Literature / No Beast So Fierce

"You've got to realize that I'm not like you. I'm too warped and tangled by too many yesterdays to be like you. This doesn't mean I'm fated to be a menace to society. If I believed my future had to be like my past, I'd kill myself. I'm tired. I can bend enough to stay within the law, but I'm never going to be the guy who goes home to San Fernando to a wife and kids. I wish I was that guy, but I'm not."

Max Dembo

No Beast So Fierce is a 1972 crime novel written by Edward Bunker.

The book follows Max Dembo, a recently paroled ex-convict and former heroin addict. Fed up with the criminal lifestyle, Max seeks to reform and stay on the straight and narrow path. However, Max has spent much of his life either embroiled in criminality or incarcerated, and he finds himself having trouble readjusting to the outside world and finding work. Not helped is that most law-abiding citizens - including his self-righteous and apathetic parole officer Joseph Rosenthal - despise him for his status as an ex-con, making finding a legitimate job extremely difficult, and making the prospect of reverting back to his old ways all the more tempting.

The novel was later adapted into a film, Straight Time, with the screenplay written by Bunker.

List of tropes applying to the novel:

• Addled Addict: Willy Darin and L&L Red's drug use has left them nervy and frequently impairs their judgement.
• Anti-Hero: Max, of the nominal variety. He's a short-tempered, amoral thug but he is genuinely trying to reform if only for selfish reasons. He slips into being a Villain Protagonist as he gradually slips back into being a criminal.
• The Atoner: Averted. Max feels no remorse over his crimes, and only wants to reform because he realizes how short-sighted remaining a thief actually is.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Lampshaded by Max after he finds himself disgusted by L&L Red's drug addiction, noting that he's done far worse than Red.
• Being Evil Sucks: Max notes that being a thief generally results in either death or a prison sentence, which motivates his efforts to reform. Most of his companions are have pretty much ruined their lives through crime, or are well on the path to doing so.
• Boom, Headshot!: Max finally kills Willy Darin by shooting him in the head at point blank range.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Max, after he snaps and decides to embrace being a criminal.
  Rosenthal: You should be locked up for the rest of your life. You're a menace.
  Max: (bows mockingly) That's right. Your mistake was making a menace and letting me out.
• Casanova Wannabe: While Red was The Casanova in his youth, years of drug use have stolen his good looks. He still attempts to flirt with women, but fails constantly.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Abe Meyers is fairly infamous for hanging his partners out to dry, and Max suspects he turned Stan and Bulldog in to the cops so he could keep their shares for himself.
• Despair Event Horizon: Augie Morales' drug addiction destroyed his life and left him homeless and on the run from the police. Augie admits he doesn't care if the police catch him or not, since he actually views prison as preferable to his current situation.
• Dirty Coward: Max refuses to use Willy as a partner because, on the one robbery they participated in together, Willy chickened out and left Max to deal with the apartment's occupant himself.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: During his final confrontation with Rosenthal, Max is disgusted when he realizes the man pities him after Rosenthal realizes just how much of a broken man Max is. Max is even more disgusted by the fact that Rosenthal refuses to recognize that he and people like him are what helped mold Max into who he is today.
• Downer Ending: During a botched bank robbery, Jerry is killed and Aaron is arrested. Max murders Willy, wrongfully believing he snitched on them, destroying his relationship with Allison. Max flees the country, but decides to return to the US out of boredom with his new life.
• Faux Affably Evil: Abe Meyers. He's polite and friendly towards Max, but he's a treacherous snake who has no loyalty to anyone but himself.
• Freudian Excuse: Max grew up dirt poor in a broken home and spent most of his life in reform school, jail, and prison, which has left him with a warped set of values. The novel never uses this as an excuse for Max's actions, merely an explanation , but it is made clear that he was very much made who he is by the penal system.
• Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: Max's stays in various reform schools and prisons and the abuse he suffered there only contributed to turning him into a hardened criminal.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Red was actually quite handsome in the past, but years of drug addiction and alcoholism has left him a wrinkled, frail shell of his former self.
• It's All About Me: Max frequently tends to get wrapped up in his own problems and drown himself in self-pity. He is aware of it to a degree, and he does act selflessly at several points in the novel, but at other times Max's top priority is clearly his own well-being.
• Jerkass:
  • Max himself. While he's not without compassion and he does genuinely want to reform, he's still a short-tempered, amoral bigot.
  • Rosenthal. He's obnoxiously self-righteous and unintentionally sabotages Max's efforts to reform with his judgmental attitude and refusal to empathize with Max.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Max has shades of this. He's not a nice person in the least, but he has some moments of compassion, most notably helping Augie as best he can even though the man has long since crossed the Despair Event Horizon.
• Lawman Gone Bad: Abe Meyers. He was a former bail bondsman who exploited his position to squeeze arrestees for as much as they were worth and was fired after it broke out, after which he fully immersed himself in the criminal underworld. No one particularly respects him, namely because he's notorious for his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder and because - at least in Max's view - he's not a "real" criminal.
• Never My Fault: While Max correctly points out the social issues and class differences that lead to his turn to crime, he still tends to refuse to take responsibility for his own choices. Some of Max's anecdotes about his past makes it clear he was a legitimately violent and dangerous criminal, yet he always acts as though he were an innocent victim.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Max is virulently racist, homophobic, and sexist, and very prone to throwing slurs around.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Big Johnny Taormina was a powerful monster back in his day, but by the time of the novel he's a pathetic has-been struggling to get by, to the point he's willing to order a robbery on his associates. He's still convinced that he's a big shot and acts the part, which Kax is fairly unimpressed by.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: For the first half of the novel, Max genuinely tries to reform, but he has no one else in his life than his friends from his criminal days, and he's unable to get a job due to the societal stigma against ex-cons and Rosenthal's meddling. After Rosenthal has him sent to jail on the suspicion of taking drugs (which he hadn't done) and leaving Max locked up for three weeks so he could go on a vacation even after Max's drug test proved his innocence, Max snaps and decides to embrace being a criminal.
  I was going to war with society, or perhaps I would only be renewing it. Now there were no misgivings. I declared myself free from all rules except those I wanted to accept - and I'd change those as I felt on a whim. I would take whatever I wanted. I'd be what I was with a vengeance: a criminal.
• Tragic Villain: Max. A lifetime of incarceration has twisted him into a violent criminal, and when he tries to reform, the societal stigma against ex-cons results in him reverting back to crime since it's the only way he can survive.