“The street was full of night sharks.”
This metaphor describing the denizens of the dark is the perfect metaphorical representation of the characters in this book. In fact, the very same metaphor is equitably applied to the main characters of a number of the author’s novels. He is a poet of intrigue writing stanza after stanza of the shadow people who infiltrate the night when most are asleep and operating in those crooks and nannies that most avoid.
Nicole
The reader is introduced to a lot of people in the novel. Most come and move before there is time to get a full portrait. No tool in the literary holster comes out quicker and shoots with a truer time than similes in cases like this. The reader simply needs to be given a quick delineation of the highlights and metaphor does the trick:
“Her name was Nicole, and she looked rather more than young, twenty-five maybe and strung-out, but not sharp and hard like a piece of broken glass, only used up like a dirty eraser.”
Heroin
The very opening line of the novel indicates the narrator has a close enough relationship with illicit drugs to make casual references to specificity which might go over the head of some readers. Heroin is referenced with a common metaphor:
“We all know the story of the whore who, finding her China white to be less and less reliable a friend no matter how much of it she injected into her arm”
“Queen of the Tenderloin”
Taken out of context, this metaphor could be confusing. Most people know “tenderloin” in reference to a cut of meat. But the story itself takes place mostly in the San Francisco district. Another novel taking plac there is The Maltese Falcon. “Seedy” is a term often used to describe the area’s sense of culture. This context helps enlarge the metaphorical aspect of the following quote:
“he said to her wow you are so beautiful you are the Queen of the Tenderloin and the whore said big deal that means I’m the Queen of Nothing.”
Leroy
Sometimes a metaphorical image as character description does not need to rely on the physique. Much can be conveyed about character through how they react to external object. Such as this description of Leroy:
“With his binoculars he was like a young bird that has just learned to fly, but not does not trust its wings.”
