“Falling Down Umbrella Man” by Will Tinkham

It is seldom that I can enjoy a story whose main character doesn’t have a single redeemable quality. When this is the case, only a writer of the highest calibre can make me interested in the book. Will Tinkham, undoubtedly, is such a writer. While he didn’t make me like Danny Coover/Slaughter, his eloquent narrative, interspersed, as always, with colourful household names of the past, kept me turning the pages.

Danny Coover isn’t a morally grey character. I want to be clear about that from the start. He is awful. Plainly and simply awful. He is someone whom even the most peaceful person – pointing modestly at myself – wants to strangle. Okay, his childhood had its sad moments. But frankly, whose childhood hadn’t? Well, I understand that such people do exist; still, if we take an average person, we all went through something that became a part of our nightmares or traumatised us in some way. Even those luckiest of us, born into wealthy families, aren’t immune to troubling experiences. A friendly uncle dying from abusing expensive white-powder substances or something along these lines. What I want to say is that Danny Coover’s issues while he was a kid are nothing extraordinary, nothing out of the scope of regular trauma, so to speak. What he did with his life is solely his fault. And that fault is tremendous, for he meticulously spread rot wherever he went, leaving cringing and wincing people in his wake.

That takes us back to the author’s calibre. In his Americana series novel ‘Falling Down Umbrella Man,’ Will Tinkham has created one of the most disgusting book characters I have ever read about. And that says something, considering that I’ve always been an avid, quick reader and that my reading experience spans several decades. A serial killer whose mother left him alone while working night shifts when he was five causes more sympathy than Danny Coover. And still, I don’t regret reading his story. In all honesty, skipping a single instalment of the Americana series I’d view as a crime.

‘Falling Down Umbrella Man’ is dotted with crooks of all sorts. But they aren’t like Danny. There is something likeable about each of them. Or at least their motivation is possible to understand, if not justify in full. Danny is something else entirely. He isn’t without talent. Moreover, fate quite generously throws opportunities his way that could help him make something of his life. Each and every one of these chances Danny blows. And as can be expected, he blames everyone but himself for his failures.

As always in Will Tinkham’s novels, legendary people make unobtrusive but vivid appearances. None other than the King of Rock and Roll picks Danny up while driving the Crown Electric Company truck. Meeting Elvis Presley doesn’t inspire our ‘hero.’ On the contrary, Danny feels bitter when he learns about the singer’s success.

It brings me special pleasure to meet the characters from other books of the series. Many of them feel practically like family. ‘Falling Down Umbrella Man’ wasn’t an exception. I was glad to visit Sidney’s Sanctum in Loveland, Ohio, ‘just north of Cincinnati,’ even though this visit happened to be tinged with sadness.

With only three books left for me to read in the Americana series, I feel in equal measure excited and wary. What I know for sure is that I’ll be rereading all these books sometime – not necessarily in the order that I’d originally read them.