Monday, January 20, 2014

Tollbooth by Bud Smith




    


Tollbooth
Piscataway House Publications

by Bud Smith

reviewed by Mick Mykola Dementiuk


     A manic, uproarious novel very reminiscent of the drunken novels of Charles Bukowski but Bud Smith takes his character’s mania a little farther and more deeper than Bukowski ever could. In Smith the mania is seductive, teasing, after all who would not want to lead the boring repetitive hum drum existence the toll collector leads? No wonder he gives in to his depraved madness, I surely would.
     The toll collector lives his rather dull life, taking tolls on a New Jersey highway, mumbling to himself hour after hour with his wife (in his fantasies), the few friends he has accumulated over the years and most of all the seductive teenage girls he knew once upon a time or happens to know right now. Needless to say the reader can’t help but look at these girls and ask are if they fantasies, these future hookers which he drools over anyway, big-breasted, high-haired, tight-pants and very short-skirted, a jerk-off dream come true right before his eyes? Perhaps, but still this reader was sucked in by the euphoria of that life, following the tale as it shifted far beyond New Jersey. The madness held me on every page; I very much wanted to know where he eventually was going.
     I thoroughly enjoyed Tollbooth, even the 300 or so pages seemed too short for the depravity displayed, I certainly would have read a few hundred more. A beautiful book, Bud Smith, with the Tollbooth you have collected your final toll and no more are you forced to mindlessly mutter, “Pay your toll!” No, let the miserable future collectors repeat it for you. Bravo, a great novel!  

Available in Kindle but I would get it in paperback, it's something you would want to hold and cherish over the years  



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