TALES OF WHISKEY TANGO FROM MISERY TOWERS

The lives of an eclectic cast of characters collide in Missouri Towers, a dilapidated residential building in St. Louis, in Aylott’s farcical novel.

Mike Love is a struggling real estate agent who was once a “a doppelgänger for Bruce Springsteen in his mid-eighties prime.” He speaks in cringeworthy cliches (“Mike Love is the name, real estate is the game!”), a linguistic tendency unfortunately typical of the author’s stale prose. Mike procrastinates marrying his girlfriend, Gloria McKendrick, a former trapeze artist with Ringling Brothers who now teaches at a circus school. His hesitation is exacerbated by the sudden appearance of his old high-school flame, Lizzy Winslow, “a wild, manic pixie dream girl who would never be tamed.” Both Mike and Gloria live in Missouri Towers—the residents cheekily call it “Misery Towers”—a tumbledown structure that was once a coveted address. The building serves as the stage of much of this comedic novel’s action, and as the home for most of its cast, including Mike’s boss, Daris Ballic, a Bosnian immigrant who skyrocketed to entrepreneurial success by obsessively imitating Winston Churchill. The best aspect of the book is its depiction of the building itself as a microcosm of urban decadence and blight, a symbol of St. Louis as a “fatalistic northern city in perpetual decline, lodged in a southern-looking state cursed with never-ending racial problems.” Unfortunately, the prose reads like an exasperatingly long standup routine, with one corny quip succeeding the next (a real-estate agent rival of Mike’s, Julie Titsworth, doubles as a national spokeswoman for early-onset menopause). A typical example of Aylott’s tiresome brew of comedic platitude and leaden writing reads, “America is a never-ending land of opportunity. Where else could a tacky real estate tycoon become a TV star and then leader of the free world? Where else could a C-list celebrity like Kim Kardashian, with a large ass and questionable talents, make herself into a household name, and a billionaire.” The sheer quantity of jokes crammed into the narrative is much more impressive than their quality.

A manically satirical but ultimately drab novel.