Are you wishing for a wry, sly book about the human comedy? Wish granted.
Outsized egos take a shellacking in nine crafty, contemporary tales about vanity and the titular “idiots” who succumb to it.
In each of the first five stories, a fairy appears, hovering just inches above the urban German turf where, in succession, five hapless narcissists—an ad executive determined to salvage his firm; a young film director frightened of his own brilliance; a mother jealous of her famous son; a hack writer disgusted by his commercial success; an alcoholic know-it-all desperate for recognition—bemoan their plights and are in turn offered the granting of one wish. Although the fairies vary from tale to tale (several are cranky, another is a newbie recently promoted from shooting-star service), they all stick to the rules: one wish only, no wishing for more than one wish, while wishes for immortality, health, money and love are verboten. It’s a thankless job. Each grantee quibbles with the rules (denied immortality, the director asks for at least 200 years), dismisses the fairies’ suggestions (insulted by the offer of a dishwasher, the mother says she ran a left-wing record store for 28 years and washed dishes by hand all her life), misunderstands what the fairies are offering (the alcoholic asks for four Alka-Seltzers) and inevitably wishes for something that yields un-wished-for consequences. The conceit works, but the four closing stories are even better. In these, German novelist Arjouni (Magic Hoffman, 2000, etc.) shifts his creative talents and humor into overdrive, with results as smooth as an S-Class Mercedes on the Autobahn, as when a wannabe novelist, by recounting his plot, winds up lulling to sleep a bank robber who’s holding him hostage at gunpoint; or when a famous director pays a hitchhiker to pose as his long-lost writer-friend at a party, where, when another guest inquires what genre he writes, the imposter responds, “Holy Scripture.”
Are you wishing for a wry, sly book about the human comedy? Wish granted.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-59051-157-3
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2005
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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