Friends Helping Friends is the story of two young men and one slightly older woman in present day Denver, Colorado. At the beginning of the story the two men, Bunny Simpson and Jerry LeClair know each other, and are indeed friends. Neither of them know Helen McCalla, though that will soon change.
Bunny lives with his disabled Uncle Rayton in Rayton’s mobile home, parked in a down-at-heel trailer park. He makes ends meet by working in a local cigarette shop and passes time helping his uncle or getting high with Jerry. Bunny, like Jerry, is no stranger to minor criminal acts. Jerry, slightly older than Bunny, is a small-time dealer who dreams of getting out of Denver and moving to California. If they’re honest with themselves, both would admit this is never likely to happen.
Helen was divorced three years ago. Her ex-husband, Tad, a local judge, has moved on with his life in a way that Helen hasn’t. Her career has stalled, partnership at the firm looks further away each week, and her social life is reduced to a series of forgettable dates whilst her ex has remarried and his young wife is pregnant.
It’s Helen’s disappointment with her situation perhaps that prompts her to start taking steroids for the gym. Jerry is her contact for the drugs. She’s pleased with the results but can’t give up her lingering resentment towards her Tad. Because of this – or perhaps because of a steroid-fuelled rage – she approaches Jerry with a proposition. She’ll pay for Jerry to arrange a beating for Tad – nothing too serious – just something to wipe the smug look off his face.
Jerry recruits Bunny to help and the job goes more or less without a hitch… or so they think. An inability to plan ahead leads the two men to be caught on multiple security cameras and within a day both have been arrested. Split up in jail, Jerry is processed through the system and stuck in remand. Bunny, much to his surprise, walks after 24 hours, having made a deal with the ATF.
Agents Howley and Gana are leading an investigation into Bunny’s uncle, Willard, the suspected leader of a far-right, white-supremacist, Christian cult. They agents won’t be drawn on exactly what they think is happening at Willard’s ranch. It could be drugs, could be money, could be domestic terrorism. But they want a man on the inside, and Bunny, with his family connections, could be their informant.
Friends Helping Friends covers a variety of heavy themes including, but not limited to, generational trauma, disenfranchisement, police corruption and domestic terrorism. And yet it does so in a comic, breezy manner. Hoffman writes his three main protagonists with a mixture of naivety – especially Bunny and Jerry – vulnerability and resilience. This makes them a pleasure to spend time with. In less skilled hands, Helen, for example, could have been a bitter caricature of the spurned woman.
As befits a novel where two of the leads are stoners, the plot is a rambling thing, content to meander at a leisurely pace that might frustrate readers who expect a more traditional crime narrative, but which I felt was part of the charm of the novel.
Not many novels can claim to celebrate the best of human nature whilst depicting some of the worst, but Friends Helping Friends does just this. Bunny, Jerry and Helen, through trial and error and a lot of missteps along the way, find they have to rely on themselves and each other.
Also see Charlesgate Confidential by Scott Von Doviak.
Grove Atlantic
Hardcover
£19.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
