The Last Detail: A Novel
Series: The Last Detail, Book 1
By: Darryl Ponicsan / Narrated By: Bronson Pinchot
Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
Heartwarming tho’ sooooo bawdy!!!
I loved this audiobook! I got it cheap on Kobo after getting the 30-Years-Later sequel: Last Flag Flying first cheap… on Kobo. So thanks, Kobo! Anyway, sequel shrieeeeeks Memorial Day Listen, so naturally I had to listen to The Last Detail for Veterans Day.
After this all-out fantastic listen, I’m soooooo looking forward to Memorial Day in 2021!
Navy “lifers” Billy “BadAss” and “Mule” Mulhall are assigned to be chasers, those who escort a prisoner to the brig. Billy lives up to his name with his drinking, and he takes swearing to an art form, even tho’ the guy is a closet intellectual. He reads Camus even as he spouts porn. Mule is a Black man who joined the Navy so he could escape blinding poverty and finally eat daily; he’s miiiiiightily aware of being Black during this, the height of the Vietnam war, and he’s pretty touchy when Billy spews the occasional racist slight. What I’m saying is: Both these guys have been around the block. Plus, Vietnam is going on Over There, so it’s pretty nice and cushy to have this one detail to do. They’re feeling pretty smug and safe about it all, their life in the orderly Navy with its rules and regimentation.
And then they meet the man they’re to escort from Norfolk to the brig in Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Larry Meadows, a verrrrrry young 18-year old with sticky fingers. He’s drawn an 8-year sentence for stealing $40 from a polio contribution box at the PX. Both Billy and Mule think the sentence is pretty harsh, but the polio thing is an elite military wife’s pet project, sooooo, they’re just gonna go with the flow, deposit the kid, and get back to life as they know it.
But soon they’re calling Meadows “Kid” cuz he’s just so gosh darned young and innocent. The Kid comes from a broken family, has an alcoholic mother, never had any fun in his life, and well gosh it all: They just come to like him and wanna protect him. So they turn the five day journey into something Meadows will never forget, give him enough memories to last him the 8-years of hard time where he’s sure to have his ass kicked every day.
And so, soon we’re going along with this motley trio as they side-step it over so the Kid can see his Mom one last time. That doesn’t end well. They get the Kid his first drunken stupor… and his first… of soon many… hangovers. They involve him in bawdy conversations, dramatic brawls, and Billy even hits his ex-wife up for some cash so they can get the Kid laid for the first time in Boston. They’re seeing the sights, in drunken stupors; they’re having final snowball fights, in drunken stupors.
The writing is excellent, and it seems like author Darryl Ponicsan is having just such a great time as he throws these three misfits into one outlandish escapade after another. And Bronson Pinchot! Okay, I love the guy, but seriously: He makes a great story into a fanTAStic audiobook. Let’s face it: Verrrrry few white men can do the voice of a Black character and NOT come out sounding like a ridiculous, or even offensive, caricature of a person. Nooooo, Pinchot has us loving Mule and everything that comes out of the man’s mouth—cuz Mule is one twisted and jacked-up human being. As a matter of fact, the dialogue shows truly stellar writing skills, and I was laughing so much as Pinchot zipped in and out of whip quick exchanges between these three characters. I do, however, recommend listening at x1.2 speed at the very least, as sometimes the man can draaaaaag his words out. Plus, he kinda slows it all down even further for the Kid’s not-so-very quick-witted musings, and that rather makes him seem stupid, which he is NOT.
From the preface to the work, Ponicsan tells us that when The Last Detail was made into a movie, they changed the ending. He didn’t like it at the time, but now he sees that it had to be so. As it is, be prepared for some major differences if you’ve seen the movie, but thank GOD that it’s all different. Cuz with the ending staying like it does? Well, I just wondered how it made a sequel possible… No spoilers…
But ANYWAY—it ended such that my inability to delay gratification started me on Last Flag Flying…
No spoilers, again? But trust me when I say that Memorial Day 2021 can’t come soon enough!!!
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