A review of Sam Finlay's Breakfast with the Dirt Cult by Lynn Lockhart
Sam Finlay is a great friend of the LaFondiverse, currently collaborating with James on my favorite fiction-in-progress, The Filthy Few.
Finlay's book is an pseudonymous memoir; our hero, Tom Walton, falls in love, goes to war, and comes home a changed man, physically, mentally and spiritually. Breakfast with the Dirt Cult gives you a heady mix of Army training, combat and comic relief, romance with the world's smartest stripper and the fruits of the author's expansive reading and contemplation. Some of those fruits will be familiar to LaFond readers, as Finlay has a penchant for the virtues of barbarism, contempt for the "unblooded elite" that exploit him and his men, and an enduring appreciation for the imperfect and often infuriating Army, cherishing the masculine development, camaraderie and the opportunity to put his life at stake and thereby feel alive.
For many years, I shied away from reading any contemporary authors, especially works of fiction, I haven't watched a movie in years, at home or in the cinema. Sam stands alongside James and other contributors here as living men worthy of your time and attention today, before they join the ranks of the Great White Dead. Breakfast with the Dirt Cult, Reverent Chandler, Poet and many others you'll find in these pages would also make great films. They don't have a lot of explosions or exotic scenery. These are movies that could be made affordably and that would be compelling to American audiences, and they might even drag me back to the theater.
Breakfast with the Dirt Cult gets five stars from me, and I will be ordering a few copies for veterans on my Christmas list.
(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart
"Poet" would be a major Hollywood hit. Elijah Muhammed's band of merry men would have to morph into a fictional entity with a non-denominational name, but if JL could get it into the hands of Wesley Snipes or Michael Jai White, he'd be lighting his cigars with $100 bills.
ReplyDeleteShep
Glad you liked it, Sir.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see either men make the movie but have zero connections.
Another generation perhaps.