Review of A Gypsy Good Time: The Buffalo News

One death leads to more THE BUFFALO NEWS, June 14, 1992     There's little that's conventional about Gustav Hasford's A Gypsy Good Time.   It's about murder, sex and drug dealing, as are many crime stories set in Hollywood these days. But there the similarity ends.
    Hasford puts his own madcap, raucous spin on the goings-on as we follow La-La Land bookstore operator Dowdy Lewis Jr. in his search for the killer of film producer Yvonna Lablaine, who has ended up dead on his doorstep after taking him to carnal heaven.
    Which causes Dowdy, a Vietnam War survivor, to decide "it's time to get wired and detonate." Having used up all his fear in Southeast Asia, as he puts it, he begins mixing it up with the uglies who corrupted Yvonna via heroin and hedonism. An awesome body count follows.
    Hasford's style is feverish, often psychedelic. It careens and ricochets with off-the-wall similes and way-out metaphors. It is violent, dark, erotic.
    The author, who lives on a Greek island, was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the screenplay of Full Metal Jacket.

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