I wasn't actually talking about the Len Bias references in
Sweet Forever; his fate is fairly well known even outside the
sports world. If one didn't know about it prior to the end of
the book, you'd miss some of the irony, but it wouldn't be
hard to look it up and find out when you got to the end. I
just remembered some really exhaustive discussions of college
hoops and play-by-play from actual games being incorporated
into the book. As somebody who anticipates every weekend in
March considerably more than Christmas, this was great for
me, but I thought it might be too "inside" for others.
As far as reading the music references, I don't think there's
any "right" way to do it - that is, define the unfamiliar
music from the character or the character from the music. I
recall that Pelecanos usually describes enough about at least
some of the music to get an idea of what the other artists
referenced would sound like. I particularly remember a
passage about Curtis Mayfield in "King Suckerman" that was
descriptive enough that I was able to pick out a Mayfield
song that I heard sometime later without having any prior
knowledge of his music. Anyway, this was a lot more effective
to me than, say, Ian Rankin spraying obscure (for me) Stones
references through the Hanging Garden that just left me
scratching my head
(though I loved the book otherwise). I mean, it worked to an
extent by showing Rebus's mentality, but seemed obviously
aimed at other people who had heard every Stones album and
would immediately get what he was going for.
Carrie
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