Tag Archives: Satire

All Her Father’s Guns by James Warner

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Synopsis:
A right-wing gun lover falls for a Lacanian psychoanalyst/Romanian emigré while trying to bring down his pharmaceutical-abusing ex-wife’s run for office, even as their daughter makes a decision that could destroy all of them.

Review:
“He had five sons by about nine different women” was the phrase that made me fall in love with the satire and humor of All Her Father’s Guns. James Warner’s ability to spin a sentence in an unexpected direction would make this book a crazy wild ride even if he’d chosen more sedate characters and subject matter.

But Warner has no interest in taking the easy way out. He tells the story from the point of view of two characters: Reid, a failure of an intellectual who has no idea how to live in the real world, and Cal, the father of Reid’s depressed girlfriend Lyllyan, an extreme right winger who loves his guns with the same ferocity with which he hates his ex-wife Tabytha, herself a train wreck of a political candidate with more skeletons in her closet than Rush Limbaugh and Ted Haggard combined.

Even though every single character in this book commits at least one act that should make me hate them, I ended up falling for all of them and wishing them happiness in the crazy world they made for themselves. And it’s always refreshing to discover an author with such a hedonistic appreciation for the glorious insanity that life has to offer.

Prospect Park West by Amy Sohn

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Synopsis:
MILFs in Brooklyn!

Review:
Amy Sohn is a writer who’s been on my radar since I first moved to New York City in 1995, and it’s like she’s lived the public, more successful version of my life. Her single girl escapades got published in the New York Press; I was an escapading single girl who read the Press every week. She wrote a novel loosely based on her own life that got turned into a movie; I do movie adaptations of books whose writers get all the attention. And now, she’s a freelance writer and mom living in tony Park Slope, Brooklyn, the #1 most livable neighborhood in New York City. I am a freelance writer and mom living in Long Island City, Queens, which ranks an embarrassing #16 (though I do grocery shop and playground hop in Sunnyside, which was the dark horse #3).

Now, having read Prospect Park West, I can finally liberate myself from at least one-half of the Amy Sohn-envy that has tinged my professional life. Success I want, sure–but at least now I have definitive evidence that momming in Queens trumps momming in Brooklyn any day.

My mom friends in Park Slope have confirmed that a lot of Sohn’s scathing mommy wars satire hits it right on the mark. We don’t get near the amount of drama and hilarity on Sunnymoms as they do on Park Slope Parents. We don’t have a sanctimonious food coop (though on is in the planning stages). With only 3 playgrounds, one dominated by weightlifters and drunks, and a smaller total area, it’s a lot easier to make friends in my neighborhood than it is in theirs. Bonus–no celebrities!

The book does go over-the-top. Like any good roman à clef, it’s got enough real life to make it authentic, and then goes completely nuts with sex and booze and drama galore. I loved it!

Laura Rider’s Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton

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Synopsis:
A married couple starts sending love emails to a popular public radio personality, leading to tragicomic results.

Review:
In Laura Rider’s Masterpiece, Oprah-blessed Jane Hamilton’s latest protagonist is a woman who dreams of being Jane Hamilton. Laura Rider is the owner of a midwestern garden center who’s been nurturing the fantasy of becoming a writer for ages. A chance meeting with new neighbor Jenna Faroli, the host of a “Fresh Air”-type show on public radio, gives Laura the impetus to take her dreams more seriously. When a second chance meeting between Laura’s husband Charlie and Jenna leads to an email exchange, Laura decides that she should write Jenna as Charlie to see if she can create the perfect man to seduce her idol, the perfect woman. In doing so, she’ll be able to write a new kind of romance novel, one in which both lovers are equals.

Of course, Charlie knows all about Laura’s emails, and gets in on the fun, too. And, as Laura hopes, he takes the relationship to the next level. Strangely enough, Laura’s able to remain emotionally detached, because she’s thrilled about what the success of the venture says about her skills as a novelist. She’s practically picking out her outfit for Oprah.

I found myself somewhat detached from this story, even as I kept reading to see where it would go. I never connected with any of the protagonists because I didn’t really understand where they were coming from. Maybe I am just too happy in my own marriage?

This One Is Mine by Maria Semple

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Synopsis:
A bored LA housewife falls into a flirtation with a scummy ex-junkie, while her sister-in-law sets about trapping a wealthy husband.

Review:
This One Is Mine cuts a lot deeper than my synopsis would imply. It’s not a trashy pulp beach read, but rather a scabrous dissection of the worst of human impulses, with a healthy dose of redemption thrown in at just the right time. In many ways, it reminds me of Elise Blackwell’s Grub, which I called a “satire brimming with humanism.” These are the books I find most memorable, and within the category of literary fiction they’re the ones I’m most likely to reread.

Violet used to be a star TV writer, but ever since the birth of her daughter Dot she wanders aimless through the life she shares with her billionaire music mogul husband David. It’s to Semple’s credit that she makes this power couple seem accessible, perhaps thanks to her stint as a writer on “Arrested Development,” about the least glamorous rich people in the history of all media. A chance meeting with Teddy Reyes, a bass player fond of reminiscing about his junkie days, leads her into an obsessive spiral that consumes her life and threatens her marriage.

Meanwhile, David’s sister Sally has staked her future on snaring a wealthy husband. She’s set her cap for Jeremy, a sports columnist with an uncanny knack for picking winners. She micromanages his courtship of her, oblivious to the reality of the relationship and of Jeremy’s true nature.

Semple successfully skewers a few topics quite dear to my heart. Sally’s storyline is a magnificent takedown of girl culture as expressed through reality TV makeover and bridal shows. And even more amusing are Violet’s forays into a parenting style that bears a close resemblance to Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting, where parents are urged to refrain from any praise at all, lest they diminish their children’s inherent self-worth. The scene in parenting class is just delicious as Semple revels in the minutiae of extreme parenting.

Semple is not afraid to pull punches, but neither does she shy away from giving her characters a heart. I was surprisingly touched by the close of this book. Despite all of the insanity and ugliness that the characters manifested, Semple doesn’t leave them there.

Sunless by Gerard Donovan

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Synopsis:
Bereft and aimless, an ex-meth head signs up to test a new drug promising to cure anxiety of all kinds.

Review:
I picked up Sunless because it promised a Chuck Pahlaniuk-esque satirical romp through all the woes of our modern age, dressed up in off-kilter post-apocalyptic trappings and with an addictive prose style.

Instead, I suffered through a lazily written, incoherently plotted, almost aggressively aimless stylistic exercise that I had to force myself to finish reading. Thankfully it’s not very long, so I could get through it in a subway ride. There was no forward movement in the plot, and since there was a plot, author Gerard Donovan can’t hide behind the “it’s about character” defense. Nor was the prose such that I wanted to keep reading just to see what he’d do with language–while that’s not my favorite kind of read, I can at least appreciate someone who loves words and wants to push them to the limit.

No, Sunless wants to be what I initially hoped it would be, and fails miserably.

Grub by Elise Blackwell

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Synopsis:
The trials and travails of a group of young New York City-based novelists.

Review:
Grub is a reworking of a 19th Century novel. I can’t speak to its success in that regard because I haven’t read the original, but I will say that author Elise Blackwell pulls off a rare bird: a satire brimming with humanism. I enjoyed every line of this book, which reminded me at times of Whit Stillman’s marvelous first feature Metropolitan. This is a galley I’ll be keeping, rereading, and recommending all over the place when the book comes out in stores in September.