Sunset City: A Novel

By Melissa Ginsburg

A taut, erotically charged literary noir set in Houston about a woman caught up in her friend’s shocking murder, and the dark truths she uncovers.

Before the drugs, Danielle Reeves was Charlotte Ford’s most loyal and vibrant friend. She helped Charlotte through her mother’s illness and death, and opened up about her own troubled family. The two friends were inseparable, reveling in Houston’s shadowy corners. But then Danielle’s addiction got the best of her and she went to prison for four years. When she gets out, she and Charlotte reconnect. Charlotte hopes this is a new start for their friendship.

But then, a detective shows up at Charlotte’s apartment. Danielle has been murdered, bludgeoned to death.

Overwhelmed by grief, Charlotte is determined to understand how the most alive person she has ever known could end up dead. But the deeper Charlotte descends into Danielle’s dark world, the less she understands. Was Danielle a hapless victim or master manipulator? Was she really intent on starting over or was it all an act? To find out the truth, Charlotte must keep her head clear and her guard up. Houston has a way of feeding on bad habits and Charlotte doesn’t want to get swallowed whole, a victim of her own anguished desires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9780062429711

Melissa Ginsburg

Melissa Ginsburg was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of the poetry collection Dear Weather Ghost, and the poetry chapbook “Arbor.” She teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Book preview

Photography © by IM_photo/Shutterstock, Inc.

DEDICATION

to Chris

EPIGRAPH

Where are the arrows that have bandages

Instead of feathers at their ends

BILL KNOTT

CONTENTS

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Melissa Ginsburg

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

It had rained hard through the night and now the water raced and swirled, overflowing the ditch in front of my building. Houston was always flooding, the whole city built atop paved wetlands. The storm kept the sky dark, and the streetlights glowed through the morning. I stepped into my rubber boots and splashed to the barbecue shack around the corner. I ordered a baked potato filled with butter and sour cream and bacon and slow-smoked brisket, then bought beer at the liquor store next door. On the walk home, the temperature began to rise and moisture thickened the air.

As I approached my building I noticed a guy on my landing. I didn’t recognize him. I figured he must have the wrong apartment.

Who are you looking for? I called to him.

Charlotte Ford, the man said.

He stood under the awning above my door, a curtain of rain enclosing him on three sides. He had rough, dark features: hooded eyes, strong jaw, and a blunt Irish nose that softened his appearance. I liked how he said my name.

That’s me, I said. Have we met?

No.

He stood aside to let me out of the downpour. We crowded into the space, walls of water around us, while I dug for my keys. Rain fell from his hair onto his nose and he wiped it away. I smiled without meaning to, because he was so handsome and close. I got the door open and backed into the apartment, set my food on the front table.

Detective Ash, he said. HPD.

In an instant I thought of every law I ever broke, trying to figure out how much trouble I was in. Cops always scared the shit out of me—a reflex from the old days, from when I was dealing.

You’re Charlotte Ford? he said.

I nodded.

Could I come in? he said.

Okay, I said, pretending to be calm.

He stepped inside and glanced around. We were both dripping water on the floor. I took my shopping bags into the kitchen, stashed the beer and the food in the fridge. The detective followed and leaned against the wall, watching me. He took up too much space in the room. I felt claustrophobic, trapped. I was sweating in my raincoat, bright red rubber, its canvas lining dotted with unicorns.

You know Danielle Reeves? he said.

Yeah, I know Danielle.

I should have figured it had to do with her. Danielle was my oldest friend, the only person in the world who understood where I’d come from. I’d hardly seen her in the last few years, but that didn’t matter. I was ready to bail her out, lie, provide an alibi—whatever she might need. She was my friend. I would protect her.

What’s this about? I said.

I’m afraid I have some bad news, he said. Danielle Reeves is dead.

What? I said.

Danielle is dead, the detective repeated.

Dead?

She was murdered, he said, watching me carefully. Let’s sit down.

We went to the living room and I sat on the couch. He took the chair by the window. A watery spill of streetlight outlined his face.

Are you sure? I said.

Yes.

That’s crazy. I just spoke to her.

When was that?

Two days ago. Sunday evening. We met for a drink.

And yesterday? he said.

Yesterday, no, I didn’t see her. I haven’t talked to her since Sunday.

Where were you last night?

Here. It was raining. I didn’t go out.

Can anybody confirm that?

I shook my head. He wrote in a notebook. I became aware of the shattering rain on the cars outside. I felt for a cigarette in the pocket of my raincoat. Water dripped from it and soaked the upholstery. I always took off my raincoat and hung it on the hook by the door. Why hadn’t that happened? My mind rushed, confused, like the current in the gutter—I couldn’t get hold of a thought.

I lit the cigarette, took a drag. The smoke hovered around my head, weighed down by humidity.

Ash said, Danielle’s mother tells me you and Danielle are old friends.

I tried to speak but my throat constricted, and I began sobbing. I observed myself, curious and dismayed. I didn’t even understand the situation, yet here I was crying in front of a stranger. None of it made sense. My cigarette fell from my hands. The detective picked it up and stubbed it in the ashtray on the windowsill. A part of my brain thought of how I must look: no makeup, snot, the terrible sounds coming from my throat. I grew more and more embarrassed, which made it harder to compose myself. It took a while before I could breathe normally.

The detective stared at me like you would a sculpture, without caring what it thought. What he was saying about Danielle, it couldn’t be real. It didn’t make sense. She had already survived all the drugs and prison. She was finally doing okay.

She can’t be dead, I said.

She is, Ms. Ford.

Not murdered. It’s ridiculous. If she was going to die it would’ve happened before.

What do you mean? the detective said.

Forget it, I said.

He wrote in his notebook again and spoke. Tell me about the night you saw Danielle.

We met for a drink.

Was that a regular thing?

Not exactly, I said. We sort of lost touch.

When?

I looked away, said nothing. It was a few years back, in the middle of the drugs and her arrest, but I was not about to talk about that with this guy.

When she went to prison? he asked.

I hated that he knew that about her. I saw her from his perspective—a stripper, a drug addict, a felon. I could see the judgment in his eyes, the dismissal.

You don’t understand, I said.

What do I not understand? he said.

She’s not a junkie or some stripper whore. That’s bullshit.

Ms. Ford, take it easy. I’m trying—

Leave her alone. You can’t assume, because she went to prison—you don’t know anything about her!

I hadn’t meant to stand up, or to talk so loud. The muscles in my legs tensed and trembled. I wanted to kick something, to run and run.

Okay, the detective said. He stood, too. He didn’t look friendly anymore. Come with me, he said.

Where? Why?

To the station.

Are you arresting me?

Not unless I have to.

He took my arm and pushed me to the door, waited while I closed and locked it. We went to his car, a green SUV parked in the middle of the street, alongside the deep gutter. I stepped in a puddle and water leaked into my boots. He opened the passenger-side door and stood there until I got in. He silently steered to a strip mall on Richmond and parked in a lot full of cop cars. Inside he guided me past a cluster of uniformed guys and a roomful of desks. Benches lined one wall. A black kid, about fifteen years old, sat at one end, wrists cuffed, looking at the floor, at his untied shoes. Loud and ugly, the place banged against my eyes. The detective showed me into a dank windowless room with a table and a chair and a camera mounted inside a steel cage. The lights buzzed from the ceiling.

Wait here, he said.

He left, closing the door behind him. The molded plastic chair was missing one of the bolts that attached it to the metal legs, and it rocked and bent as I shifted my weight. The walls were green concrete blocks, interrupted only by the door and a dark mirror across from it. I glanced at my reflection once—my face pale and bedraggled, strands of wet hair stuck to my cheek—and didn’t look again. I kept thinking, I shouldn’t be here. There’s been a mistake. I got out my phone and tried to call Michael, my boyfriend. I wished I were with him in his cozy apartment, or back at home, or anywhere else, really. But it was no good, I couldn’t get any cell reception.

A crack in the cement floor showed where the foundation had shifted. Damp seeped in and I remembered the rain outside. The ceiling lights hummed, muting the distant voices and ringing phones. No way could Danielle be dead. She was the most alive person I knew.

The detective came in with a chair and a manila file folder.

I’m not interested in judging your friend. I’m not making any assumptions about her, he said. You’re wrong about that.

He opened his folder and slid some photographs across the table. One fell on the floor and I bent to pick it up. He watched me, his arms crossed, his foot tapping the floor.

Nobody, he said, no matter who they were, what they did, should go through this. It was terrible, what happened to Danielle. I am trying to find out who killed her. I’m not judging her. I’m looking for information.

I examined the picture in my hand. Meaningless shapes and colors arranged themselves and I saw a person, and blood. Lots of blood. My eyes went out of focus again and I dropped the picture. He handed me another one, a close up of Danielle’s face, puffy and covered in brown blotches. I recognized her jawline, and her arm in the foreground of the photograph, bruised and blotchy, the fingers curled. One long nail hung broken, still attached by glue to a corner of the nail bed. The photographs had been taken in a hotel room: a lamp, a seascape screwed into the wall. In places brown blood obscured everything.

It was a blunt instrument, he said. It was heavy.

The next one showed her chest, pushed in and misshapen. Her fake boobs sat on top of the wrecked body, intact, pointing the wrong way. Blood soaked her blouse.

Broken ribs, he said. The bone shards punctured her lung. She could have died from that or the blood loss, we’re still trying to determine that. Some of the injuries are postmortem. Do you understand what that means, Ms. Ford? The person who did this kept beating her after she was dead.

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. My mouth flooded with saliva.

You’re not gonna throw up, are you? he said.

He grabbed the wastebasket and set it down next to me. I gripped the table’s edge and stood. I had to get out, get away from those pictures.

I don’t feel right, I said, but I couldn’t hear myself because of the traffic sounds loud in my ears. I saw white.

When I regained consciousness I seemed to be lying on the floor. I couldn’t hear. Nausea circled my body. The detective stood far above me, and I watched a uniformed cop hand him some brown paper towels and a cup of water. My head hurt. My arm hurt. I touched my head and my fingers came away wet.

I don’t think it’s bad, the detective said to the other cop. The head always bleeds a lot. He knelt beside me and said my name. Ms. Ford? Charlotte? Can you focus on my hand? Follow my hand with your eyes.

His features were indistinct, backlit by the paneled lights in the ceiling. I tried to speak but the sounds scraped.

I’m gonna sit you up, okay? he said.

The detective lifted me by the shoulders while trying to support my head. He held the paper towels firmly to my brow, where it hurt the most. I blinked, leaning against him, and tried to focus my vision. He propped me against the wall and straightened my legs in front of me.

Go get a soft drink, he told the other guy. And a candy bar.

The detective took some clean paper towels from the pile next to me on the floor and replaced the bloody ones. I didn’t mind sitting there while he took care of me. As long as I wasn’t looking at those pictures anymore.

It shouldn’t need stitches, he said.

The other cop came in with a Hawaiian Punch and a bag of animal crackers. The detective popped the top on the can and held it to my lips. Small sips, Charlotte. Good. You’re all right, you’ll be fine.

He lifted the towel from my face and said, Your color’s coming back. Put your arms around my neck. I think you can get up now. Ready? I’ll help you.

I leaned into him. He smelled like rain and skin with sharp spice underneath. He eased me into the chair, took my hands, and placed them in my lap.

You hit the table on your way down, he said. Drink.

I took another sip of punch.

We’ll get you home soon, all right? You faint a lot?

No.

If you feel dizzy, lean over. Rest your head between your knees. Don’t get up so fast next time.

Okay, I said.

I’m sorry about the pictures. You all right now? Enough to talk?

I nodded.

Okay. You haven’t seen Danielle lately, until Sunday.

Yeah.

Why Sunday?

I took a deep ragged breath and began.

CHAPTER TWO

Detective Ash listened as I told him what happened Sunday. Danielle’s mother Sally had called me that morning and insisted that I come by her office. I was surprised to hear from her. I didn’t even know she had my number. But I heard the urgency in her voice and agreed to meet. I was curious, I guess. That, and I had nothing else to do. It was my day off from the coffee shop where I worked, and I’d thought I’d spend it with Michael, but

Reviews for Sunset City

[satxreader · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I kept reading hoping it would redeem itself by the end.It didn't. Take all the publisher descriptions with a biiiig grain of salt: "Was Danielle a hapless victim or master manipulator? Was she really intent on starting over or was it all an act? To find out the truth, Charlotte must keep her head clear and her guard up." Not even close. Makes it sound like the narrator (Charlotte) is sleuthing through Houston on a mission to find the killer of her best friend with the help of police detective Ash. Don't fall for it. There isn't a likeable character in the bunch (Ash comes as close as it gets and his judgment is seriously suspect when he instantly falls for Charlotte, who is nothing but trouble for a police officer.We are led to believe Charlotte and Danielle were childhood friends and somehow Danielle accidentally fell into the grip of drug addiction (just case of really "bad luck" according to Charlotte); and that after getting caught and serving a prison term, Danielle was clean and turning her life around. Not exactly. These two meet in high school while working at a dismal job at a movie theater.(Danielle, the popular and flamboyant cheerleader comes from major money so of course she'd be working at an awful job) The only reason they continue working there is that they can steal money from the till and use it to buy drugs. And they slide downhill from there.While Danielle is in prison, Charlotte works half-heartedly as a barista, lives with a loser musician-boyfriend, and occasionally thinks maybe she should -- you know -- go to college -- or something, but self-improvement isn't high on her list of things to do. When she finds out about Danielle's murder, her reaction is to quit showing up for work and find Danielle's friends and start hanging out with them. Of course since Danielle's idea of turning her life around is being a porn actress (a step up in her mind from her pre-prison vocation of pole dancing), those associates are perpetually either stoned, high, drunk or hungover and looking for their next score while having sex with whoever has a pulse. So much for the book blurb "Charlotte must keep her head clear and her guard up."If you enjoy reading about an entire cast of people who have absolutely no interest in elevating themselves out of their squalor beyond taking drugs, this is the book for you. Plenty of lengthy, vivid descriptions of Charlotte's hallucinations while she's on whatever variety of drug she can get her hands on, though, in case that's among the criteria for good writing.Two and a half stars is being generous.

[vicki_weisfeld · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In poet Melissa Ginsburg’s debut crime novel, her home town of Houston becomes as much a character as the protagonist, Charlotte Ford, a young woman in her early 20s. Houston’s suffocating heat and dark corners, its breakneck freeways, its seedy bars and lush suburbs - a living paradigm of the income gap - are the kind of noir backdrop against which a multilayered story can play.Narrated by Charlotte, the story begins in a terrific rainstorm when she encounters a man on the landing outside her apartment and unlocks her door in front of him - the first clue she’s missing a little something in the “ be a little careful” department.Luckily for her, he’s a Houston police detective named Ash, but unluckily, he’s come to tell her that her oldest friend, the glamorous Danielle Reeves, has been bludgeoned to death. Charlotte and Danielle attended high school and took some drugs together, but Danielle drifted into heroin and didn’t get clean until she got caught. After four years in prison, her friendship with Charlotte had cooled, and she had taken up acting in porn videos. Charlotte’s back story is handled mostly in a couple of awkward information dumps about her deceased mother, high school years, and growing up relatively poor. Danielle, by contrast, came from money. Her mother, Sally, from whom she is estranged, had a high-powered, high-paying job. What they had in common was that both of them were rather neglected--Charlotte because her mother was a chronic pain patient, and Danielle because of the demands of her work. No dads in the picture.Work kept Sally so busy during Danielle’s childhood, she didn’t realize her brother was sexually abusing the girl--a plot choice that has become a cliché and, here, is not explored for its specific impact on Danielle. Now Sally wants to be in touch with Danielle and enlists Charlotte to do the outreach. That mission puts the two former best friends in touch again, just two days before Danielle’s murder. Did Charlotte’s visit begin a deadly chain of events?She starts hanging out with Danielle’s new friends—fellow actress Audrey (another child sexual abuse victim) and video producer Brandon. To Charlotte these people seem exotic, but the first-person point of view limits readers’ access to their thoughts and feelings. Their motivations and experiences are always second-hand, filtered through Charlotte. I’d contrast this approach with John Schulian’s A Better Goodbye, which provides a fully rounded picture of people working in the sex trade.Ginsburg attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Mississippi. In this novel, she mostly avoids literary flourishes, but occasionally her poetic side peeks through. For example, regarding the police station, Charlotte says, “Loud and ugly, the place banged against my eyes." Ginsburg does not shrink from discussing the seamier side of life and its difficulties, which is brave for a first novel, and in future perhaps her characters will be strong enough to carry that weight.

[samsattler · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The backside of Sunset City is covered by author-blurbs calling it everything from “entrancing,” to “smart and sexy,” to “dizzying and addictive.” One blurb calls its supposed heroine “one of the most memorable of recent years.” Another says that “Melissa Ginsburg brings a poet’s eye and ear to this story...” but that one is from the same guy who has to reference “Houston, Texas” rather than just naming the city as if anyone with even a quarter of a brain can’t place Houston in its proper state, so I knew to take his blurb with a particular grain of salt. So, five blurbs, all glowing, of course, with praise – and I have to wonder if any of them read this little 188-page novel for themselves.Sunset City tells the story of Charlotte Ford and Danielle Reeves who were best friends before graduating high school but have lived very separate lives for a while by the time that Danielle’s mother contacts Charlotte hoping to learn her daughter’s phone number. Charlotte, because she feels so guilty for accepting $1,000 from the woman in exchange for her friend’s phone number, gets in touch with Danielle to offer her half the money and to apologize for giving in so easily. The two young women reconnect emotionally and it appears that their friendship will take off from exactly where it was before Danielle succumbed to the life of drugs, nude dancing, and booze she lives now. That, though, would never happen because just days after the two talk, a rather bumbling Houston detective shows up at Charlotte’s apartment to tell her that her friend has been murdered – and that her bloody, mutilated body was found in one of the city’s seediest motels. So now, if you are a fan of crime fiction, especially police procedurals and the like, you expect the real fun to begin as Houston’s police department works to identify Danielle’s killer before he can get to Charlotte. Well, not this time. Instead, author Ginsburg spends the next eighty percent of the novel’s pages following Charlotte and Danielle’s friends from one drug den to the next as Charlotte drowns her grief by staying continuously stoned or drunk and sleeping with various lowlifes (of both sexes) in her old friend’s circle of friends. And then for no apparent reason, Charlotte suddenly wises up, identifies the killer all on her own, beats the tar out of said killer, calls the cops, and is personally transformed from lowlife to “heroine.” I found it impossible to suspend my sense of disbelief to the degree that would have made Sunset City fun or intriguing to read – much less, to make it memorable for any positive reason. I recommend giving this one a pass.

[burritapal · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is a quick read, full of drugs and sex, and makes you remember when you were young and all the dumb stuff you did. How pointless life seemed, so you might as well get high and hope you die young. It takes place in Houston and the protagonist is always noticing the sunset and how beautiful it is.

[texasbooklover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

FICTION/SUSPENSEMelissa GinsburgSunset CityEcco, 978-0-06-242970-4, hardcover (also available as an ebook, an audio book, and on Audible), 208 pgs., $25.99April 12, 2016 “Houston was always flooding, the whole city built atop paved wetlands. The storm kept the sky dark, and the streetlights glowed through the morning. I stepped into my rubber boots and splashed to the barbecue shack around the corner.” When Charlotte Ford returns to her apartment with her brisket and beer, Detective Ash is waiting on the landing to tell her that Danielle, her friend since high school, has been found bludgeoned to death in a seedy motel room. Danielle and her mother, Sally, have been estranged for years but Sally has recently contacted Charlotte, offering her a $1,000 bribe for Danielle’s phone number, so she could tell Danielle about an inheritance. Charlotte has met Danielle for a drink just a few days before her death to tell her about Sally and offer her half the money. Charlotte has thought Danielle’s stint in prison had finally cured her of the drugs and her future looked brighter, even if she has been “modeling” in porn films with her new friends. As Charlotte simultaneously searches for answers and tries to escape her feelings with vodka that “tasted like air-conditioning, crisp and clean” and cocaine like “fluorescent light in my bloodstream,” she moves ever closer to the killer and becomes a target herself. Sunset City, poet Melissa Ginsburg’s first novel, is a soulful, sexy, dangerous noir. In all good noir the location is an essential character in the story—and Houston’s slippery underbelly fits the bill. It’s all here: the bayous, ship channel refineries, Memorial Park, River Oaks, Montrose, Rudyard’s, and, always, real estate, in a city “that never stopped, it reached and reached,” where money exerts a “gravitational pull.” Ginsburg’s simple plot allows atmosphere to suffuse the story. You’ll feel the humidity on your upper lip and see the vivid, chemical sunsets for which the book is named. Charlotte, the most fully developed character, is sympathetic but frustrating in her self-destruction, as if she wants to beat someone else to the punch, feeling like “a poison I couldn’t stop swallowing.” She comes undone in the immediate aftermath of Danielle’s murder, on a drug and booze-soaked mental flight, trying to numb her grief. Ginsburg writes one of the best altered states I’ve ever read, both darkly humorous and melancholy, when Charlotte ends up in the drunk tank and it becomes “clear that someone, at some point during the night, had made a bad decision.” As befits a poet, Ginsburg is a master of the startlingly evocative turn of phrase. Charlotte’s first-person narrative is littered with them. She observes of a man in a bar that she’s not particularly interested in: “He was boring, but I didn’t mind, because his attention was interesting.” Detective Ash “stared at me like you would a sculpture, without caring what it thought.” After viewing crime-scene photos, Charlotte observes that Danielle’s “fake boobs sat on top of the wrecked body, intact, pointing the wrong way.” Talk about verisimilitude. Ginsburg presents a menu of suspects and drops clues nonchalantly—expertly—as if she’s writing a fifth noir, not a first. She has created a page-turner with a pitch-perfect conclusion. Sunset City is poetry noir.Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.