Quick HItters

So between episodes of Storage Wars and finishing the entire series of Breaking Bad, I managed to read a book or two over the past several months. Below are incredibly brief summaries of plots, opinions and ratings. I apologize in advance for their brevity, but I'm a very busy man. Here are the highlights.

Shogun - James Clavell

This epic 1,200 page novel is set in ancient Japan as the country faces colonization and the spread of Catholicism by the Spanish and Dutch in the early 16th century. The protagonist, John Blackthorne, and his ship and crew are detained by Japanese soldiers, or samurai as they are commonly referred to in Japan. The book follows Blackthrone from his total contempt of the Japanese and their culture, to embracing the way of the samurai and quickly climbing the ranks and becoming a trusted confidant to Toranaga, an ambitious Diamyo set on earning the title of Shogon. The book is literally as exciting as that synopsis.

Spies, wars, prostitution, betrayal, karate, explosions, earthquakes, hawks, castles and swords were not enough to interest me in this never-ending "saga". Not sure why I put saga in quotes, but it felt right.

This much celebrated novel took me months to finish because I dreaded reading and it made me physically angry thinking about have to complete just one chapter. I agreed to read Shogon after a drunken argument with a buddy over the best book I'd ever read. He literally pleaded like a little girl until I agreed to read this stupid book because he would not shut up about its awesomeness. I urge you with the same intensity now, do not read this book. Just don't do it.

Rating: 2.5 Clubbed Baby Seals (A generous rating as I did enjoy the historical aspect)

The Ask - Sam Lypsite

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. An easy read that kept me interested. It's a modern day Catcher in the Rye, if Holden Caufield was grown up with a shitty job and a family he didn't particularly care for. Although the word phony is not peppered throughout the book, the protagonist is quite judgmental and definitely insecure. In keeping with my brevity theme, onto the rating.

Rating: 2 Beaver Pelt Hats

Four Seasons: The Story of A Business Philosophy - Isadore Sharpe

Drinking the Kool-aid, climbing the ladder. Unless you work for a hotel or plan on opening one, probably more suitable books on the shelf that would interest you.

Rating: 5 Beaver Pelt Hats if my manager is reading this. 1.5 Beaver Pelts Hats if I'm being honest

White Noise - Don Delillo

What can I say? Obviously a great read by a great American novelist. I'm scared as shit of dying, and I certainly don't welcome any Airborne Toxic Events into my life. Knowing the majority of the members in this exclusive club have read this book, let me pose this question: Did you want to punch that kid Heinrich in the mouth ever? I did. My only negative comment about this book is that I built it up so much in my mind and it didn't exceed those expectations. But, that's not Delillo's fault. Underworld is still my favorite Delillo novel, that's that.

Rating: 3.75 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

I mistakenly picked up this book based on a recommendation from a friend. However, in my inebriated state I wrote down The Book Thief instead of Book of Thieves. I have to admit I didn't hate The Book Thief, but found several parts droll and cliche.

Set in Nazi Germany in the late 30's and early 40's the book begins at a disadvantage. Elie Weisel and Anne Frank pretty much have this category dominated. However, the book's saving grace is that it was narrated by the Grim Reaper, Death himself. I enjoyed the perspective of looking at the holocaust through the eyes of death, but the book lagged at times with the details of a war-torn Germany and the Holocaust which are well documented in several works, both in the entertainment and academic worlds.

The story focuses on a young girl with a veracious appetite for reading. As books were burned by Nazis and citizens alike in compliance with Hitler's wacky mandates, our protagonist takes to breaking into a local house known for its expansive library. I could give more insight into the plot details, but honestly, I just don't feel like it. You've seen Schlindler's List, Schlindler's List is better.

I would recommend this book to a high school student looking for a quick read on vacation, but other than the unique narration aspect, I was fairly neutral with my feelings on The Book Thief. At certain points I found myself enjoying the story immensely. Other times I would skip to the last page to see how much more was left before I could begin my next reading endeavor. So with that in mind, you know what's coming...

Rating: Whale Oil Lamp

White Teeth - Zadie Smith

*See Barrister Lichtenauer's previous post. I concur.

Rating: 1 Beaver Pelt Hat (rating based on ability to brag at cocktail and dinner parties)

You Shall Know Our Velocity - David Eggers

After you saw the name of the author, you probably assumed that this book was a great read and that I absolutely loved it. Well, you'd be correct to assume that. In classic GBCoA fashion, I'm going to throw some bullet points your way and you can decipher whether or not this book is for you.

• Two childhood friends deal with their grief after the loss of their best friend (he died, he didn't become best friends with other guys or anything like that)
  
• They plan a trip around the world to random and obscure places
• They encounter several setbacks; some hilarious, some dangerous, some unsettling
  
• Said setbacks lead to coming to terms with their friend's death and discovering some truths about themselves

Intrigued? You should be. Do yourself a favor and go to your local book dispensary and pick up a copy of this book. You don't need to read it immediately or anything, but you'll be glad once you do.

Rating: 4 Beaver Pelt Hats

All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren

If you're into 1930's political corruption in the South and haven't read this book, then you are a giant fool, my friend. Loosely based on Louisiana's 40th Governor Huey "Kingfish" Long, All the King's Men reads like an honors American lit teacher's wet dream. Warren's prose perfectly captures the dialogue and vocabulary of the region and era and tells the tale of a small-time corrupt politician's rise to becoming a prominent Governor. The story is told through the eyes of Jack Burden, a history major who is befriended by politician Willie Stark through a series of backroom dealings.

The plot moves briskly and much is accomplished in a rather short novel. My favorite character is Willie Stark's driver, Sugar Boy, given the moniker because of his habit of sucking on sugar cubes. He also drives like a madman and no one seems to mind. Worth a read for sure and a plot twist or two to keep you on your toes. If you do decide to pick it up, imagine Willie Stark as Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazard. You'll thank me for the comparison.

Rating: 2.25 Beaver Pelt Hats

And with that, I will call it a night. I have about a dozen other books that I will provide feedback on as soon as I feel motivated, so don't hold your breaths. Until then, fill your snifter, light your cigar and crack the spine of a freshly purchased paperback (Scott, I know will refuse to do this. Shaw, I know you buy your books used. That previous statement was mainly meant for Zach and I).

Barrister Wells

Books I've Read Recently That I'm Going To Tell You About In A Not-So-Brief Way

People say summer is for reading, which I don't get. It's freaking hot out. And being that I'm a quintessential WASP, my reading experience is enhanced by the lilting breezes of a 75-degree day. Which means I don't read much in the summer. Which means the following reviews detail books read in a 2-3 week blitz here in the more lovely and more temperate fall - or whatever it is we Missourians are experiencing currently. So grab a shawl and enjoy.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Here's what happens when you get a $660,000 advance as a debut author: People read your book en masse because they've heard of it. Jon Franzen blurbs an inert one-liner replete with the ever-fashionable elipses on your cover. Because it was marketed well. Because the publisher needed it to be marketed well. Because you got a $660,000 advance. Consider me one of these people. Cause see, from my personal reading experience, I've found that very few authors can talk sports. Maybe it's because the utter saturation of daily sports-related material is so ingrained into my psyche that to watch the literary scion give it a go is, well, fingernails on things that make awful sounds. Or maybe it's because I played both baseball and basketball pretty competitively, and even the highest-paid Harbach's usually fail on an Updikean Rabbit-ish scale. (Unless of course you're David Foster Wallace, and you reinvent sports journalism with a Roger Federer piece just after you publish maybe the greatest sports novel not considered a sports novel of all time.) But I'm one of the people that fell to the throngs of reviews and ringing endorsements and decided to read a literary novel about baseball, despite obvious hesitations.

Well, let's just say that everyone was right.

Harbach's prose is effortless, much in the way this sentence and that initial clause was effortless, being that it might be the most common, purposely vague praise of book critics. I say this because his prose is effortless, effortless in a way that didn't change the game, that will never feature the word 'avant', that doesn't befriend the wandering hipster brow, but rather, one that draws no attention to itself and, in a surprising turn to the traditional, steps into the shadows and lets the story have its turn in the spotlight. So I won't focus on his writing, which is both brave and endearing in this most cynical of times. I'll focus on the story, blessedly.

Henry Skrimshander, Guert Affenlight, Chef Spirodocus, Affenlight's daughter, Pella: these are some of the Pynchonian characters inhabiting Westish College, a mid-Wisconsin liberal arts school that evokes the most romantic, searingly sober aspects of adolescence for each one of us. There's the green grass of a ball diamond in the morning, the dreaming hoi polloi sprawled out across a mid-afternoon quad, the gritty integrity of cafeteria cooks, the aristocratic invisibility of school presidents, the homey grunge of dorm rooms, and the Infinite Jest-ian duel with routine and the crushingly ordinary. Oh, and there's a gay love affair, a preternaturally gifted shortstop with an inexplicable case of the yips, a five-star chef that slaves away in a university setting serving helpings of life lessons and hash with each spoonful, and a Division III title race that's as compelling and spare as anything I've read in fiction in a long time.

Harbach's book has evoked names such as DFW and Franzen when searching for comparisons, and both fit the bill for specific reasons. Franzen's style is throwback, and famously so, landing him on the front cover of Time because, well, he's a white male, and he writes in a way most people are used to reading. (There are other reasons, like, he's a phenomenal storyteller, his characters are the most realized of any author working today, etc. But you get the idea.) Harbach's style is similar. His characters are full. His story is filling. And he evokes DFW because of his Hal Incandenza-like character, Henry, who basically mirrors Hal's downfall.

Hal begins to suck at tennis because he can't smoke pot anymore. The spiral is irreversible and even goes as far as rendering him completely incomprehensible and outwardly incontinent, a complete 180 from his formerly erudite, OED-memorized self. Henry, without giving too much away, basically forgets how to throw the ball to first, a la Chuck Knoblach, and transforms from a surefire first-round MLB draft pick to a lowly, journeyman ballplayer. In fact, there's a line in A of F that, had I had the time to comb the tomb that is IJ, is eerily similar to one penned by DFW, one that describes Henry's realization that, for the first time in his life, he's happy when practice is cancelled, just as Hal, for the first time in his life, is happy when tennis is cancelled due to snow.

Bottom line is, you could do worse than get almost 3/4 of a million dollars before selling a single copy of your first book, then get universally praised and compared to who many consider the two greatest writers of the last 20 years. And I'm not here to take anything away from that. I loved every second of the book. Harbach's ability to describe baseball is fluid, but doesn't do any bar-raising of its own, which might be a win in this case. His story is, quite simply, engrossing and fun. With The Art of Fielding, we all win.

3.95 Beaver Pelt Hats

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

It's probably no secret to those of you who read this blog, which would be you fellow members of the GBCOA, that CW is my favorite living writer. And it's really not even close. His penchant to change it up every time he comes out with a new book, whether it be a racial allegory about dueling elevator inspectors, a modern-day folk tale/journalism diatribe about/not about John Henry, a love letter to a city that everyone loves to write love letters to, or a paradox of language and nomenclature held together by the renaming of a town, speaks volumes of his gifts and imagination as a writer. And yet, his sentences are gorgeous. There is no writer working today who chooses words more carefully, has a wider array of words to choose from, and constructs sentences with such variance and wit.

This is all to say that I was hesitant to read his latest offering, Sag Harbor, as I'd heard it was basically an autobiography, and man do I hate autobiographies. My obvious admiration for CW and subsequent trepidation about SH should illustrate just how colored my hatred of books-about-me-told-by-me really is. And yet. I was wrong, of course.

What a hilarious, loquacious, subversive read. If you follow CW on Twitter, then you'll know exactly what this book is like. It's deprecating in the best way, brutally honest and yet hopeful for no evidential reason. Basically, CW was the son to a doctor and a lawyer, grew up in midtown Manhattan, and summered in Sag Harbor, the part of the Hamptons where the African-American population settled some decades back. In other words, he was rich, and he was the real-life version of Theo Huxtable. The book chronicles one summer in Sag Harbor as he vacillates between epiphany and depression, finally ending up where we all end up eventually: in our own heads, wondering if anything's ever really changed.

Rather than coming-of-age, this bildungsroman manages to wobble and prod his way halfway across the tightrope of teenage angst without really making it across. We leave our young Colson, ahem, Benji, up in the air, in a figurative no-man's-land circa mid-1980's aristocrat New York, left to fend for himself in a world without too many real obstacles other than the ones created in that OT-punching dome of his. It's brilliant. It's exactly what life is without making too much up for selling-a-book's sake. Oh, and be on the lookout for the section about New Coke. One of the best passages in any book of the past year or two.

So here's to the Rum Raisin Imbeciles, and those that fight the good fight to ward them off and do something a little more substantive with our lives. We're with you, Colson. And from now on, I will be, too. I apologize for doubting.

3 Beaver Pelt Hats (based solely on Colson Whitehead scale, where JH Days is a 5, Intuitionist a 4)

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

In this spare, despairing account of a family in post-Apartheid South Africa, Coetzee managers to tell a story that needs to be told without putting a single thing into the story that doesn't need to be there. The result is sheer and biting. And at times, even a bit cynical. It also won the Booker Prize in 1999. So, some people agree with me.

Professor David Laurie, our sad sack of a protagonist, has an affair with one of his students and is driven out of his university and into the arms of his estranged lesbian daughter, Lucy, who just happens to live on a farm in rural South Africa adjacent a black farmer in the midst of buying up all the land in the area. Frosty relationships ensue, are borne out, and crumble around one very pivotal and scathing scene I won't ruin, and eventually one academic disgrace is curtained by two very private, very personal disgraces that taint the lifeline of the rest of the story. Safe to say this book is pretty much a downer. From beginning to end. But where new beginnings were signaled to a country post a revolution, it becomes quite clear that, in a strong and vindictive way, nothing has changed at all.

Maybe it's one person's disgrace, maybe it's a community's, maybe it's a country's. Or maybe it's just the way things are, and it's part of an evolution of ideas and pluralities that coexist to ram certain civilities down our throats while ignoring others entirely. Either way, it's Coetzee at his most political and emotional, in a moving and haunting story of a country where politics and emotion have supposedly changed everything - without, of course, changing the very way we live with each other each day.

2 Beaver Pelt Hats

Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders

This was a re-read for me, maybe my third time through, but figured I'd post about it in the spirit of full disclosure. Saunders is the man, a very strange and sordid man whose stories shake you out of the ordinary. If you're an aspiring writer and you find yourself falling into conventional storytelling cliche and trope, read these stories. Or anything by him, really. It's always refreshing and invigorating.

3 Beaver Pelt Hats

A Gate At the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

What can you say about Lorrie Moore? Her sentences are sublime, her word choice impecable. But her post-9/11 novel misses the mark in almost every other way. It tries to be sentimental, but ends up in nebulous territories that simmer in between uncomfortable and weird. And trust me, I'm cool with weird. Just ask Saunders. But there's just something about this tale of racial tension (not really hardly any racial tension here, just set against a 9/11 backdrop to kind of catapult it into some sort of racial thing) that leaves me feeling, well, fine about the world.

Really the only offensive thing that happens here is the main character is cursed at as she babysits a child of a different race one day and a car drives by hurling racial epithets her way. Oh no! What world is this?! Omar Little better take cover in this world Moore has audaciously created, #sarcasmfont.

There's no coming of age, there's no revelations at the end, although both are sought after and attempted to exhaustion. This just isn't an interesting or redeeming read. There aren't many post-9/11 novels out there that are any good, but this isn't even one of those that can be considered passable. It's vanilla. And Lorrie Moore is so much better than vanilla.

3 Clubbed Baby Seals

(Not So) Quick Reviews - Barrister Shaw Edition

Thought I’d follow Barrister Lichtenauer’s lead here and do a little summarizing of my own. Here’s the latest news from the Shaw bookshelf.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
When I got this book for Christmas, I was not optimistic. Reading about the Dust Bowl sounded about as exciting as the actual Dust Bowl itself, only about 7 years shorter. I was wrong. The Worst Hard Time is a National Book Award winner, and deservedly so. Egan does a masterful job describing the historical factors that lead up to this environmental disaster as well as making you feel the menace of these roiling, static-charged storms. More importantly, he brings the people who endured the Dust Bowl to life in a compelling manner. The Dust Bowl dragged on for nearly a decade through the worst depression our country has known. These survivors had the steel to last through it, whether it was stubbornness to refuse giving up the only land they had any hope of owning, or the enduring dwindling hope that the drought and dust storms would end any day now, that a return to prosperity was just around the corner. We shouldn’t forget that as we face our own economic troubles the fact that big problems rarely get solved with a quick fix. At least we have the internet, tv, video games and a lot of other distractions to pass the time. Beats sitting in a dugout hovel listening to centipedes chew up dirt.
4.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Devil In The White City by Erik Larson
Another historical book that almost reads like a novel. So many have praised this book that I don’t have much more to add other than this: They’re right, read it.
3.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
I’m a sucker for a twisty psychological thriller/mystery. Big bonus points if it has some humor thrown in. I read this book years ago and recently bought a used copy to see if it held up. It does. I’ve read most of Matt Ruff’s other work, and this is a good one to start with to test the water. It’s a fast read and will surely entertain if you tolerate the more fantastical end of the literary spectrum. So Lichtenauer, there’s probably no reason for you to bother.
3.25 Beaver Pelt Hats

Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker
The more I think back on this book, the less I like it. It’s about a man (Joe) whose face was disfigured with acid by his father and abandoned, grew up in an orphanage, then was adopted by a prominent local politician who raised him like a son. Except that by “son” I mean a permanent bodyguard and driver. The politician gets killed in a kidnapping exchange/return gone bad and Joe swears to get to the bottom of who done it. And maybe get a little romance on the way. SPOILER: Joe gets his revenge on the thugs who killed his adopted dad and gets the girl, even gets to find a little peace in getting to confront his “real” father who mutilated him. But it turns out that adopted dad was actually his real dad, who was carrying on an affair with Joe’s biological mother when he was a beat cop, establishing him as a cockhole long before he became a politician. And this was not the last of his affairs over the years, some part of the story involves the murder of a illegal immigrant who was his latest squeeze. Anyway, the biker dude dating Joe’s biological mom is let to believe Joe is his son, but when the truth comes out, he dumps acid on baby Joe’s face and takes off. His real dad finds out about this and does nothing. Kid Joe goes to the orphanage for YEARS before he gets the balls to come back and adopt him and what does he do? He raises him like an indentured servant, training him to drive him around the city, usually at high speeds (he clearly enjoys the feeling of running away from things), and learning martial arts so he can whoop some ass when needed in defense of his adopted (real) dad. This guy that Joe loves with all devotion because he rescued him from the horrible reality of his existence actually caused the situation with his cowardice and bad judgment. I don’t get why Joe wasn’t angrier about it.
3 Clubbed Baby Seals

What The Dead Know by Laura Lippman
I remember the major story points but forgot a lot of the details. The setup is a woman with no real ID is passing through a town when her car goes off the road. Authorities take her in and she tries to bargain for release by claiming she knows what happened to a pair of teenage sisters who disappeared from the town mall 20+ years ago. The rest of the book is spent trying to figure out who she is, where she’s from and how she knows – if she knows – what happened to those girls. It’s an ok mystery, good for passing the time on a flight or at the beach, but by no means a must-read.
1 Beaver Pelt Hat

Generation Kill by Evan Wright
This was the next official GBCOA selection before Wells’ horrible, horrible book killed the book club (although, I’ll admit, I was probably the least bothered by it out of the four of us). I watched the HBO miniseries and could not recommend it higher. The book is both more personal and down-to-earth than the miniseries, but the miniseries wins in the quotable/entertaining dialogue category. Both are worthy of your attention. Wright is a clear and capable writer, and the book gives a good perspective on how some of the toughest, deadliest men in our nation’s armed forces live and fight together. It also takes the military leaders to task for seemingly not knowing how to use them best in combat.
Book: 3.75 Beaver Pelt Hats, Miniseries: 4.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
I like Lehane as a writer, and he clearly did a lot of research for this book. It’s set in late1910’s Boston, although other locations are used. The story focuses on the Coughlin family – an established Irish clan with ties to Boston’s power players in government, public service and business. The main character, Danny, is the eldest son who becomes the leader of the police union fighting for a decent wage and working conditions against the wishes and advice of his father, who is one of the higher-ups in the old-school police power structure. The other main protagonist is Luther Laurence, a black ballplayer on the run from a bloody past in Tulsa who winds up becoming the Coughlin’s new houseman. Lehane tackles the issues of the era – racism, the screwing over of the working man by the few moneyed people in power, and marginalizing of women. It all comes to a head in the Boston Police Strike of 1919 when all hell broke loose. Also, Babe Ruth pops in here and there as a celebrity cameo whose purpose seems to be to get you to go “Wow, racism was pretty rampant and sucky” or “Boy, those early union leaders were fighting an uphill battle.” And this is really the whole message of the book: society sucked if you weren’t a rich white man. Fortunately, a few brave people sacrificed and suffered to make things better for society as a whole, but the battle to get there was not pretty. Good for a historical fiction novel even if it clocks in a bit long at 700+ pages. In the end though, I still prefer Lehane’s mystery offerings.
1.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Gentlemen Book Reader Quick Reviews: Barrister Lichtenauer

For those of our loyal followers out there, we assure you that we have, in fact, been reading. Reading our collective asses off. As a club, we decided that we could cover more ground by all reading the shit out of a wide range of literature. So. With that being said. We present the first installment of Quick Reviews – this is a summation of the books that we can remember reading since that horrible, horrible, horrible book called The Slide.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole: Fat, disgusting asshole hates modern society. Complains constantly. You kind of start to like him. Book is funny – though not “gut-splittingly hilarious” or whatever the jacket says. I think he wins in the end? 3 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen: Super charming serial killer murders a ton of people in Chicago and elsewhere. Super determined architect builds a marvel. 4 Beaver Pelt Hats

Old School by Tobias Wolff: A lot of kids want to be writers. Ayn Rand is a bitch. 3.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Everything is Illuminated by Johnathon Safran Foer: A lot of Yiddish. Guy finds out about his family. Gets boring/tedious in the middle. Ending is incredible. 3 Beaver Pelt Hats

White Teeth by Zadie Smith: First two chapters – incredible. Rest of book - meh. 1 Beaver Pelt Hat

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please by Raymond Carver: Short stories by the short story master. Some good. Some really, really good. Some bad. 2 Beaver Pelt Hats

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers: Eggers wins. 4 Beaver Pelt Hats

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess: Street toughs terrorize people. Written in a made-up slang language. I approve. (Please note: The version I read had the original ending that was left out of it's American release, I like it better without it.) 3 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon: It's obvious that Thomas Pynchon is a lot smarter than me. 2 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: An up-close look at a family. Probably some of the best writing/character development this Barrister has ever read. One of those books that is so good it pisses you off. However, I do wish they would've left off the final "wrap-up" chapter, but I'll get over it. 4.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

White Noise by Don Delillo: Any book that coins the phrase "Airborne Toxic Event" is a winner in my book. An interesting look at consumerism, death and Hitler Studies. 4 Beaver Pelt Hats

Please note: I’m reflecting on a lot of these books and time usually mellows out my opinion. I specifically remember not liking White Teeth very much at all when I finished. Also, there may be others but I can’t remember them.

We Have A New Worst: The Slide by Kyle Beachy

How was that for a catchy title? Sorry. This officially was the book that killed the Gentlemen Bookreader’s Club of America. Its hard to even catalogue how horrible this book was. Let me just go through a few of the things that happened:

• A self-conscious ghost
• A wine-making cult
• Yakuza gangsters
• St. Louis Cardinal references every… five…. pages…
• Statutory Rape
• Assault
• More references to the Cardinals
• The worst, clunkiest, least believable dialogue ever written
• Seriously, a ghost
• The least likable characters imaginable

And that’s all I can remember. It hurt me physically to read this book. At several points I said out loud, to myself, “you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me”.

So, I’ll try to recap the story. This pussy, Potter Mays, comes home from college and complains about his girlfriend for the whole book while delivering water and complaining about everything. He has a bunch of shit-head friends who he does drugs with and complains to. Then he gets his ass kicked for trying to teach some kid to hit a baseball (it was justified) but, unfortunately, he doesn’t die. He just complains more.

I can say quite honestly that this is the worst book I’ve read. Ever. I’m pretty sure Matt Christopher characters make more sense than this incredible turd.

The book club hated it. It’s the lowest rated of all the books. And it deserves to be there.

I almost encourage you all to read it just to experience how bad a book can be. One huge clubbed baby seal for this bad boy.

A Brief Discussion Amongst Classy Gentlemen

By Barrister Lichtenauer

It’s not often you read something and:

• Laugh out loud at the use of “dick waggling”
• Think to yourself how much better a writer is than you
• Have to take breaks because what you’re reading is unforgiving with long footnotes, several page passages with no breaks, etc…

But with Brief Interview with Hideous Men (BIWHM) late author David Foster Wallace (DFW) manages to do all that – and before page 100 to boot.

BIWHM is a series of short stories hell-bent on exploring the dark side of man. The consistent element that ties the book together is a series of “interviews” with men who know full well they’re terrible. Whether explaining the nuance required to convince a girl to let you tie her up, recounting the universe-stalling ramifications of a jerk-off fantasy or explaining how a man knew a woman would be a good wife because her body still looked good after having a baby.

DFW was not only a certifiable genius (he won the coveted MacArthuer Genius Grant) he was also certifiably crazy (committed suicide after years battling depression) – and both those sides come shining through in his stories. He has an ability to come up with dialogue so natural and original that you feel like you’re reading something that you’ve already thought. DFW then adds in a healthy mix of philosophy and logic and god knows what else.

There were, in this book, around 20 stories, so we want to highlight a few of our favorites and some of the ones we hated (because as Barrister Russell points out “DFW is incredibly on when he's on and incredibly off when he's off”).

• A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life: By far the shortest of the stories and a great way to kick it all off, “makes you think.”
• Forever Overhead: The whole thing was about a kid’s walk to the high dive – yet it was beautiful and brilliant and familiar.
• The Depressed Person: The GBCOA hated this story (Barrister Shaw especially) it was a chore with its repetition, several-page-long footnotes and lack of anything happening.
• Signifying Nothing: The dick-waggling story. A classic.
• Datum Centurio: If it was any longer than 3 pages, this book would have gotten a significantly lower rating.
• Octet: A nice exercise in self-awareness as a writing style
• Adult World (II): Literally an outline of what he planned to write… but it still worked.
• Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko: The best part, the title is probably one of the most clear sentences in this story.
• On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father Begs a Boon: A father hates his son. Wells’ self-proclaimed favorite story of all time.

The GBCOA have this book a well-earned “Bully” even though Barrister Russell admittedly hates short story collections.

Overall rating: 3.167 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: Abstained (I would’ve have skewed the results with my unnatural love of DFW’s work)
Barrister Russell: +2
Barrister Shaw: +3
Barrister Wells: +4.5

Meeting Place: The Flying Saucer. Nothing makes us feel more like hideous men then ogling waitresses wearing school-girl outfits – and yes, Hooters was too far away and no one felt like eating at a strip club.

Next Up: The Slide by Kyle Beachy

Perlman's Prose Worth Every Dollar

By Barrister Russell

Every now and then an author comes along that helps remind you why you read fiction in the first place. For the Gentlemen Bookreader's Club, Eliot Perlman was not that author. But he was darn close.

His more recent and slightly less-ambiguous offering, Three Dollars, was a story carried by it's ornate, elegant language and flowing structure interspersed with moments that caused us to set our books down and stare to the skies, letting his words bounce around in our heads until they shook free of their context, leaving only meaning. For good authors, this happens a few times throughout their novels. For Perlman, it happened at least once a chapter, blessedly.

Unlike any of our previous readings, this one was devoid of a plot (although it can be argued Roth's lack of coherence from start to finish can be counted in the same vein). But we wouldn't do that to Perlman. True to its hysterical realism roots, the story was pointedly real, prickling with imagery, characters and circumstances we all have known and hated at some point in our own experiences. Every nine years, our main character, Eddy, ran into Amanda, his first love. And each time had only three dollars to his name. This is the flat line with which the rest of the story peaks and valleys around, touching on his wife, Tanya, who's eternally working on her PhD thesis, his daughter Abby, who's wholly unnecessary to any movement of the story until the end, and his boss, Amanda's ex. As is the case with hysterical realism, plot lines take a back seat to the description of characters, scenes and their interactions with each other. Tanya's chronic depression only adds to the collected dust on her work, growing greater and less significant with each day she spends in her curtain-drawn bedroom. Abby's precocious tendencies made her a distraction, an unwanted distraction most of the time - which is the fate of most kids to most parents at that age. Until the end of course, when an entire family is brought back together around the ultimate unifier, a child. And Amanda, well, her brief appearances changed the entire landscape of a chapter, which aligns nicely with Eddy's mindset and inevitable rambling, stuttering overreactions upon seeing her.

But overall, it was a story that moved along at a steady pace and an even keel. And with an ending that was "the only way it could end," as described by Barrister Lichtenauer, we were all left full, satisfied. Although we were not all in agreeance on the magnitude of greatness of Perlman's work, we could still concede that it was well-worth the read - a unanimous beaver pelt hat approval that's given out all too infrequently here at the GBCOA.

Overall rating: 2.75 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: +3
Barrister Russell: +3.5
Barrister Shaw: +2.5
Barrister Wells: +2

Meeting Place: In accordance with Eddy's late-blooming affinity for roasted chickens and nearly vacant wallets, we convened at Cosentino's Market, the only place in town where shoppers can choose from whole chickens or smaller, less poultry-centered meals for the bargain of only three dollars.

Next Up: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace