A novel for those with no aversion to the broadest satire or affinity for political correctness.
A preposterous setup eventually pays entertaining dividends in this slapstick send-up of show business in general and hip-hop in particular.
Subtle, it isn’t. Sophomoric, it may be. But there are plenty of laughs in this debut novel about an unassuming Jewish, 30-something schlub who somehow finds himself the ghostwriter for the misogynistic, streetwise rhymes of Oral B, America’s premier gangsta rapper (think Snoop Dogg of old, or 50 Cent). In the slow opening, first-person narrator Wally Moskowitz spends so much time telling the reader what a “frumpy, kind chubby little boring man” he is that some might be tempted to take him at his word and quit in the middle of “chizapter 1.” Setting the plot in motion is a chance (or not so chance?) encounter in a public restroom between Wally and a minor member of Oral B’s posse, who reveals to Wally he knows the secret nobody is supposed to know: that Oral B’s genius raps are actually Wally’s. The flustered Wally proceeds to urinate on the thug in retaliation. Now he’s got two worries: that the thug will get back at him and that the leaked secret will get back to the scary mogul behind Oral B’s record label, Godz-Illa Records. In the meantime, Moskowitz is still trying to peddle a series of Dr. Suess–like books aimed at adults, with subjects such as organized crime, oral sex and illegal drugs. These short books, though they helped him procure the deal with Godz-Illa, aren’t nearly as funny as the obscene raps he writes, but they somehow find a publisher who wants them cleaned up and transformed into a series aimed at children. The rest of the plot pivots around a scheming (and stereotypical) agent, a dognapping, a beautiful woman who inexplicably throws herself at Wally, a murder charge and characters with names such as Yo Yo Pa and Sue Schadenfreude.
A novel for those with no aversion to the broadest satire or affinity for political correctness.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4165-3786-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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