Roppongi
By Nick Vasey
Createspace
Copyright © 2012
364 pages
$25.00 at Amazon.com
$9.99 Kindle

Peripatetic Australian Zack Morrissey is a chick magnet and all round likeable guy in 1998, back when international travel wasn’t so complicated. He’s crewing on a tourist boat in Israel, partying it up and having a good time, but not a wild time; also he’s not making as much money as he wants. Hence the compelling need to return to a notorious district of Tokyo called—and vividly depicted in Nick Vasey’s debut novel—Roppongi.

Why Roppongi? In short, it is:

. . . a non-stop party-shop, a crazy rollercoaster-ride of drugs, drinking, partying and gorgeous women. Money flowed freely from a slashed, seemingly limitless financial aorta, and it was actually his job to make every night the biggest party he could. Since everyone was hell-bent on getting as fucked-up as they could as often as they could, his job was perhaps better defined as conductor to this hedonistic orchestra. Lawyers, bankers, brokers, wankers . . . it really didn’t matter. They’d all come to his bar thirsting for a wild time. And how he’d delighted them! Under his expert helmsmanship, Bongoes had become legendary for excess.

That excess, and a difficult breakup, had driven Zack out two years before. Now Zack is ready to explore and exploit its possibilities again. His adventures begin promisingly on the flight to Tokyo where Zack charms a married flight attendant for a tryst in Roppongi. From there, it’s a wild ride of sex, drugs, and violence as Zack re-integrates himself into Tokyo’s underworld. Through mostly Zack’s observations, the inanimate but highly animated character of Roppongi emerges, rising to the level of some mythical beast that rewards those who embrace its culture—particularly the outsiders, the ‘gaijin’—with a surrealistic party atmosphere always on the go. Zack is ideally suited for this environment, and vice (pun intended) versa. For the reader he’s a wonderful guide and for the friends who fatefully join him there, a one-man welcome committee.

It doesn’t take long for Zack to re-establish his place as a drug conduit and start making lots of money, but it does take some time before a concrete plot emerges. This occurs when Zack’s drug activities—and his  general popularity and influence in Roppongi—draws the enmity of Max, an ambitious Nigerian trying to penetrate Tokyo’s criminal element. Max is a nasty, violent character who comes to epitomize the menace of Roppongi. People begin to die as Max steps up his efforts to infiltrate a Tokyo gang. Zack sees what’s going on but finds himself powerless to do much about it, especially after he falls in true love with a Canadian girl, whom he must protect. But protect from what? Max? Roppongi? Himself?

Taken as a travelogue, Roppongi works very well. The descriptions of the area, and Japanese culture in general from an ex-pat’s point of view, are well crafted with fluid, energetic prose:

In a few short steps they voyaged to a parallel dimension. A world of darkness and rising mists, of flashing strobes mixed with a sea of UV-enhanced psychedelic colour. Insinuating itself throughout this fantastic dreamscape was the relentless pumping energy coming from the speakers. The energy was absorbed, mutated, and subsequently reflected in exultation by the seething mass of super-charged people crowding the dance-floor.

As a novel, though, the book did not succeed as well. The plot was not as exciting as the environment—which could be taken as a compliment to the handling of the setting—and took too long to unfold for my taste.

Part of that is due to overwriting in parts, such as the long setup for the scene in the morgue. The over-reliance on adverbs occasionally led into purple prose, as did a tendency to favour decorative verbs over “said” in speaker attributions. Much of the dialogue could have been pared down. It all made the book seem longer than it needed to be, a common trait with self-published works.

The proofreading, on the other hand, while not perfect, is far better than most self-published books. What errors exist are inconsequential and have no negative impact on the reading.

I also had trouble relating to Zack; he isn’t my type of character. He’s an unusually lucky and talented guy who doesn’t need to invest much effort in things. It all comes easily to him, be it work, sex, accommodation, drugs. His women are universally drop dead gorgeous and he always wins at pool, unless he’s trying not to. Bad things do happen to him, or rather to the people he cares about, but there is an apparent invincibility about him that, by contrast, weakens the other characters, who are otherwise appealing. It was hard for me to pull for Zack, not because he was unlikeable, but because it doesn’t seem he needs anyone to pull for him.

In a scene on a lake with the Carla, the charming Canadian girl he falls in love with, he hesitates to swim, claiming he doesn’t know how. Aha, he’s not perfect, the reader thinks. But no, he then jumps into the water, fearlessly. Not even a hint of kryptonite for this Super-dude. A minor weakness such as an inability to swim could have provided a window to what has to be a lonesome and troubled soul inside. Though he masks it by a generous and charismatic exterior, Zack is driven by an every-man-for-himself philosophy that promotes lying to get jobs, doing and dealing drugs, and rationalizing other short cuts in life. Zack does experience personal growth in the novel and the events do make a deep impact on him. But I wasn’t convinced those impacts would be lasting.

What is lasting is the impression of Roppongi. There’s no denying this novel is an R-rated whirlwind that will likely prove great entertainment for people less pickier than me, the pro-Zacks (pun not intended) who probably make up the majority of the audience this author is trying to reach.

Hang On

Holly is a 19-year-old single girl living in 1970s Chicago and trying to survive every day.  She prides herself on her independence and her ability to survive with minimal human connection in her life.  At least, she is trying to convince herself as much as everyone else that she is choosing to live in the shadows.  What Holly may not realize is that by keeping to herself, she will never discover who she really is.

Holly’s lack of connection with her world began when she was only four years old, and her mother committed suicide.  Holly went to live with her grandmother, who never really wanted her.  As a result, the amount of verbal and psychological abuse she suffered caused her to internalize her feelings and withdraw from human connection.  When even her psychiatrist cannot explain why Holly feels the way she does, she begins to resign herself to a fate of always being alone and unhappy.  What she does not realize is that what she feels is not all in her head, but has yet to be understood and diagnosed within the clinical community.

As Holly begins to spend time in bars and clubs, she immerses herself in the music scene.  When she meets the British band, Torc, she quickly discovers she somehow belongs with these people, and feels as though she finally fits in.  She forms an instant connection with one of the roadies, Trevor, and knows she must try to make it work with him.  As their relationship progresses, it quickly evolves into something Holly is not sure whether or not she can handle.  Her ability to let others in is challenged, as is everything she thought she knew of herself.

As we follow Holly though a several year journey with Trevor and the band, we begin to see that she is not that different from the rest of us.  Holly over-analyzes everything in her life.  The difference between her and most people is that she admits it to herself.  The honesty and introspection that is evident makes Holly an endearing and likable character.  There are times when reading, we wish to make her see how special she really is.  Then, we realize: that is life, and often opportunities are missed when we are busy trying to figure it all out.

Hang On is a story of loss, courage, hope, and learning to love one another for the person they are, rather than what is wished to be.  Although Holly is later diagnosed as having depression and Borderline Personality Disorder, she could have just as easily been suffering from the neurosis of life.  Many of the ways she handled situations were relatable to nearly anyone who is trying to figure out who they are and what to do when new situations are presented.

Gavin has given us a complex story that is so much more than a love story between two people.  Rather, it is a love story among oneself.  The ability to understand and allow oneself to be happy is the building block to letting others in as well.  In a narrative that flows through the pages, Hang On is a story about life, and all its intricacies, that will stay with you long after the covers have been closed.  This is a story about not denying the impact a singular voice can possess.

ABOUT:

At 15, Cathy Quinn is an intelligent misfit living in 1980s Dublin. As the book opens she discovers that her charming older brother Stevie, who’s gay, is falling in love with the one boy in school whom she likes. Over her last two years of school, Cathy struggles with her dysfunctional family, coming to terms with her powerful attraction to her best friend Jeanette, and leaving Ireland. The Leaving is a realistic, yet lyrical, look at adolescence and first love.

REVIEW:

Ms. West recently contacted me with interest in reviewing my book, “Are You Sitting Down?.” I just happened to click on the link in her email signature and discovered her book, “The Leaving.” The description above immediately had my full attention, so I offered to trade reviews with Ms. West by reading her book. And I’m so glad I did.

It’s not often that I have the privilege of reading such truth and sadness in a novel like “The Leaving.” I’m not easily entertained by books that are often labeled “gay fiction.” Though some of my favorite authors who have written similar books may focus on gay characters or gay storylines, I wouldn’t even label “The Leaving” in such a manner. I would, however, put Ms. West in the same high regard with which I favor authors like Andrew Holleran, Paul Russell, David Leavitt, and we musn’t forget the brilliant Patricia Nell Warren.

In “The Leaving,” Cathy is a young teenager just a few years away from taking her final tests (nicknamed The Leaving which quickly becomes a metaphor for Cathy’s life) to complete high school. She’s at that odd age and time where identity for a teen is everything. She’s book smart, a bit heavy, doesn’t like to wear make-up, and has just taken an interest in boys through a small crush she has on a classmate named Ron.

Unfortunately for her, Ron is gay and is more interested in Cathy’s brother, Stevie. The book starts with Cathy living out her crush vicariously through Stevie’s relationship with Ron. At times, the writing is sad but through Cathy, West tells a heartfelt poignant story that will take you back to your own high school teenage awkwardness right away, reminding us that it is an uncomfortable place to be. But Cathy does not require the reader’s sympathy:

Stevie was saying I thought more than he did. That was true. I did think about things, and as a result I was continually depressed. I was a confirmed pessimist, and rather proud of it.

The story moves along as Cathy forms friendships with girls in her class, particularly a girl named Susie. However, Susie is coming into her own sexual awareness and despite trying to set up double dates with boys and Cathy, which Cathy finds too distressing, Cathy clings to Susie for the mere friendship Susie can provide and which Cathy desperately needs and covets, like in this scene:

As the Inter approached, she began to sit with another girl for lunch. I sat with them, although I sensed that Susie didn’t want me to. I had no one else to sit with. I felt rather desperate. What would I do when she dropped me? How could I get through two more years of school without Susie? It wasn’t, I thought to myself, that she really meant anything to me, just as I didn’t to her. But she was my mainstay. I still needed her.

In fact, throughout most of the book Cathy suffers that intrusion she bestows upon others, desperately clinging to friendships and eager to explore her sexuality despite here social ineptness. When she befriends a new outcast in school named Jeanette, it seems that Cathy has finally gained a best friend until the routine of “flowering girl gone boy crazy” falls upon Jeanette. When a bit of drunken intimacy happens between Cathy and Jeanette, Cathy accepts the fact that an sexual relationship with a man or a woman may not be her forte.

Cathy’s home life with her parents is fragile, but Stevie suffers from the anger of their father more so than Cathy. After his Leaving, Stevie’s sexuality and identity blossoms, and we still see Cathy clinging to the details of her brother’s social life for lack of her own:

It was inevitable that thoughts of Stevie and Ron would creep into my list of fantasies. I added them to my list of couples. I fictionalized their relationship, but as Stevie became less real to me the interactions that I conjured up between the two boys took on an authentic quality. I would have been surprised had I been told that they said different things to each other when alone, were less tender.

At times, I was reminded of Leavitt’s Lost Language of Cranes where we see a father forced to deal with his own closeted feelings towards men when he becomes enamored by his son Philip’s coming out. And West’s prose are just as haunting as Leavitt’s. At times Cathy only briefly tells us what she is feeling inside; the rest comes to fruition as Cathy paints a lone picture of the events of her teenage life, showing it to the reader but hiding the details of how she really feels underneath the vivid colors of the drama.

The cast of characters here at times reminded me of those from The Glass Menagerie written by playwright Tennessee Williams. They are stubborn and tragic, but upon revealing themselves on such a high emotional level, we can’t help but embrace them and find slivers of our own past in the storms that befall them. We relate to them. I certainly did to Cathy, finding myself at times in a room full of people but feeling so alone in the world. Like Williams, West still clings to the magic although her characters might have given up. Like in this line from Cathy:

I had often wondered whether people’s eyes could actually shine, or look sympathetic or loving, or whether it was a trick of the light.

The writing is simple, but at times, that is what we need as a reader. West has given you the bare essence of a story and left it unconvoluted with trite details that often clutter a page. She’s even left her protagonist exposed at times, bare and naked, alone and angry at the world, but unable to change it.

By the time I had reached the end, I could have probably spent another 100 pages with Cathy as she reaches for yet another journey after high school with another new and interesting, but tragic, acquaintance. But like Cathy says in this quote, all journeys do have an end:

Pushing the darkness and the suffering away, Jeanette was able to burn with a brightness which certainly attracted me. I circled around her, getting closer and closer to the center. That was the exciting part. But what would I find when I reached the core, where the heat should radiate most intensely? All I knew when I was Jeanette’s friend was that I was on a journey, and that, like most journeys, it would end. I felt pretty confident that it would end well, which is a dry way of saying that I was sure sooner or later we would come together, merge in some way, as lovers perhaps, but even if not we would be forever inseparable. It was a romantic notion, yes; I simply could not imagine anything ever dividing us.

And I cannot imagine my life now without having experienced this beautiful novel. Despite the plea in all of us to grow up, wishing our young lives away unbeknownst to what awaits us, I promise you will not want the journey The Leaving takes you on to ever end.

Have you ever wanted to be a super hero? What if your beloved comic book super hero suddenly took control of your body?

That’s exactly what happens to our lead character, a young boy named Kevin, in Eric Quinn Knowles’ Boltman. When his hero is killed off, Kevin believes that Boltman’s persona is sent back to earth to inhabit Kevin’s body.

An inner struggle ensues, but it’s not the dark super hero storyline we grew up on where a rich man is dealing with his past and his dark side while becoming some deep hidden personality to fight crime at night.  Boltman and Kevin literally struggle against one another for control of Kevin’s body.

To give in and finally become Boltman and fulfill his destiny, Kevin believes he must go to Hollywood and rescue Boltman’s sidekick, Ampere, after Kevin can’t convince his best friend to be his sidekick instead. Here, Kevin…I mean Boltman must battle Tommie Boy and the Church of the Mind in order to ultimately save himself and mankind.

I admit the book took some time to warm up to.  I was also confused at first on what audience this book is intended for.  Its cover leads you to believe it’s probably for young teens of comic book reading age.  Not so.  This book is very adult, and more for the comic book loving parents who want to relive their comic superhero glory days.

The book really picks up when the setting turns to Hollywood.  This is where Knowles humor and writing really shine.  He’s captured a lot of the stereotypical cliches of Hollywood personalities  perfectly and really used them to his advantage.

Knowles also takes a lot of the classic comic book hero traits and story lines and turns them upside down, but has certainly included them to pay homage to the characters and heroes we all grew up on. Those looking for something new and different, or those who refuse to let their inner superhero loving child grow up, will certainly enjoy Boltman.

Slave by V.S. Williams is probably not a book I would have picked on my own, even at its attractive price of  99 cents on the Kindle.  In fact, I could not even find it in a random search on Amazon just by its title which is unfortunate. (You can find it using the title and author or the ASIN#.)  After a quick read of the synopsis, some may dismiss this as religious fiction, but after reading it I wouldn’t throw it into that category at all.

It is in fact, a fantasy-like love story mingling myth and reality, perhaps with religious and a bit of political undertones tossed in.  Slave is a modern telling of the seduction of Eve in the garden of Eden.  Except, our Eve is in modern day London and has no idea who she really is.  God is a blond bombshell in a hot cocktail dress, and the Devil is a black man named Slave. Slave wants Eve back, but God has other plans.  And the well know battle between good and evil is about to take place as Eve falls victim to free will.

Williams pulls you in right from the start as Slave and God are sitting in a park discussing their plans and waiting for Eve’s arrival. Religious history bores me, but as I said before, Williams’ takes her story in a completely new and refreshing direction.  Eve soon becomes the center storyline as we learn about her bleak life, her wants and desires.  Throw in some steamy and sometimes bizarre sex scenes, and a ruggedly handsome man along with an odd stray feline, and you will be hooked.

It was quite obvious that the author loved breathing life into both her story and its characters.  In fact, there is a wide array of characters here to get wrapped up in, including homeless riffraff and a few prostitutes.  At times, I couldn’t believe what I was reading and had to stop and go back and read it again.  Its a fine rant and indeed a portrait of the modern day society where we may question where God is in all of this, but we secretly know Big Brother is watching.  And there’s still a little slave in all of us.

I’ll certainly be watching for more from V.S. Williams.  If you are looking for something new, something disgusting, something sexy, and something totally different, you’ll find it all in Slave.

More Boy Than Girl
by Tony Lindsay
Penknife Press
Copyright © January 2011
ISBN: 1599970074
130 Pages
$13.95 Paperback
$9.99 Kindle

Dai Break Jones is a business woman. But the business world is a man’s world, and as the title of Tony Lindsay’s book suggests, Dai has good business sense and is gonna do just fine.

And the reader quickly discovers Dai not only has business in her blood, but she has the street smarts to succeed as well.  And she needs that  because she’s a pimp!

Told in a first person narrative of street language with a real hip hop urban feel to it, you certainly get a sense of the gritty edge of Chicago’s street life which Lindsay wanted to convey.

In fact, you have a personal tour guide in the narrator, an unlikely one at that since Dai is actually a woman discussed as a man so that she can carry out the role as a pimp, a role usually dominated by men.

Most of my exposure to beat writing came in the form of open mic nights in coffee houses where African American poetry was often conveyed in a specific dialect or street rhyme.

I think that’s why I found Lindsay’s book so fascinating to read. In fact, it’s almost impossible to describe without reading it out loud, so for the sake of my review I’ll share a few passages.  Here’s one from the first page where Dai is describing one of the girls named Daisy:

There was no denying her ability to get out there and scoop the cream that makes the dream.  But what was different about Daisey was how she saw things. The girl was weird, but weird in a positive way. The ho’e looked for the good in everything. Like when it was raining, I would be pissed cause wasn’t no tricks on the strip and my money was low. The chick would say some shit like, ‘well the rain is good for the farmers, and if they get a good crop we pay less for food, so it will all work out.’

or this bit where Dai describes her father and his women:

My daddy loves to go out stepping on Thursday night. He dresses to the nines: beaver hats, tailor-made suites, ‘gators, the whole thing. He matches from head to toe. And each week he took a different woman out stepping, but that all changed after Cheryl moved in. Now it’s only him and her on Thursday nights, and she dresses just as sharp as him. She looks like nobody’s maid on Thursday nights.

This is a book where you really have to throw rules out the window when it comes to grammar and language.  So, it may not be a book for everyone when it comes to style. However, Lindsay’s style is very true and honest to his story and to his protagonist, Dai.  It feels very natural and reads that way too.

Adult themes involving sex are discussed so tread lightly, although some parts will definitely have you laughing out loud and not believing what you just read.  But if you are looking for a quick read that’s very different and definitely outside the box, then I highly recommend this read!

Cole Alpaugh’s book, The Bear in a Muddy Tutu, immediately had my full attention as it began with the story of Buddy Wayne Hooduk, an odd character of sorts who has just abandoned his needy mother and is intent on convincing people that he is God. With stolen guidebook in hand, How To Become a Cult Leader in 50 Easy Steps, Buddy sets out to find his flock. Odd circumstances cause Buddy to take charge of a run-down traveling circus where an oddball loser like Buddy doesn’t seem so out of place.

It is here in the book that the reader is introduced to a variety of characters and you quickly learn that this book just isn’t about Buddy. In fact, pretty soon Buddy is out of the center circus ring and we find ourselves following the story lines of several other more interesting characters from a drunken ranger obsessed with killing bugs to a lonely reporter who has lost his daughter thanks to his ex-wife running away with the little girl.

And since you are following a circus, there’s all sorts of Midway characters and Side Show freaks coming and going from the storyline that, while not the center of the plot, are just as alluring.  A sexy contortionist, a man who has survived lightning strikes a dozen times, the flat man, and the human cannonball to name a few.

My favorite character had to be Gracie the Dancing Bear – an old toothless bear in a pink tutu who becomes separated from the circus during a bizarre accident. Alpaugh treats Gracie’s point of view no differently than when he is writing about the other characters. It’s as if this is a story he’s engagingly told out loud for years possibly to his children. In fact, Gracie becomes a living metaphor for a story Lennon Bagg, the reporter, used to tell to his daughter Morgan at bedtime each night about a bear who wanted a circus magician to turn her into a bird.

Although the reader’s attention is focused on Buddy and whether or not he can convince the circus that he is indeed God and whether or not they will build a altar to him, the underlying focus of the book will take you by surprise. It is in fact the story of Lennon and his daughter. The author bares his soul as we witness the desperate loneliness of Lennon who has been searching for Morgan for over a year.

And then we are treated to chapters told from Morgan’s point of view as she is stowed away in Bermuda after her mother told her Daddy was dead. Obsessed with birds and convinced her father has turned into one, Morgan becomes the punchline of her classmates’ jokes as she searches the island and talks to birds about her father. And sometimes the birds talk back!

I was a third of the way through the book and still had no idea where the sotry was taking me. Buddy and the circus attempt to set up permanent residence on an old island, while Lennon finds Gracie and tries to reunite her with the circus. And yet, by the last page, the reader is treated to an ending that is as satisfying as cold lemonade and cotton candy.

Alpaugh pens a world of fascinating characters, not to mention their bizarre unforgettable names, reminding us that it is our individuality and uniqueness that makes each of us special in our own way. If we look past our differences, we can see people for who they really are and we can appreciate the little things that make each of us tick.

The fate of each character plays on our hearts as Alpaugh takes us deeper and deeper into each persona. I felt like I knew these characters inside and out, and while the story might lack action at times, the author pushes the story forward with a multitude of point-of-views. If you are looking for a “big top” read with lots of heart and laughs, and characters you can sit down with to listen to their story for a spell, magic, whimsy, and dancing bears, then look no further than Cole Alpaugh’s The Bear in a Muddy Tutu.

Six Clicks Away
By Bonnie Rozanski
Copyright © 2010
200 pages
$2.99 at Kindle

A fictional parallel to Facebook called MyFace links the geographically diverse lives in Bonnie Rozanski’s Six Clicks Away. The action begins at Xavier College in New Jersey with the lovely and superficial Rachel who is obsessed with accumulating as many MyFace friends as possible. She reluctantly teams up with Jeremy—an arrogant but bright nerd she can’t stand—for a Sociology class assignment inspired by Stanley Milgram’s Six Degrees of Separation theory. Thick-skinned Jeremy adores Rachel and puts up with her verbal abuse. He provides the technical expertise needed to meet her two goals: her personal one of acquiring the most friends in the world, and her academic one of discovering how many connections it takes to connect to one in particular, the Dalai Lama.

A simple chain letter approach proves to work well. In fact, too well as it becomes difficult for Rachel to manually keep up with all the responses. So Jeremy automates the inviting and accepting of friends on Rachel’s account by hacking into MyFace. Then he finds a way to make the accounts Rachel’s invitations reach automatically accept and spread the electronic word. Now Rachel can simply watch the numbers increase as her project ensnares the other characters whose lives make up this story.

The first of these is Julia, a writer from Toronto overwhelmed by the frustrations of dealing with the business side of her vocation. Rachel’s quest connects her to Kevin, a man she had a fling with a long time ago. A downsized Microsoft manager struggling financially, Kevin is dealing with a collection agency. Fortunately for him, the agent he’s dealing with, Antara Jamakhandi from Bangalore. Fortunately for him, Antara’s easy to fend off. She has too much sympathy for her clients, particularly Kevin. They become MyFace friends. And at the risk of losing her precious job, she decides to help Kevin. Through MyFace again, she reaches her cousin, Raj, in New York City, who is a whiz at rearranging mortgages, as well as being a renowned Bollywood producer.

Each chapter is narrated in close third-person by each of the above characters and several others; the story collects characters as one might collect friends on a social network site. Unfortunately the personal dramas of the characters—and the author has a knack for creating subtly engaging ones—get bogged down by background exposition rather than elevated by action. Considering the superficiality of social networking sites, that may have been unavoidable, even intentional.

One irritant is the inadvertent centering of text at the end of chapters, especially on page 72. It’s possible the problem was with the pdf file I was given; nevertheless I considered stopping reading more than once because of it. I also didn’t care for the left justification of the text.

Still, the story has promise and how it exposes the impact of social networking, collection agencies, the mortgage crisis, tossing fish at Pike’s Place Market, among other things, is often poignant. I just wish more had been done to tighten the prose and give it a higher degree of sophistication to match. For example:

She asked how the writing had been going, and Julia told her it was good. Then Rose asked about that old boyfriend she had contacted. Somehow, that woman seemed to be able to get into her mind. Was she that transparent? In any case, one thing led to another, and Julia ended up showing her the whole back-and-
forth exchange she had saved on her own wall.

Rose didn’t say anything, just looking at her in the way she did: kindly and wise. And, of course, that made it worse, and Julia ended up blubbering on her shoulder about how she had never loved anyone else and she never would love anyone else, and what an idiot she had been to let him go, what a stupid young idiot.

For me, such a passage would read better if dramatized, if it is important, or cut, if not. It just seems glossed over and distant, especially when compared to other parts of the book.

Such as the Raj story, which is by far the most compelling and dramatically developed. A scene with his daughter stands out. She is about to perform in her school’s Bollywood-style production. Her director had requested the well-known Raj to give the introduction, ideally along with a famous Bollywood actor, Hrithik Rashan. But that’s changed now that Raj is on house arrest for mortgage fraud.

“I am coming tonight, you know.”

“I don’t want you there.”

“Nevertheless, I am coming, whether you want me there or not, and I am giving the introduction to your show.”

“You are uninvited,” she said, wrenching herself free from his grasp. “Mr. Rangarajan doesn’t want you to give the introduction. All he ever wanted anyway was Hrithik Rashan.”

It hurt him that she said those things, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him.

“Nevertheless,” he replied. “I wouldn’t miss your starring role.”

“What is the matter with you?” Tanvi shouted, her face a mask of misery.

“You’re still living in your dream world, where you’re rich and respected and your family is perfect in every way. Well, not everyone can be what you want them to be. I’m no good. I can’t sing. Mr. Rangarajan said so before everyone. He said he never would have chosen me, if it weren’t for your connections.”

That statement, even though he had suspected it, hurt him more than everything she had said before. He wondered, maybe for the first time, what Tanvi herself had been going through these few weeks. Kids in high school can be so cruel.

“I’d like to beat his head in for that statement. He’s just getting back at me. You are very talented, Tanvi. A beautiful dancer and actress.”

She shook her head, one tear slowly trickling down her face.

“But will you let me come?” he pressed, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She didn’t shrug it off.

“I want to come, Tanvi,” he said, squeezing her shoulder.

She sighed, nodding toward the cuff on his leg. “But what about that?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve made arrangements. It’s not as if I’m leaving the country.”

”Okay, come.” She turned to go, then turned back. “But Mr. Rangarajan won’t let you give the introduction. Please don’t make a scene, Papa.”

It was the first time in three weeks that she had called him Papa. He wanted only to enfold her into his arms and tell her everything would be all right, but he no longer had that in his power. Instead he caressed her cheek. “No one will even know that I am there,” he said.

The plotting had no discernible pattern or consistency. The Rachel-Jeremy story has prominence at first but then falls to the background for long stretches. As does the Julia-Kevin-Antara thread while Raj’s story—the strongest of the bunch—takes over. We do return to Rachel-Jeremy for the rewards and consequences of their Facebook manipulations. But the ending involving Julia seemed a rushed add-on, relying on too many coincidences in too brief a period. There were several inconsistencies in the story too. Such as when computer-illiterate Rachel compares Kevin’s altering Facebook code to changing Linux. Or when at one point Kevin reads a wall note from Julia, yet earlier, in her chapter, he had responded and cut her off.

In the end, I couldn’t escape the sense that Six Clicks Away is an amalgamation of several distinct story ideas at various stages of development reshaped to fit the social networking theme. Then again, if this is intended to be a metaphor for Facebook, a literalized pastiche of the social networking experience, its looseness and casualness might have merit.

When I first started reading Lance Carbuncle’s Grundish and Askew, I thought about those funny antacid commercials where the chicken wing or the pasta fights back by slapping the person in the face.  I felt like this book was slapping me in the face because I couldn’t believe what I was reading at times.

Grundish and Askew are best friends – two backwoods hillbilly redneck trailer trash good ole boys.  One works as a pizza delivery boy and the other works as one of those sad individuals who stands outside a JiffyLube wearing a sign to try to drum up business. They live in a trailer park, surrounded by pedophiles and sex offenders, with one lunged Aunt Turleen who bums smokes from nappy talking dogs in her dreams.

Grundish has spent time behind bars and he’s not going back.  No matter what happens, he’s made Askew promise to kill him before he ever gets arrested again. And he’s willing to do anything to avoid getting caught, including wearing a prosthetic penis filled with Aunt Turleen’s clean urine just so he can pass the drug tests that his sex-crazed parole officer subjects him to.

And when he’s not bumping uglies with her, he’s carefully breaking into empty houses and renting lots of pay-per-view porn or stealing frozen meat goods. Then he leaves his calling card – a toilet bowl filled with an unflushed bowel movement.

And this book is filled with much more toilet humor than that.  The first 100 pages or so had me rolling.  I wanted to laugh out loud, but also felt the need to blush at what I was reading.  Carbuncle goes there and beyond. As Grundish and Askew decide to get back at the “F—ers” who piss them off, they end up killing one of the sex offenders in their trailer park after they attack their neighbors with frozen hot dogs ninja style.

This sends them on the run where they hide out in another vacant house before deciding where to go next.  Their ultimate dream is to end up in Mexico to make some money so they can open a whore house out in international waters and grow weed.

Unfortunately, for me, this is where the book started to level off. The raunchy humor I’d been guiltily enjoying in the first third of the book tapers off and the book becomes more of a “Thelma and Louise” meets “Natural Born Killers” kind of read. Or it  could be that I’d just become so desensitized to their bad boy behavior in the beginning that by the time they attacked another “F—er” I wasn’t shocked at all. I was just ready for the story to move forward.

Carbuncle’s writing is flawless, and includes made-up words, mispronunciations, and even bizarre footnotes that are jokes within themselves that the author is having at his own expense.  It’s obvious he had a good time writing this and wanted the reader to experience the same.  And indeed I did.

There are some classic scenes in here that definitely make this book one of a kind.  I just wish the content had not lost steam half way through. Otherwise, be prepared to laugh, be prepared to turn red faced, and prepare to root for the underdogs Grundish and Askew!

Grundish and Askew won the 2010 Reader Views: Reviewers Choice Award.  Visit the author online at www.lancecarbuncle.com to learn more (and to look at his balls)!

Cypress Lake has been labeled a “coming of age” story, and I can certainly see why after reading it but Joe Basara digs just a bit deeper into the psyche of his lead character, Owen Cloud, to attempt to give his reader much more than that.

Owen is unattractive, “homely,” and his life needs direction. He returns to Florida in his twenties at the urging of a childhood friend.  He gets a job as an orderly in a hospital, but is still at a loss in life.

I remember being like that in my early twenties.  I still lacked maturity, but then again I thought I was too mature for my age, especially now when I look back at myself and compare that to twenty-year olds I see these days. I was in college and also working full time, and was completely and utterly afraid of what was going to happen tomorrow.  And then love walked in the door.

For Owen, he thinks women also find him unattractive, but as the old saying goes, beauty is only skin deep. Just when Owen isn’t looking for love, it finds him. Owen had a girlfriend before Florida whose been wanting to reconnect with him. He meets Marianne, a nurse at the hospital, whose lost her husband due to an accident and now looking for some companionship.

But Owen finds himself falling in love with a different nurse named Tina, before he finally decides to try blind dating with a girl named Tammy. It’s the classic tale of bachelorhood of a twenty-something, right?

Basara builds on Owen as a character using hundreds of movie quotes, TV show scenes, musical lyrics, actors and actresses, commercial jingles, and more.  As Owen tries to be nostalgic, he constantly relates the event to something he’s remembered from a television show, song, or movie.  I found this to be just a bit too distracting from the relationships Owen has with the female characters and with other minor characters in the story as well.

Another problem is his age.  Would someone in their twenties really be reminded of a scene from Hee Haw or Wizard of Oz when something memorable happens that jolts our brain?  Perhaps, but I found all the historical references to just be getting in the way.  For a character to be so lost and have such low self esteem, has he had that much life experience to recall? Probably not.

Therefore, this should be more of a nostalgic piece rather than “coming of age,” but our character would be too young for that.  Otherwise, he’s an encyclopedia of boob tube and musical knowledge!  Here’s just one example of the multiple pop culture references Owen often relates to in a single scene:

But…the yellow rose of Texas or the red rose of Robert Burns, weren’t they both the same inside the heart?  Because a rose is a rose is a rose, as Gertrude Stein said, and by any other name would smell as sweet, as Shakespeare’s Juliet said.

“Oh Scarlet, Scarlet,” he sighed, calling to the girl in the Churchill Downs Mansion, his mind drifting off into Gone with the Wind.  And then he sighed the Southern Belle’s reply, “Oh, Red, Red…”

Such were the riches of King Solo Man’s Mind. Because this life, so sad and dreary, needed a little Beverly Soprano coloring now and then, just to liven it up a little,  especially with happiness being so far, far away.

I was impressed at Mr. Basara’s talent at squeezing so many cultural references into a piece, but I think perhaps that would have made for a better nonfiction historical book with emphasis on that.  Here, it only steals the spotlight that should be on his central character, Owen, whose already vying hard for attention.

Other than that, this book is practically flawless.  No major editing issues.  The story is nicely paced.  And there is a good story in here outside of all the “remember when’s” and “that reminds me of the time…”  Basara definitely has a book, and a lead character, he should be proud of.