After a novelist or poet wins a major literary prize, it is normal for them (and their publishers) to capitalize on the success. Previous books are graced with stickers reminding potential readers the recent accolade. A quick collection of short stories or poems is sometimes issued, and out of print works find themselves back in print again.

There is nothing wrong with this scenario. I think it is good for literature in general when writers earn their living through book sales rather than through some form of institutional sponsorship.

Denis Johnson has not capitalized on his 2007 National Book Award for Tree of Smoke by coming out with a collected poems or a collected works, though he has published a new book, and that book is Nobody Move.

First appearing as a serial in Playboy in 2008, the book is a crime novel that reads as fast as advertising copy from the 50s. It follows the unlikely pair of Jimmy Luntz, your classic gambling average Joe, who is down on his luck, and the beautiful Anita Desilvera, the soon to be divorced wife of Hank Desilvera, who has just embezzled 2.3 million with the help of an old, ailing judge. Jimmy owes money to a local heavy. Anita’s been framed for the embezzlement. The two meet by chance and we have the beginning of Johnson’s thin but convoluted plot.

Full of action, violence, and the occasional sex scene, Johnson uses short, simple sentences to keep the pace high and the images immediate. Nothing is still in Nobody Move. The characters move from one location to another, running away from or chasing someone, as Johnson himself jumps back and forth between locations, moving us inexorably toward the climax.

Most reviewers noted that flat characters, a thin plot and immediate language are all generic elements of the hardboiled crime novel, and compared Nobody Move to other examples of the genre. At the Telegraph, Lionel Shriver notes Johnson’s “homage” to the work of Raymond Chandler and Cormac McCarthy, even if Johnson does not add much to the genre, and a reviewer at The New Yorker remarks that the “story plays out largely according to the genre’s dictates” with occasional “moments of arresting lyrical beauty.”

At New York Times, however, David Means places it in the context of the rest of Johnson’s work and sees it as a continuation of Johnson’s preoccupation with crime and redemption. He writes:

So how does “Nobody Move” fit into his oeuvre? As Susan Sontag might say, it seems to operate as a flight from interpretation, settling into the genre for a ride, looking away from the wider implications of the world to enjoy itself by unfolding action within a neatly closed universe. But something more is at hand, because Johnson is a great writer, and even a casual entertainment, written well, has meaning. If “Tree of Smoke”–intricately plotted, embracing the entire Vietnam era and bringing it up alongside the war in Iraq–was a huge piece of work, a “Guernica” of sorts, then “Nobody Move” is a Warhol soup can, a flinty, bright piece of pop art meant to be instantly understood and enjoyed. It opens with the line “Jimmy Luntz had never been to war,” and it closes with two characters near a river. All of its symbols–if you want to take a shot at finding deeper meaning–are in your face and seem to be saying, at least to me, that for the most part, most of us live within the status quo, one way or another, just trying to locate the next move.

While I think Means is right to see Nobody Move as a “flight from interpretation,” he is being entirely too easy on Johnson by figuring this “flight” as an expression of some sort of ethic of indeterminacy. In comparing it with Johnson’s previous works, what struck me was his attitude toward his down-and-out characters in the book. While Johnson is always sympathetic towards these characters and treats them with a mixture of humor and hard realism, he always takes their struggles seriously. This is true of Jesus’ Son, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, Tree of Smoke and the poems of The Incognito Lounge. The struggles always mean something, which, in turns, provides the characters themselves–no matter how strung out or down on their luck–with dignity.

This was not the case with Nobody Move. Again, this is perhaps because of the generic limits of the book. Crime novels are not supposed to be self-reflexive bildungsromans. Yet, while I admired Johnson’s taut prose, I had hoped for more in terms of characterization. After all, bending rules is the rule for great novelists, and I think Nobody Move would have benefited from characters that had a bit more complexity. Without this, it is just a straight-forward piece of pulp fiction.

If you’re going nowhere fast–say in an airport waiting for a flight, as I was when I read the novel–by all means pick up a copy of Nobody Move. Otherwise, wait for the film, which is sure to be showing in theatres by the end of 2010.

Micah Mattix is an Assistant Professor of English at Louisiana College.