THE RICH PART OF LIFE

Winsomeness and whimsy are laid on with a trowel in this nevertheless quite likable debut about a suburban Illinois family transformed by outrageous misfortune, and even more outrageous good fortune.

While Theo Pappas, a 60-ish university history prof (and Civil War specialist) and his two sons are grieving the loss of the boys’ mother, Theo wins $190 million in a state lottery. Twelve-year-old Teddy (who narrates) begins mentally spending the money his father can’t seem to deal with, and younger brother Tommy begins exhibiting increasingly deranged behavior, while the world beats a path to the Pappases’ door, begging contributions for innumerable causes and crackpot schemes. Unmarried Aunt Bess (a wonderful comic character) joins the family, followed by seedy-looking Uncle Frank, a fast-talking producer of “genre” movies (which feature “vampire cheerleaders” and “Celebrity Shewolves”), hoping to elude the loan sharks on his trail. It isn’t all as amusing as it should be, because too many scenes are unshaped and unfunny, and Kokoris doesn’t know when to modulate the appearances of such initially promising figures as rapacious Gloria Wilcott, the bosomy neighbor who aims to capture Theo, or the campy leech known as Sylvanius (“the vampire who starred in . . . Uncle Frank’s movies”)—a cross between Quentin Crisp and Ed Wood, Jr. The novel also flounders in an overextended account of a cheesy reenactment of the Battle of Bull Run (in which Theo is persuaded to impersonate “Stonewall” Jackson), and in the subplot involving Bobby Lee Anderson, the redneck stalker whose real relationship to the Pappases will not surprise any reader past adolescence. For all that, Teddy and especially five-year-old Tommy are vivid, engaging characters, and the story comes to life whenever Kokoris indulges his flair for farcical malapropism and misstatement (“This all reminds me of a Norman Rockwell movie,” etc.).

And it has one immortal moment: Uncle Frank’s sullen declaration that “By nature, Greeks are depressed people . . . . We’re not all Zorba.” Now that’s funny.