Razorblade Tears

Look at me dipping into genre fiction! But, really, I’ve been doing it for years. I’ve just been intrigued by crime fiction in recent times. I’m not sure why, honestly. Every time I finish one of these novels filled with violence and tough guys I feel like perhaps I’m too squeamish, too cerebral to appreciate all the bone crunching, nose bleeds and gunshot wounds. The cerebral part is more wishful thinking and poor self-projection than reality, but it makes it easier than admitting I’m a wimp and don’t enjoy the manly activity of beating the ever-loving shit out of other men. This is not my life, this is not my world. However, I suppose that’s why we read books to begin with.

There’s something here that felt dated in a way I can’t really explain. Because, again, this isn’t a world in which I live. It revolves around the main conceit of the story and is not something I thought would be a theme in a novel from 2021. The murder of a gay couple whose dads — old-school men in the American south — go on a revenge tour to find and kill the killers. To add to these fathers’ prejudices and whatnot, one is black and the other is white! Yes, it’s the fathers of two gay men married to one another who are not only in a same-sex relationship, but in a mixed race one as well! Which in Montclair, NJ is called Tuesday. But in this book, these fathers — who are presumably supposed to be generationally on par with Mr. Hipster — are ex-con, rough-around-the-edges guys who clearly didn’t grow up with uber-lib parents in Los Angeles or living in a NYC bedroom community filled with rainbow flags. And I get that. But something about the whole iron-out-our-biases thing while also trying to avenge our loved ones felt like maybe it should have taken place in the 90s in order to make it feel more authentic. But its 2012 setting (I think?) just societally felt anachronistic in a way I can’t quite explain.

That aside, a story about these two rough men coming to terms with their gay sons’ murders and their own short-comings as fathers is an interesting one. The fact that they both missed time with their children because they were serving prison terms is both coincidental but also instructive as to why their sons may have found common cause with one another. The fact one, Ike Randolph, is a former angry killer turned upstanding business owner and the other, Buddy Lee, a redneck drunk turned redneck drunk sets up the whole odd couple thing from go. How will these two men — one skeptical of white “trailer trash” and the other clearly racist — come together to track down the murderers of their gay sons? A lifestyle that both have serious issues with, and will have to address head on in their search for the culprits. The first step in finding the killers of your gay sons is to admit you have gay sons, I guess. So, when we’re not spending time with the two men torturing and murdering to get answers from people, we get insight into their regrets of ostracizing and denying their sons’ lifestyles and not being there for them when they were discovering who they were. Razorblade tears being tears of regret, as the story tells us.

Beyond the emotional side of the story, we spend a good deal of it watching the two mean kill the shit out of people. Mostly Ike, who’s old nickname before he became the professional family man was “Riot Randolph,” does the crazy violence. Breaking fingers to get info, killing a dude with whatever is handy, mowing down dudes in a driveway. Suffice it to say, there is a pretty high body count as Ike and Buddy wend their way through suburban and rural Georgia. Both men with a go-big-or-go-home death wish attitude that they will solve this mystery and make the perpetrators pay no matter what. Turns out, there is a super-racist biker gang in their way. So, when said bikers just start dying, we don’t mind so much that our anti-heroes, Ike and Buddy, are just straight-up murdering other human beings. And, honestly, not worrying much about leaving tons of evidence behind. The cops out in these parts must really suck at their jobs. The biker dudes do feel a bit cardboard — just kind of default, NPC racist biker types. Honestly, most of the characters beyond Ike and Buddy are just obstacles to their goal and Cosby doesn’t spend much time on them. Friend or foe.

Look, I know this thing got good reviews by actual reviewers. I’m no pro. But with the somewhat antiquated themes and the senseless violence that seems to have very little in the way of human ramifications, I’m at a loss as to what I’m missing. The writing also gets a little janky at times, including the ta-da “razorblade tears” line that is actually uttered in the text. It can occasionally feel… cheesy or overwrought in a college writing studio kind of way. And, trust me, I know overwrought! With all of this, it was a compelling read at times, with the propulsive action and compressed timeline, but I’m trying to imagine these two men of a certain age essentially surviving on rum and cheap beer, no sleep and constant pummelings actually making it as long as the author having them make it. I mean, I’d have been dead by day one, but the reality of these two living through this any of this at their age is pretty far-fetched. But I guess that’s what this type of story is all about. It may just not be for me.