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What if American Psycho had been a lighthearted romantic comedy?
No, seriously. What if Bret Easton Ellis, once he'd gotten over his burning need to shock and offend the book-buying public, had decided to give his gruesome novel a happy ending in which the good and just characters -- the ones who were still alive, at least -- were rewarded, the morally ambiguous people learned important lessons about life and the baddies received appropriate punishment? Wrap the whole thing up in a darkly humorous tale about New York apartment hunting and you'll have Hell's Kitchen.
Chris Niles, who lives in Brooklyn, is obviously familiar with the NYC housing situation -- the tooth-and-nail competition for overpriced, undersized, ludicrously amenity-free housing. Though they're typically a street-smart bunch, most New Yorkers, Niles posits, are willing to walk into all manner of dangerous situations if a good sublet is involved. Accordingly, she has concocted the ultimate in stranger-danger -- a serial killer who snares his victims with the promise of a great, cheap apartment.
Cyrus, Hell's Kitchen's psycho, is a bit of an idiot -- a talentless, born-into-money loser with several screws loose. His killings are "inspired", in some not particularly tangible way, by a popular self-help book (Niles never explicitly explains how the self-help book -- which Cyrus thinks of as a brilliant philosophical treatise -- inspires his killings; the implication is that he has made an intellectual leap that we, as sane people, cannot duplicate).
As serial killers go, Cyrus basically sucks. Although he dominates the headlines for a few days -- something that, regrettably, is hard to believe could happen in a post-September 11th world -- he never quite manages to pull off the perfect murder, fudging some small detail every time. Tellingly, his only victims -- at least until the book's final sequence -- are overly trusting out-of-towners.
The novel isn't really about Cyrus; he's more of a catalyst. His primary purpose, as far as the book is concerned, is to ignite the sputtering romance between two other characters: Quinn, a down-on-his-luck writer who never actually writes anything, and Tye, a gorgeous British expatriate turned con-woman. Both are newly homeless, and newly dumped by unsuitable lovers. They attempt to resolve their homelessness in different ways: Quinn hunts for a sublet, while Tye, after failing several times to lure a new sugar daddy, launches an elaborate scam in which she sublets an apartment that isn't actually hers. This is how Quinn and Tye first meet, though Tye is disguised. Romantic sparks fly, but Tye needs money, and bilks Quinn out of several thousand dollars. Later, Quinn meets the "real" Tye, and the romance picks up speed -- though Tye, fearful that Quinn will eventually recognize her, keeps him at arm's length.
Needless to say, Quinn and Tye are destined to end up together, and Tye's secret must be revealed. Getting them, and several other characters, to the book's finish line requires a complex series of interconnected events which, to Niles' credit, rarely relies too heavily on coincidence. The romance seems a little forced at first, but it's easy to accept -- and once she gets her characters to her finish line, Niles leaves their future endeavors to our imagination rather than providing a dotted-i, crossed-t, And They All Lived Happily Ever After sort of ending. We know what probably happens to Quinn and Tye -- the epilogue even gives a little hint -- but the particulars are left up to us.
The subplots are intriguing, too. We meet Catrina Vermont, a closeted lesbian newswoman whose sensitive coverage of the murders revives not only her career, but her relationship with her girlfriend, Renee. While Cat has the most obvious set of plot "hurdles" to jump, her transformation is the most satisfying, and she plays a significant role in resolving all of the story's threads.
Cyrus' first victims are newlyweds from Michigan -- a couple so squeakily clean and nice that you can't help but hope they'll somehow manage to avoid their doom. At first, they seem like a broadly-drawn caricature -- smart and well-meaning, but clearly doomed by the fact that, justifiably, they didn't expect to run into a serial killer while apartment hunting -- and the thought of their deaths being exploited for comedy's sake is frankly distasteful. Fortunately, Niles doesn't take this route; instead, one of their mothers comes to New York in search of them, and plays a major role in the rest of the story, reminding us that unlike the victims of most movie serial-killers, these people mattered, and their deaths had real-world consequences. The mother, Marion, has a metaphorical journey that mirrors her physical trip to New York; it is one of the book's most satisfying points that Niles grants her not only closure, but hints subtly that romance is brewing for her, too.
Ultimately, despite its black humor and gruesome -- though not excessively gory -- subject matter, Hell's Kitchen delivers an improbably happy ending; perversely, Cyrus' crimes cause good things to happen to the characters we care about. Don't think of it as a humorous serial killer story; it's more of a screwball romantic comedy in which people just happen to die violently -- in the language of Hollywood pitch meetings, a sort of Serendipity meets Broadcast News meets Silence of the Lambs scenario. While the finale is filled with tension and danger, it rapidly deflates to a cartoonish level; the jokey denoument even leaves room for a predictable parting shot at New York apartment hunters. It's the sort of conclusion that makes you laugh out loud the first time you read it...but as time passes, you like it less and less. Fortunately, the characters' arcs provide ample satisfaction.
Whether you love Hell's Kitchen or hate it, you'll probably agree that Niles has a prime movie property here. Not only could the story make the jump to the big screen with minimal trimming, but you can amuse yourself for days just by mentally assembling its big-name ensemble cast. Let's see... John Cusack or Hugh Jackman as Quinn, Catherine Zeta Jones as Tye, Annette Bening as Cat, Gary Oldman as Cyrus... Don't be surprised if Hell's Kitchen turns up in your favorite multiplex next year -- hopefully without any tacked-on, crowd-pleasing wedding scenes at the end.
-- George Zahora
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