How to Rob an Armored Car

July 6, 2009
Levison, author of the memoir A Working Stiff’s Manifesto
, delivers a ticklish novel about three hapless friends who turn to crime as a last desperate crack at prosperity in their rundown Pennsylvania coal town. Stoner roommates Mitch and Doug are trapped in dead-end jobs. They decide, along with dog-walker friend Kevin, to take something back from the world that’s been ripping them off for years, but as their hilariously inept bungling reveals, the trio is far from criminal masterminds. Levison plays the threesome’s antics for serious laughs as they argue and fall all over each other trying to pull off a caper that will land them enough money to buy a new car. Needless to say, things don’t look good for the three Dillinger-lites. With a nose for half-baked dreams and a keen ear for how man-children talk and “think,” Levison offers an honest and humorous romp through lower-middle class frustration.

August 15, 2009
After boosting a TV, three blue-collar dropouts think they're smart enough to try a far more dangerous heist.

Once again plumbing the depths of working-class desperation, Levison (Dog Eats Dog, 2008, etc.) strikes a more plaintive chord than ever. That's not to say there isn't plenty of humor in his gruff caper, but he punctuates the laughs with just the right hint of sadness. Leading a motley crew of amateur criminals is Mitch Alden, manager at a fictional but very recognizable big box store here called Accu-mart. The only way to cope with the high stress and low pay is to self-medicate, but after shelling out $50 for a weed run, Mitch finds himself"wondering if dreading your job so much that you paid the last of your money to avoid working it with all your mental faculties intact might be an indicator that it was time to get a different one." He recruits two buddies to supplement their beer bashes and drug habits by helping him fleece Accu-mart out of a television. Kevin is the family man who just can't seem to get it right, operating a fly-by-night dog-walking service and balancing his role as a husband and father with the realities of being an ex-con. Doug is definitely the dimmest bulb of the three, a low-level dealer with negligible aspirations who also happens to be canoodling with Kevin's wife. After their big score, Mitch gets ambitious. The gang experiences epic failure at Ferrari theft; gets into bed with a dirty doctor to push his illicitly obtained hoard of Oxycontin; and finally plans the big heist to earn millions for an afternoon's work. There's not much to like about any of the players, but it's hard to dispute their logic when Mitch argues,"If money doesn't buy happiness, why do guys guard it with guns?"

A lean crime story and a stark alternative to glossier capers.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2009
Hard times arent new to the depressed coal town of Wilton, Pennsylvania, but its economic slide is gaining momentum. Especially hard hit are Kevin, Mitch, and Doug, twentysomething stoner friends. Kevin, on parole for his basement marijuana farm, is now a paid dog-walker. Mitch has just been fired from his job as a department manager at a Wal-Mart clone. Doug was a cook in a chain restaurant that abruptly closed its doors. Putting their somewhat dope-addled heads together, they turn to crime as a livelihood. Such a skeletal outline doesnt really do this one justice. Levison is a sly storyteller who creates believable slackers, lost souls who are still essentially adolescents, just beginning to wonder how they became disposable in corporatized America. Their dialogue is largely mindless stonerese, but their thoughts are poignant and pointeduntil just before the big heist, when each imagines himself about to charge into history at Normandy. How to Rob an Armored Car is by turns funny, sad, and insightful.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)