Jack Womack

U.S. government freelancer Walter Bullitt tests his new psychotropics on himself and unsuspecting citizens until he becomes involved in a murderous plot to sabotage a presidential campaign.

Going, Going, Gone

Bryan Alexander

Going, Going, Gone is the final book in Jack Womack's criminally underappreciated Dryco series. You can read it if you haven't read any of the others, but you'll miss a hefty amount. (So go start them already, and follow the sequence Random Acts of Senseless Violence, Heathern, Ambient, Terraplane, Elvissey as closely as you can)

The world of Going begins in an alternate history 1968. The United States is fighting in Vietnam, the Kennedy family is active in politics, the Velvet Undergound and Nico perform in New York City. But the president is named Lodge, tv hasn't been invented, and culture is quiet. Nixon was elected president in 1960, but assassinated by Oswald in New Orleans. Looming underneath the present is a terrible history of racial removal and/or genocide, as blacks and black culture no longer exist. Realizing the extent of this world's differences from our own is one of Going's strengths.

The plot concerns one Walter Bullit, whose profession involves testing and administering mind-altering drugs for a shadowy government agency. Said agency has a new assignment for him, but Walter really doesn't want to take it on. Walter is also being stalked by visions: two weirdly dressed people appear to him, pleading for his help.

Meanwhile, Bullit also encounters two very strange women who look strikingly different and speak with unusual syntax and vocabulary. Womack readers will at once recognize them as travelers from the Dryco world. First-time readers will slowly realize that world is one where corporations rule the planet, a mysterious terrorist menace has enabled civil liberties to be curtailed, and the economy is awful - you know, a different world, one only found in science fiction.

The first half of the book introduces and develops these plot strands. We learn more about Bullit's life, including an ex-girlfriend and his vast collection of illegal records. (Those records make for a fun soundtrack, from the cheery "Pastafazoola" to the crazed "Will the Coffin Be Your Santa Claus?") A hilarious cult makes an appearance ("Take Your Mind Off Its Hinges!" "Destroy The Child Within You!").

The second half advances into new territory, and I won't say more without... (view spoiler)[Chlolo gets killed in a spectacular battle, and Eulie takes Walter to her world. He glimpses the Drycoverse, is horrified by it, but happy to be with this woman he loves. Then things fall apart (hide spoiler)].

The very end of the book is a splendid coda, a series of tiny biographical sketches for characters in the Dryco series. This is delightful stuff, a great example of how to tell stories in a handful of words. It works if you haven't read any of the books, and is better if you have, of course. 

Why do I say this is the final Dryco book? Well... (view spoiler)[because Womack destroys the world at the end. Both worlds, actually. First Walter and Eulie experience the apocalypse as Dryco NYC is unmade by rips in spacetime. They flee back to Walter's present, but it too is undone, morphing into what looks like our timeline and present. Walter seems to be Womack. (hide spoiler)]
 
Overall, Going is a good entry in the Dryco series. It offers Womack's trademark humor and worldbuilding. It has some of the fearsome might of Elvissey, and the romantic flair of Heathern. Going also demonstrates Womack's fluency with dialect. The narrator speaks (for the first 2/3rds of the book) in a mix of 50s beat lingo, older slang, and poetic observation. The Dryco visitors use that world's street talk, with nouns smooshed into verbs. And Bullit's handlers have their own subset of misdirection and codes. That's a lot to pull off, but Womack handles it with ease.

My only complaint is that the end feels rushed. A bunch of plotlines end up too quickly, like (view spoiler)[the Kennedy caper. I also wanted more Valentine, and the Nazi. (hide spoiler)] This kind of reader response is what happens when an author offers such a rich banquet for so long.

Going, Going, Gone

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