Boulder “vibe” roused with noir novel “The Mean Reds”
Author Dale Bridges, a former arts and entertainment editor at Boulder Weekly, penned a new book that’s packed with “so many Boulder Easter eggs.”
So many epic Easter eggs. Like the Naked Pumpkin Run.
“The Mean Reds,” released in October of 2022 by SFA Press, is based on Bridges’ time in the earlyaughts living in the People’s Republic, a place rich with that Boulder “vibe” that he aimed to capture throughout the novel.
The plot follows college dropout Sam Drift, who writes movie reviews for a local rag when he’s not wallowing over lost love in a haze of weed smoke or watching vintage crime flicks with his cat, Audrey Hepburn. When his editor calls him with a breaking story he needs to chase down — the death of an exotic dancer — Sam drifts into a maze of politics and crime.
That’s when his lying, cheating and stealing exlover shows up in town to premiere the movie where she’s the leading lady ( a film based on the script she stole from Sam).
Bridges’ style has been likened to Augusten Burroughs, Chuck Palahniuk and Kurt Vonnegut. He describes “The Mean Reds” as “a demented love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood; the title lifted from Truman Capote’s prose in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“The blues are because you’re getting fat, and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all,” Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly explains the difference between the blues and the mean reds to George Peppard’s Paul Var jak in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” “The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?”
In the book, keep an eye out for the Pearl Street Mall, University Hill, CU, the Boulder Theater, Hotel Boulderado, the Boulder International Film Festival, Nitro Club and more.
Br idge s l ived i n the Boulder area in the early aughts and left around 2010 “i n search of warmer weather and more affordable housing.” He landed in Austin, where he now resides with his wife.
We caught up with Bridges via email.
Q You worked with the Boulder Weekly as a columnist, editor and writer. Is protagonist Sam Drift a slacker spawn of Dale Bridges?
A That’s a great way to phrase it. When I first started writing the novel, Sam was just supposed to be a narrative stand- in for me. The old sorority house that he lives in on University Hill is a description of where I lived; his obsession with old movies mirrors my own; etc., etc.
Basically, in this novel I’m attempting to examine some of my own worst character defects in Sam and see where those defects take a person. However, as I continued to write, it became necessary to let go of the idea that Sam was me and allow him to become his own person. In that sense, he’s more like my child now. I can see myself in him, but I had to let him make his own choices in life.
Q How did working in journalism shape you as an author? A Journalism had a profound impact on my writing. I also have a book of short stories I published many years ago called “Justice, Inc.” Those stories have a more satirical sci- fi style, similar to Kurt Vonnegut.
Journalism kind of forced me to develop a more realistic narrative voice. While I was a journalist, I read a lot of nonfiction writers like Chuck Klosterman, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Orlean, Michael Lewis, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, etc. I stole from all of them, of course.
Q I dig your novel’s title, very vintage noir. Does the vibe of the book peek into any influences of cinema’s Golden Age or modernist literature?
A Oh, boy. This book is basically a demented love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood. The title, “The Mean Reds,” of course, comes from the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
Sam is obsessed with old movies and watches them throughout the novel. Every chapter is named after an old movie that coincides with the theme or structure of that chapter. The movie references are constant throughout the book, and some of them are so obscure that I doubt even hardcore cinephiles will be able to pick them out. There aren’t many novels out there for movie lovers, and I hope film geeks really get a kick out of this one.
Q What’s the most Boulder thing you experienced in Boulder while you lived here?
A Everything about Boulder was very Boulder when I lived there.
However, I did have a couple of extremely Boulder jobs aside from working at the newspaper. I was the manager of a medical marijuana dispensary that was located in an abandoned movie theater across from the police department. It was called Medicine on The Hill. At that time, the standing of marijuana in Colorado was unclear. Obama said he wasn’t going to prosecute anyone for it, but you still had to have a certification from a doctor to purchase it.
While working that job, I got roped into organizing an event called the Boulder Cannabis Festival. How Boulder is that? After that job ended, I worked the overnight shift at the St. Julien for about a year. That position really highlighted the economic disparities in Boulder. I wasn’t even making a living wage, while the people checking in to the hotel were very privileged … and often a huge pain in the ( expletive).