Inventing a do-nothing slob you can empathize with is a neat trick, but the story’s a bit too slovenly.
Death and misery stalk the antihero of Neilan’s comic debut—and that’s just at the crummy temp gig.
Shane knows a bar whose happy hour begins when most people are taking their first coffee break, but then he’s got the kind of life that’ll prompt a guy to start drinking at 10 a.m.: He’s fully convinced that his upstairs neighbor is carrying on an untoward relationship with his pet guinea pig; his landlord won’t be so pushy about the rent if he’ll sleep with his wife; and his sexual encounters with his girlfriend, Gwen, tend to feel a lot like professional wrestling matches. Oh, and he’s accused of murdering Marlene, a deaf dental hygienist who taught Shane to talk dirty in sign language. Neilan ultimately resolves Marlene’s death but not Shane’s bottomless hatred for himself and the world around him, and the funniest bits have him going metaphorically off the grid—the beer at a party tastes “like kiddie porn,” sex with the neighbor’s wife is “like an off-duty clown swinging two fish together by their tails.” If you can hang with Neilan’s taste in rude jokes and non sequiturs, there’s lots to like: Even if the humiliation of temp-slave life is well-trod ground for comedy writers, Shane’s abjection about alphabetizing files (and worse, his getting congratulated for his fine job of alphabetizing) gets some fresh laughs. But the occasional laugh-out-loud line doesn’t salvage a narrative that never quite jells. Shane’s regularly referenced tic of stealing salt shakers never becomes meaningful in terms of either plot or characterization, and the jokes get more leaden toward the end, as the author is forced to tie together the story’s multiple threads. More than a couple gags at the expense of the mentally retarded don’t do Neilan any favors, but Shane’s never pretended to be polite.
Inventing a do-nothing slob you can empathize with is a neat trick, but the story’s a bit too slovenly.Pub Date: May 2, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-35174-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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