{"id":42430,"date":"2026-08-21T07:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42430"},"modified":"2026-08-21T10:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:12:23","slug":"cassidys-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42430","title":{"rendered":"CASSIDY’S GIRL by David Goodis \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

CASSIDY’S GIRL<\/a> by David Goodis<\/p>\n

First sentence…<\/p>\n

It was raining in Philadelphia as Cassidy worked the bus through heavy traffic on Market Street.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Overview:\u00a0 Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few years ago Jim Cassidy was flying high.\u00a0 Literally.\u00a0 Cassidy was a well paid airline pilot.\u00a0 Life was good.\u00a0 Really good.<\/p>\n

But that was then.<\/p>\n

Cassidy was piloting a plane that crashed.\u00a0 78 people were on board.\u00a0 Eleven survived.\u00a0 Cassidy was one of them.\u00a0 The airline needed a scapegoat.\u00a0 Cassidy was made to order.\u00a0 They said Cassidy had been to a party the night before.\u00a0 He had.\u00a0 They said when he was flying the plane that crashed, he was drunk.\u00a0 He wasn’t.<\/p>\n

That didn’t matter.\u00a0 Cassidy was fired.\u00a0 He lost his pilot’s license and was lucky not to be put on trial.<\/p>\n

Since then Cassidy’s life spiraled.\u00a0 He lost everything.\u00a0 He drank too much.\u00a0 Way too much.\u00a0 After a night of of boozing it up, he and Mildred, another drunk, got married.\u00a0 It was a match made in hell.<\/p>\n

Cassidy drives a bus by day while Mildred spends the time at a nearby bar drinking.\u00a0 Cassidy comes home to find her drunk or still at the bar.\u00a0 Then he starts drinking.\u00a0 They fight.\u00a0 Have sex.\u00a0 Rinse and repeat.<\/p>\n

Then Cassidy finds Mildred and Haney Kenrick getting friendly at the bar. Cassidy decides he’s had enough.\u00a0 He tells Mildred he’s leaving her.\u00a0 She asks for another chance.\u00a0 Even though Cassidy is done, Kenrick wants Cassidy out of the way…<\/p>\n

… and Kenrick has a plan.<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

David Goodis takes us into a world of drunks, schemers and losers beaten down by the world and their own frailties.\u00a0 CASSIDY’S GIRL is noir at it’s darkest.\u00a0 I like the duality of the title. If I have any nit to pick, it is the ending is a bit too pat and upbeat for all that has come before.<\/p>\n

This is my third Goodis novel and he’s yet to disappoint.<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CASSIDY’S GIRL by David Goodis First sentence… It was raining in Philadelphia as Cassidy worked the bus through heavy traffic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[61,52,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-books","category-z-view"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42430"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42526,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42430\/revisions\/42526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}