Mule, by Tony D’Souza
What’s a freelance writer to do when the economy crashes and the glossy mags stop returning his calls? In Tony D’Souza’s gripping, ultimately thin novel Mule, the freelancer turns to drug running, with typically adrenaline-pumping results.
Left unmoored by the loss of income, golden couple James and Kate struggle to put their lives back together in 2007. They leave the bright lights of Austin, Texas, for a mountain cabin in California, before moving across the country to stay with James’ mother in Florida. On the drive there, James carries some truly primo marijuana, stopping along the way to sell it to a pothead friend in Austin, who moves the product and makes them both a tidy profit. But as tidy as that welcome influx of cash is, it’s not enough given the ease with which James got it from one state to another, especially after he hooks up with a wildly successful drug dealer in Florida. Shortly after returning, James is on a plane back to California, where he’ll start a life as a drug mule that will destroy his marriage.
Except we’re never really convinced that James and Kate are all that happy—or are even meant to be together. They met and fell in love while indulging in the kind of pre-Recession lifestyle that is now a distant memory; theirs isn’t necessarily true love so much as a relationship of convenience and necessity, especially given that Kate finds herself pregnant. But much of Mule is about the gradual wearing down of their relationship, as Kate consoles herself with shopping and a fancy house while James is on the road.
D’Souza’s explicit descriptions of how to drive cross-country with a trunkful of pot are detailed enough to give some ambitious readers ideas, though he counters the tips with vivid recreations of the sheer boredom of the drive and the filthy motels along the way. But James’ descent from desperate father to hardened drug dealer is a little difficult to buy at the novel’s end. For a guy who squeezes a teddy bear to hear it say, “I love you” during the endless drives, he handles gruesome murders with more savoir faire than one would expect. And his distress at the distance accumulating between Kate and himself never rings true, although D’Souza’s narrative is so propulsive we never question it until the final page. Like any good high, the comedown from Mule is disappointing.
