Gas Station

by Joseph Torra. Zoland Books, 384 Huron Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138. $11.95.

Book Review by Michael Basinski

If you have worked in a gas station, or hung out in a gas station, or know someone who did those things, or worked on a car, had a car towed, or are working class, or are Italian, Polish, Greek, Slav, some ethnic group not up there among thee so called real Americannibals, or were young and worked with/for your parents, fell in love, dreamed of sex and had it for the first time, once, and that was strange, or read Charles Bukowski - (particularly Post Office), John Fante, Dos Passos, Steinbeck, or any of and all of those clear shooting realists, or let’s add Kerouac, or had a vision, or are someone whose life dosen’t make it to the page too often, or the past is melding, or you are thinking or writing it down, or if you are into writing as art, or if you respect blurbs by Robert Creeley and Hubert Selby, Jr., or want something that won’t bore you to tears and make you laugh and make you remember and that will inspire you to be yourself and worth it. Joe Torra is giving you the opportunity. Look. It is not often that there is really a really good book written. Here is one you can’t do without. I will bet you a drink. No, I bet you two drinks.