Hey squares, ever wonder what life is like for those filthy Williamsburg hipsters you see on the L Train?  Want to take a journey into their drug-fueled, sex-crazed world without getting your hands dirty or bringing home any bed bugs?  Well, let Cristy C. Road’s Bad Habits be your ticket on this sinful safari into the life and mind of a Cuban-American, bisexual, cokehead punk who just wants a little bit o’ love in her life.

Car is damaged goods.  But she’s trying.  She’s really trying.  Having been burned by love in the past, she moves to Brooklyn, settles into a basement room of a dingy hipster flophouse under the BQE and contents herself with scoring a lot of ass.  Both boy ass and girl ass are enjoyed, but only after having she pickles her brain with booze and fills her skull with rail after rail of coke.  It’s easier that way.  As Car says, “You have to accept any chemically altered state of mind as a legitimate human feeling.”  Indeed.

Try as she might to keep her heart on ice, sometimes, despite herself, some other soul starts to thaw that baby out.  But is the promise of love just a tease?  Probably.  But Car hasn’t given up yet.

Car, drunk, walking in the rain, her nipple bleeding from the bite of a German woman who’d picked her up in a bar:

Do the unhappy endings of affairs prove the puritan theories behind the anti-pleasure agenda?  Or maybe they prove we are imperfect humans with imperfect affairs that resort to puritanical theories for self-protection?  Damn.  Are imperfections finally making me stronger?

Bonus:  this novel is illustrated by Road herself.  Double-bonus:  the text supports itself–Road can write and does so with a very distinct but naturalistic voice, so the many illustrations are an enhancement rather something the book really needs.  Triple-bonus:  the illustrations are fantastic, often hilarious and a lot of fun.  Hell, I admit it:  I bought the book because of the cover.  Why not?  There are many other literally exposed hearts (and brains) within, along with plenty of snorting, smoking, huffing, dancing, blowing, licking, sucking, puking…and Coney Island!  Really, what more could you hope for in a set of illustrations?

I dare you not to fall in love with the illustration of Tatiana, Car’s former lover and perhaps the only person she knows with the potential to bring true love and happiness into her life.  Though still a friend, Tatiana just doesn’t want to have a sexual relationship anymore.  Yeah, life sucks that way.

True story:  I was reading Bad Habits on the subway when I heard a little whispering behind me and sensed someone looking over my shoulder.  “Damn!” said one voice.  “That’s a good book!” said another.  It was a couple of teenage gangsta-types who’d been having a rather noisy conversation up until that point.  They offered several more compliments of the illustrations (it was the page with the nipple-biting scene), and I showed them the cover and told them it was a novel and that they should get it.  Finally, I said, “Have to turn the page now…sorry!”  Boisterous laughter ensued.

Books:  bringing people together across cultural and generational boundaries.  Beautiful.

Gratuitous rant:  okay, so Road is a talented illustrator and a talented writer.  This thing feels more than a little autobiographical, so let me ask a simple question:  honey, what you feeling so bad about?  Who needs love when you’ve got talent?

This is a fast read and only took a few subway trips to get through, but I always found myself looking forward to getting back to it.  The work takes place during a particularly rough patch in the narrator’s life, with all the (mostly) self-inflicted insanity that such periods entail.  By the end, there’s no bullshit happy ending or artificial resolution, but Car is a little bit stronger, and her life has settled down.  For now, at least.

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