FICTION

ZIP SIX: by Jack Gantos (Bridge Works: $21.95, 281 pp.). Written with simplicity and deadpan humor, this engrossing but ultimately flawed novel chronicles the fall, rise and fall again of Ray Jakes, an inmate of New York’s West Street Prison. Ray was caught attempting to smuggle a ton of hashish on a boat and has been given a sentence of zero to six years, or “zip six.” In prison, he saves the life of a very peculiar Elvis impersonator whose fate becomes inexorably bound to his own when the warden decides they will perform together at various federal penitentiaries. Eventually, Ray and Elvis meet up on the outside, where Elvis has gone back to being plain old Seth Zimmer, and Ray has come up with a final moneymaking plan that will land him either in Canada or back in prison.

The problem with “Zip Six” lies in the character of Ray himself. It is very difficult to root for him since, at every juncture, he can be counted on to make the most ill-advised, self-destructive decision possible. That would be fine, if we were supplied with a deeper sense of the forces driving him, so that instead of identifying, one could at least sympathize. However, all Gantos has given us is a story about a man who does dumb things and won’t talk about it.