Far from a standard dry examination of doubt and faith, Lavalle's allegorical approach is sweeping and swashbuckling. Big Machine takes us from Ricky's idyllic childhood -- sweet as saccharine, with a black tar of burn -- to his romantic nadir, dying in a puddle of piss and shit in the basement of a house owned by a man named Murder.

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