Godspeed – Nickolas Butler
Expectation: A race around the clock thriller that taps into shared anxieties about control and opportunity from different experiences on the class spectrum.
Reality: Often ridiculous but frequently entertaining, the good outweighed the bad thanks to strong character development.
My Take:
“Jesus, this is a godforsaken place,” Cole said, his tears subsiding. “I don’t care how beautiful the house is. It’s haunted, and always will be.”
A fledgling construction company, founded by three lifelong friends, agrees to finish a multi-million dollar home in Jackson, Wyo., under an intense timeline for the promise of life-changing bonuses. The road to get there, as you can imagine by the quote above, is not smooth.
If you’re a person who delights in the will they or won’t they finish on time adrenaline rush of HGTV remodeling shows, you’ll love this book.
More dark suspense than pure thriller, in “Godspeed” Nickolas Butler offers an interesting critique of hustle culture and class dynamics, which added depth to a somewhat uneven, and frequently ridiculous, plot.
Yet, even through the over-the-top language and dialogue (i.e. “I ain’t bivouacked under a tree or nothin.”), cringy descriptions of love (he leaned too heavily into the cowboy ethos), frequent digressions (Falconry! Logo design!) and meth — lots and lots of meth — I enjoyed myself, much more than anticipated.
The story soared when we got deeper insight into the motivations of our four leads (business partners Cole, Bart and Teddy, and homeowner Gretchen) versus strictly plot elements, which began to feel repetitive, but Butler found a nice balance, satisfying readers of both character-driven and plot-driven stories.
A few things I really enjoyed:
Gretchen’s perspective. While initially a caricature, the more Butler revealed about her life, the more I was invested in the story. Although, he’s not as adept at writing about women as J. Ryan Stradal, he showed some promise here.
It came full circle. We essentially got closure on all the characters, which helped give this more emotional heft than your typical genre book. While I didn’t care about all the characters, it was nice to have a little coda for each one.
It’s timely. Butler poses some interesting questions about the road to success, and how much we are willing to sacrifice personally to get there. Considering our characters represent both the trades and corporate America, it was nice to see dual perspectives. Also, many formerly insular communities have received a COVID-19 population influx, and he provides some astute observations of the assimilation versus overtaking of a local culture debate.
Some things I didn’t care for:
[spoiler alert] The mudrer subplot. While a much-needed jolt of energy to the plot, it also felt completely out of left field, and it all tied up way too nicely for a bunch of guys that had never done it before.
The language. As noted above, Butler has an extensive vocabulary, but it absolutely drove me crazy that a character would use a word like “funambulists” in a sentence with double negatives and nonstandard contractions.
The casualness of meth. It didn’t bother me that meth factored into the plot, what bothered me is that you had a previously upstanding character, Cole, with no hint of drug abuse fall into a meth spiral after noting previously how dangerous it was. It felt like an unbelievable stretch after the Bart plot ran its course.
I guess I expected this to be a terrible book, and it wasn’t, so I’m giving it a solid good not great designation. In 2019, I devoured Butler’s 2013 debut “Shotgun Lovesongs,”and while I loved many aspects of that novel, there were parts that felt off, because I can only relate and commiserate with so much of the white, hetero male experience before losing interest.
For that reason, I had been too shy to pick up another of his novels, but “Godspeed” showed me he’s not a one-trick pony.
Rating (story): 3.5/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A
Formats: eBook (library loan)
Dates read: April 22 – May 3, 2023
Multi-tasking: N/A
