A very disturbing experience: Palo Alto by James Franco

In homage to today's Oscars broadcast I spent the weekend trialing James Franco's book of short stories, Palo Alto. I got it out of my bag at the pub last Friday night so we could admire his cute head shot on the back but my friends who had already received copies were uninterested in cooing over James and savage in their assessment of his writing. Rob started to read aloud from a passage that contained a graphic rape scene and while I was somewhat alarmed I thought 1. the NY Times said it was OK and they're rarely wrong and 2. how could such a cute face have created something so bad? Plus 3. maybe this seems worse than it is because I've had several white wines.

Anywayz it turns out Rob was really right. I got through four short stories and they contained, in order, a brutal hit and run killing, a  horrific drunken murder, a savage beating and a disturbing sequence of racist school yard bullying. It is a barrage of offensive, senseless and often sexual violence that is deeply disturbing. It's all described in great detail in a very simple, minimalist style of writing. It's a stream of consciousness that is desperately trying to be Holden Caulfieldesque but desperately misses the mark. At story four I read a couple of reviews to see if what was ahead might be worth pushing on for. This was a fairly standard response...


"This is moth-eaten Bret Easton Ellis. It's 3rd rate high-school stuff that wouldn't have been published if the author wasn't a movie star. The stories are full of adolescent violence and have no beauty, muscle, or point. Publishing them is an act of unethical self-indulgence on someone's part; everyone who bought this should get a refund!"

At that point I decided to grab a free copy of Shop Til You Drop I had received and can I tell you it read like Shakespeare after what I had just been through. I can only guess that when your first few roles have been General Hospital,  Spiderman and Pineapple Express you might feel the need to write some short, mercilessly offensive stories to gain some street cred. I wanted this to be good but it's just not. He seems less pretty to me now.