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THE CHOIRBOYS, 1975
“THIS IS THE TRUEST NOVEL I’VE EVER WRITTEN.”
So says former Detective Sergeant Joseph Wambaugh about the first police novel he wrote after leaving the force. It is a powerful dark comedy about ten men in blue--a patrol squad attempting to stay sane in an insane world.
The five sets of partners on LAPD nightwatch are men of varying temperaments and backgrounds, but they are joined together by the job and they have elected to share some of their pre-dawn hours in MacArthur Park in relaxation drink and sex sessions they euphemistically call “choir practice.”
Their relaxations are extraordinary, but so are their daily encounters. For these men, choir practice is a release from the horrors of nightwatch, a way of trying to forget. But the memories and nightmares go with them, even to choir practice.
The Choirboys is fiction, but every major scene in it happened; the most bizarre events depicted are all real. Wambaugh gives us action scenes, reminiscent of In Cold Blood and surrounds them with humor scenes equally strong. For this is ultimately not by the violence of their jobs but by their choice of off-duty entertainment. The result is a novel as boisterous and freewheeling as a Rabelaisian romp and as chillingly authentic as only a veteran police officer could make it.
CRITICS’ PRAISE
“Humor and ferocity. A funny book... As if Catch 22 had been written by Popeye Doyle.” The New York Times
“A novel about the insanity of life in general and a police officer’s life in particular... It is a brilliant work of fiction, and Wambaugh’s finest to date.” Los Angeles Times
A bawdy, comic, violent and somewhat disturbing novel (based on reality) about how a group of Los Angeles policemen used to pass their time...” The Washington Post
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