GODSPEED
by Lynn Breedlove (St. Martin’s Press, $24.95)
LYNN BREEDLOVE’S first novel, Godspeed, is a fast and frantic ride. This trip goes across the country—twice—and around the world of Jim, a superbutch boy dyke who fancies herself as hard to the core yet knows she’ll ride to the rescue of any damsel who might be stressed. Jim’s a seeker, on the path to the ultimate rush. Of course, each rush she discovers—on a bicycle or in a car, through a needle, via sex—pales when compared to those of her imagination and desire; she demands an ever more brilliant bang. That keeps her dreaming, hoping, moving, speeding.
Jim’s a bike messenger in San Francisco, often fired, rarely sober, moving from squat to squat, stunned in love with Ally, a stripper. As Jim’s pursuit of that elusive rush heightens, Ally presents a choice: the drugs or the girl. Jim decides that the drugs are more likely to produce happy returns.
Soon after she’s busted for squatting, Jim gets a job—by default—as a roadie for Hostile Mucous, a severely punk band of “four crazy dykes and a tranny boy” with shows booked across the country. There’s a catch: no drugs allowed in the band’s van. Jim manages to refrain, all the while missing Ally even more. Ally’s busy hooking up with Jim’s old buddy Pez back in San Francisco; she’s noncommittal whenever Jim calls.
The band races across the Southlands, up the East Coast to Provincetown, and finally on to New York City, where the van stops. Jim gets a job as a cab driver and finds a squat, where she nurtures an outrageous crush on a drag queen. Of course, New York—city of traffic, lights, pedestrians, and gridlock—eventually becomes too slow for Jim, even with the squat’s meltdown under police assault. It’s back to San Francisco, grabbing rides on freight trains and with truck drivers. And attempting to go back to Ally, now a fallen angel for Jim’s god: She’s become a junkie lap dancer.
All the while, this mad pursuit: “Every day you look for the rush, taking away the shield, putting yourself in harm’s way, risk being wounded to see if you can feel anything, so maybe a pleasurable sensation can infiltrate your unguarded heart.”
Along the way—with the drinking, drugging, fighting, and trying—Jim sees a glimmer of what might enter her undefended heart.
BREEDLOVE KNOWS this life. The writer/singer for punk band Tribe 8 has ripped the mosh pits in many a venue. She’s been a bike messenger (she founded, ran, then retired Lickety Split All Girl Courier in San Francisco). With Sister Spit, she’s crossed the country in a van loaded with dykes on a spoken-word tour; and in her book-jacket blurb, she points out that she hasn’t touched drugs or alcohol since 1990.
She also tells us (on www.tribe8.com) that she’s been a seeker of the ultimate high, willing to keep tripping to find it. Breedlove spent years writing this charged novel, sketching and tuning chapters, then reading them from the stage each night as the Sister Spit van rolled from city to city.
In Godspeed, Breedlove delivers prose at its most kinetic, carrying us breathless, showing us how to get even higher. She keeps us tweaked, ready to blast, and looking for more. Is there an ultimate high? Does Jim find it? When she opens her heart, does love gush in? To know, we have to experience the road to its end.
