INNER TUBE

by Hob Broun ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 1985

This second novel from the author of Odditorium (1983) is, like his first, profuse in seedy details, weak in overall plot. Here, a nameless narrator, fleeing his unconsummated lust for his older sister and the suicide of his mother (she pushed her head through the family TV while watching a Bob Hope special), leaves New York for Big Sky country, where people are simpler but not as simple as he'd like. What he's looking for is a situation that offers so few possibilities that there can be no chance (hope?) of a letdown. But his jobs--as cashier in a porno shop in San Francisco, as viewer of endless reruns in a TV archives in the Southwest--nourish his already vast alienation. And his women--an art student, a motel maid, an archeology professor (who eventually marries him), a gay co-worker with her own emotional aches and her own reasons for burying them--all divert him but never manage to engage his commitment. Their tireless efforts are the author's one indication that his main character is supposed to be likable. Meanwhile, Broun introduces numerous other characters who, like the narrator, offer a laundry list of grievances in place of convincing motivations or development; they are a series of aphorisms and opinions rather than the gallery of human types he seems to have intended. But what the novel lacks in characterization is at least partly compensated for by a generous abundance of wit. The TV family/real family parallels are well-suited to the author's hip, pyrotechnic style, and the same mordant intelligence that can seem pointlessly clever when laying out the sufferings of some vulnerable character seems more appropriate when tipping up the myths of the 1950s. Still, this book needs more of a destination for its stylishness and ambition. It's finally disappointing that the best vignette in this well-written novel should be a hilarious running commentary on a My Little Margie rerun.

Pub Date: Aug. 28, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION