Book Review: Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl
A thoroughly delightful retro-futuristic noir fairytale novelette from P.A. Cornell.
I had the chance recently to read and review P.A. Cornell’s newest release, The Astronaut Among the Flowers and Other Stories and was very impressed with the storytelling, character work, and writing style. So of course I couldn’t just leave Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl on the table, could I? I mean, just look at that cover! The artwork is sublime and captures the mood of the story perfectly. I knew it was a novelette, which was interesting because I wondered whether it would be too short for a print version. The technique this book employs to pad out the page count to make it just thick enough for print really works well, though. That means internal artwork, and a very interesting section at the back about the “story behind the story”. It’s a great idea! I’ll have to keep it in mind.
Blurb
Just beneath the hovercar lanes, in a Toronto very much like ours, sits an unassuming diner called Rocket Ray's. There, Shoeshine Boy spots the girl of his dreams-if his dreams ever got that good. No stranger to men, Cigarette Girl isn't easily impressed, but something about Shoeshine Boy tells her this one just might be worth her time.
Over steaming cups of coffee, they dream of a life just out of reach. Goodhearted Shoeshine Boy just wants to give his girl the moon, even if that means risking everything. Cigarette Girl, a grifter used to looking out for number one, finds her priorities shifting as her heart soars like the rockets in the sky.
When a well-dressed stranger enters the picture, he presents them with opportunities that put their love to the test. Will Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl make each other's dreams come true, or lose each other in the process?
Review
Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl was a joy to read and a remarkable exercise in interesting character work. All the characters are nameless, only being referred to by nicknames given by the narrator—Shoeshine Boy, Cigarette Girl, and The Man—but those names convey so much about their personalities and help maintain a clear picture in the reader’s mind of what they look like and what they’re all about. It’s a very effective technique. Cornell describes them in her “story behind the story” segment as archetypes, and that’s pretty much how I was feeling about them as I was reading them. They come across wonderfully, from Shoeshine Boy’s optimism and golden heart, to Cigarette Girl’s streetwise savvy.
The story itself is classic and simple: Two down-on-their-luck dreamers falling in love and each working to give the other a life beyond their means, only for a stranger to enter the mix and complicate matters. I loved how the story progressed and came to a really satisfying conclusion. There’s not much more I can say about that in an effort to avoid spoilers. It is a short book, after all, that gets you to the end very quickly. But nothing is wasted in the story and I loved how things referenced in passing at the start came back around by the end. The omniscient point of view works very well here, too. We know more than the characters do but it never feels frustrating or awkward. The shifts are clear. The prose in that sense is unusual in its detachment if you’ve gotten used to the close-third POV in other books but I quickly adjusted.
Overall, this is a great story and I would really recommend it for anybody who likes retro-futuristic settings with an idealised, hopeful vibe, and classic love stories.
