Category Archives: Comedy

September 29, 2023 · 12:01 am

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge by Spencer Quinn

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Maybe sex made more sense than marriage—or even dating—in old age. Wasn’t courtship for the young?

Meet me at Café des Artistes, eighteen hundred.”
“Is that the address?”
He blew out an irritated-sounding breath. “Six,” he said. “Six o’clock this evening. Your hotel—the Royale, I assume—can give you directions.”
“How will I know you?”
“I’ll wear a billboard with a question mark.”
Click.

Loretta Plansky, widowed, retired, pretty fair tennis player, (particularly considering her new hip, only nine-months in) 71, Florida resident, financially comfortable, wakes one morning to discover that she has been pretty much cleaned out. Bank account, retirement fund, investments, the whole kit and caboodle, well, mostly. It seems that the ten grand she had given to her grandson, Will, overnight went instead to cybercriminals. The real Will had not asked her for anything. (Of course, I am totally in favor of folks sending cash to people named Will, but that’s just me. Any amount gratefully accepted.). The FBI special agent in charge holds out virtually no hope of her ever seeing her lost funds restored, but her number two, about to leave the bureau for a private gig, gives Mrs P one intriguing bit of intel. Unwilling to let this crime stand, she heads out to darkest Romania hoping to do…what? who knows? something.

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Spencer Quinn (pen name for Peter Abrahams) – image from Macmillan – photo by Diana Gray

Mrs P is an intrepid investigator, with an unusual skill set. She manages to talk to a relevant person at the US embassy in Bucharest, and persists in following up the few clues that float down her way.

The story is told in parallel lanes. Mrs P is the primary of course, but we are also let in on the doings on the other side. Dinu is a teenager with a gift for and enthusiastic interest in American English. He collects colloquialisms and contemporary American slang the way a video-game player collects tokens to gain power. Of course, the power Dinu is amassing causes real harm. His scary uncle has paid to train him, and is now employing Dinu in making calls to American grandparents, pretending to be their stressed-out grandson, in need of emergency cash in order to get out of jail, or whatever. He has a computer whiz bff, Romeo, another teen, who is also employed by the scary uncle. Generally, they do not seem all that morally concerned about what they are doing, and the pay is good.

So, Mrs P makes her way to the relevant town, and stumbles her way through to the sort of cozy resolution one might expect. Along the way there are mysterious passageways, dark deeds, life-threatening adventures, a car chase, a valuable jewel, and some very unpleasant characters. So, I guess this is less of a cozy mystery and more of a cozy adventure tale.

It is a very good-natured story, and Mrs P is a fun lead, a very engaging sort, a good egg, who has been done dirt, but who would prefer to take matters into her own hands rather than leave her fate to the dubious efforts of others. She displays considerable courage, the creativity of an experienced field agent, and a wily serenity in stressful circumstances. One lovely element was her continued connection to her late husband, Norm. No magical realism here, just a pining for the person to whom she had been the closest for most of her life, as she shares thoughts and concerns with his memory, wondering at his theoretical advice. She is also a very kind person, amenable to applying the resources she has…well, had…to helping out her kids, despite that not necessarily being the wisest choice.

You will get a taste of Romania, a very small taste. Most entertaining among these is a hotel festooned with portraits of Bela Lugosi.

There is enough humor in here to generate several actual LOLs, which is always welcome

BUT, as things were winding up to the big finish, there were multiple eye-roller events that took me out of the book. Like running a marathon then tripping over a stick in the road, then another, then another. I did finish the book, and it was a fun read, for the most part. But I found myself saying “Really?” more than once or twice. And that damaged my overall feeling. Bottom line is that you have to be willing to overlook some egregious reliance on coincidence and deus-ex-machina trickery to make the story work out. I expect I am a bit towards the higher end in my sensitivity to such things. But if you are more forgiving, netter at leaping past roadway impediments, then do it, jump in. You will be rewarded with a fun, light read, featuring a very engaging lead. Mrs P will be glad of the company, and so will you.

Review posted – 09/29/23

Publication date – 7/25/23

I received an ARE of Mrs Plansky’s Revenge from Tor Publishing in return for a fair review and the password to my bank account. Hey, now wait a goldarned minute! Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.

This review is cross-posted on Goodreads. Stop by and say Hi!

=======================================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages

Profile

Spencer Quinn is the pen name for Peter Abrahams, the Edgar-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Chet and Bernie mystery series, as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series for middle-grade readers. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana and dog Pearl.

Interviews
—–The Big Thrill – Up Close: Spencer Quinn by Karen Hugg – all on dog books
—–Famous Writing Routines – Interview with Peter Abrahams: “I love what I do. Love seems to clear a lot of paths.” – nothing particular to this book. More on his methodology.

Songs/Music
—–The Byrds – Eight Miles High – appears in Chapter 13
—–The Chimes – I’m in the Mood for Love – Chapter 20

Items of Interest
—–Excerpt – Chapter One
—–Federal Trade Commission – Consumer AdvicePhone Scams
—–Tor/Forge Blog – Inspiration and Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge by Spencer Quinn! by Ariana Carpenter

Five or six years ago, my dad got a phone call. At the time he was in his early nineties. He died two weeks short of his 97th birthday and was in excellent mental shape and very good physical shape until the end. I want to emphasize that mental part. He was a very smart guy: quick, sharp, clear-headed. Back to the call.
Caller: Hey, Grandpa!
My dad: Jake?
Caller: Yeah, Grandpa, it’s me, Jake.
Cut To: My dad’s wife, noticing he’s putting on his jacket.
Wife: Ed? Where are you going?
My dad: To the bank. Jake’s in trouble and he needs some money.
At that point it was decided to call Jake (living in another city), and he had not called my dad and wasn’t in any trouble. “Jake” never got a penny. But I was amazed that someone like my dad could have been fooled.
And then I got back to writing the Chet and Bernie novel I was working on and thought no more about the two Jakes. Then one day on a bike ride the idea for Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge—indeed the whole set-up, including the Romanian part—came to me in one fell swoop.

Swamp Story by Dave Barry

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Pinky arrived punctually and silently in a highly modified Tesla equipped with bulletproof glass, a sound system that could liquefy granite and a front seat customized to accommodate Pinky’s body, which weighed a tad over 430 pounds and measured nearly the same horizontally as vertically. Pinky, whose real name was Bob Kearful, had once been a standout nose tackle at the University of Florida and probably would have gone to the NFL had it not been for a crucial play in the Florida-Georgia game during which he bit off the little finger of a Georgia offensive guard and refused to spit it out. This conduct was deemed so unsportsmanlike that Pinky was permanently banned from the game, though it also earned him his nickname and the undying affection of Gator fans.

Florida Man re-appears after years away as a novelist, having written an incredibly funny book! Police bring him in for questioning.

Ok, let’s play Sunshine State Bingo

Rednecks with weapons, minimal brain cells, and dreams of gold – of course

Foreign-born gangsters with access to tech, and no access to decency – I am shocked, shocked

A crooked lawyer with expensive tastes and a serious gambling habit – no, never

A sleazy politician with White House ambitions and zero scruples – In Florida? Surely you jest.

An uber-vain stud-muffin with an uncontrtollable desire to doff his shirt for the camera, and zero desire to care for or protect his wife and child – a vanishing breed, I expect. Probably the last of his kind.

A group of internet-star wannabees who, while in various states of intoxication from alcohol and diverse other substances, concoct a plot to fake a monster sighting to boost business – oh, that never happens

A former news anchor reduced to covering things like the annual Florida Python challenge – not a happy camper. There were fewer opportunities in the time before blogs became de rigeur for the unwillingly unemployed media crowd

A nice guy who wants to be with the girl – Stop right there. Who let the normie in? Well, the male normie.

Snakes – Yep, and snakes were intended to have been even more of a presence

Originally this book was going to be much snakier. Then I had breakfast with Carl [Hiaasen], and he had just finished writing “Squeeze Me.”
I said, what’s it about? And he said, it’s in Palm Beach and there are pythons. I said, are there a lot of pythons in it? And he said yes.
So in “Swamp Story” the missing Confederate gold treasure buried in the Everglades sort of replaced the pythons in the plot. – from the Tampa Bay Times interview

Gators – wouldn’t be a Florida novel without ‘em

A wild boar comfort pet – Wait, what?

Fictitious swamp monsters – you betcha

Buried Treasure – as noted above. Bet you didn’t have that one.

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Dave Barry – image from Literary Hub

We meet Slater as he is struggling to videotape the mother of his child, and the child, as they are attacked by a giant python. But hold on, will ya, while we replace the camera batteries. It’ll only be a sec. The man lives for footage, preferably footage that includes his impressive torso but footage of his gf and baby being devoured by a giant reptile would also be pretty cool, don’t ya think?

He wore a filthy pair of cut-off University of Florida sweatpants, nothing else. Yet he still looked better than 99.999 percent of all human males who had ever walked the Earth. He was strikingly handsome in a classic Tom Cruise—in–his–prime way—thick, jet-black hair; brilliant green eyes; high cheekbones; square jaw. He was tall, a foot taller than Cruise, and his body, despite the fact that he never seemed to do anything for it, was spectacular—lean, muscular and sculpted, the body of an elite athlete in peak condition.

Jesse knows she is in a dead-end relationship, but had not thought that would mean literally dead. As fortune would have it, though, during one of her walks with Willa, her nursing baby girl, fathered unfortunately by a narcissist who wants to be known as Glades Man, she stumbles across a buried treasure. Thank you, Jesus, a ticket out of the swamp version of bum-fu#$-nowhere. But how to go about getting the bars somewhere safe, and figuring out how to cash them in?

Who inspired Slater?

There are a lot of Slater-like guys in Miami. There are large sections, a whole community of people who are all about looks, about appearance. Looks are very important in this town.
So he’s just the distilled essence of a million guys walking around admiring their own beauty
That’s the essence of Slater — to the people who are into reality TV, nothing is as important to them as this fake thing, reality TV, and now TikTok as well. They never experience anything for itself, it’s always, how can I use this to get myself on the internet, on people’s phones?
– from the Tampa Bay Times interview

The Bortle brothers, owners of Bortle Brothers Bait & Beer, make their primary living selling weed, beer being in short supply, somehow, and the bait being maybe 50% dead. The loo could use a cleaning this millennium, too. They decide to make a video of a fake monster to draw the curious and idiotic, both groups known to spend money on things like Monster Man T-shirts. These guys sure know how to dream big. If you film it, they will come. And, of course, it happens. Their video goes viral, and the earth tilts on its axis, dumping the most loosely connected to the planet to the Everglades.

Most of your books have been nonfiction, and your most recent novel for adults, “Insane City,” was published 10 years ago. What moved you to write another novel?
I do mostly nonfiction, but every now and then I switch to fiction. I always have a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head
A while ago I wrote this book, a nonfiction book, called “Best. State. Ever.” To research it I went to all these tourist attractions, but not the big ones, the little roadside attractions. I went to this one, the Skunk Ape museum, and it just sort of stuck in my mind.
I was walking around out in the Everglades with this guy, Dave Shealey. He’s the guy who saw the Skunk Ape and is selling the T-shirts.
I just kept thinking about this whole society existing out in the Everglades with this mythical monster out there. It just kept bouncing around in my mind as something you could write a story about.
– from the Tampa Bay Times interview

Now, about that gold. Everyone who is aware of it wants it, and that consists of mostly terrible people.

Dave Barry weaves all these upstanding individuals together, or maybe just tosses them into a blender. You know they will all come together for a rousing climax. Barry does not disappoint.

Will the Interior Secretary manage a successful launch of the Florida Python Challenge? Hmmm, I wonder. Where will the gold end up? Will Jesse escape with Willa to some sort of sane life? Will Slater become famous for his bod? Will the Bait & Beer make a killing selling tourist crap? Will sundry extreme criminals come to bad ends?

If you are looking for anything serious here, you are in the wrong swamp. If, however, you enjoy laughing until it hurts, this might just be the place for you. I lost count of the “LOL” notes in my Word file.

Slip on your bathing suit, slather on bug repellant, a LOT of bug repellant, take a few steps forward. The swamp water is cool and inviting. But if you see eyes looking back at you from the surface, you might want to step back up onto the the land, waaaay back, and make sure to look up, in case something large and hungry might be about to drop down on you from a Cypress tree.

Whether you take the opportunity to read Swamp Story near a beach, a pool, a comfy chair at home or in your favorite swamp, Dave Barry is one Florida Man you will want to spend some time with this summer.

Ken Bortle was standing in the parking lot behind the Gallo Grande, waiting next to an overflowing dumpster baking in the late-afternoon Miami sun, emitting near-visible stench rays.

Review posted – 7/14/23

Publication date – 05/02/23

I received an ARE of Swamp Story from Simon & Schuster in return for a fair review, and a lead on some prime Florida real estate. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.

This review is cross-posted on Goodreads. Stop by and say Hi!

=======================================EXTRA STUFF

I have been to the Everglades, but not quite the neck of those woods Barry describes. The wild creatures I spotted included gators, but along with that, many less alarming critters. These include a totally adorable Big Cypress Fox Squirrel, anhingas, blue, green, and tricolored herons, (somehow missed the polka-dot variation) pelicans, et al. Did not see any snakes. Of course, this was in 2012, so there may have been a much lesser presence then, Trump was still living on 5th Avenue and DeSantis had yet to be elected. I posted some shots from that trip on Flickr, if anyone is interested.

Profile – from Simon & Shchuster
Dave Barry is the author of more bestsellers than you can count on two hands, [unless you have very unusual hands] including Lessons from Lucy, Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys, Dave Barry Turns Forty, and Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up. A wildly popular syndicated columnist best known for his booger jokes, Barry won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He lives in Miami.

Links to Barry’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages, and his blog

His FB page is clearly only lightly maintained

Interviews
—–The Poisoned Pen- An Interview with Dave Barry by Michael Barson – thin
—–Tampa Bay Times – Dave Barry talks about his new novel, ‘Swamp Story’ by Colette Bancroft
—–Saturday Evening Post – 3 Questions for Dave Barry by Jeanne Wolf

Items of Interest from the author
—–ScubaBoard.com – Dave Barry on Diving
—–Wanderings – Dave Barry Learned All This in 50 Years

Items of Interest
—–The Florida Python Challenge
—–University of South Florida – A python invasion has exploded out of the Everglades
—–Bored Panda – 60 Times Florida Man Did Something So Crazy We Had To Read The Headings Twice – Better strap yourself in if you do not want to be rolling on the floor

Songs
—– The Beachboys – Be True to your School – Chapter 20
—–The Beachboys – Don’t Worry Baby – great song, but a bit painful to watch – Chapter 20
—–Grease – Summer Nights – Chapter 46
—–Grease Live – Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee – Chapter 46

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

book cover I will be writing, have been writing, or have already written (depending on when you see this. Time is strange here on GR) a review of Welcome to Night Vale. But until/when/after I do (or until you return from whatever time stream you are in to read this, or move ahead into another one) I can offer one definite bit of advice. Listen to a few of the Night Vale podcasts. If they float your boat, or, lacking water, elevate you at least several inches off the ground for a period of about twenty minutes, you will love this book. Proceed directly to the beginning of the actual review.

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====================================NOT ENCHANTED?
If you find the podcasts uninteresting, really, did you touch one of the pink flamingos? Something is wrong. OK, Ok, I know there are some folks who will not be enchanted by the Night Vale podcasts. This book is probably not for you. But if you go to the local library, you are sure to find something more to your liking. Hurry, go now. You might want to stop by and visit the dog park on your way. Be sure to say hi to the friendly figures in the hoods. Y’all take care now, and return directly to the section titled “Not Enchanted?”

=======================================ACTUAL REVIEW

It is a friendly desert community, where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.

Whew! I’m so glad we got rid of those people.

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A Cecil Baldwin sandwich with the authors in the role of bread

In July, 2013, Welcome to Night Vale became the most downloaded podcast on iTunes. It all began in 2012, a twice-a-month podcast that is Lake Wobegon by way of David Lynch, Lovecraft, told in the form of a community radio newscast.

It was started completely as a hobby,” Fink begins, when asked about how the podcast has gotten to this point. “Y’know, my friends and I, it was just something we enjoyed doing. Our entire goal, when we started it, was that maybe someday there’d be a few people who weren’t friends or family listening to it. We certainly had no goals beyond that, other than to enjoy making it.” – from interview in The Arcade

It is read by Cecil Baldwin who shares a first name with his fictional manifestation, Cecil Palmer, the radio broadcaster. The podcast is weird, creepy fun, rich with non-sequiturs and reasons to be afraid, many reasons. Cecil’s steady tones make it seem practically normal.

I’ve always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. And also, to a lesser extent fascinated by the Southwest desert. Fascinating things probably happen there on a regular basis. So I came up with this idea of a town in that desert where all conspiracy theories were real. – From Jackie Lyden’s 2013 NPR interview with the authors

And whether it was a result of a desire for expression in a new medium, an action taken in compliance with an order from one of the hooded figures in the dog park, or an angel in old woman Josie’s house, Fink and Craynor have committed their world to print.

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We, as readers, seem to have a soft spot for this genre. I don’t know if there is a name for the type that this fits into, storytelling-wise, but if there is a short term for “A small town where something is…off,” this book would fit in there quite nicely. (I know it is far from wonderful, but I hereby nominate the word “Oddsville” for the genre, capital of the great state of Unease. All in favor?) There is a rich tradition of such writing. Rod Serling was a fan of this trope in his Twilight Zone writing (Where is Everybody? , Monsters are Due on Maple Street, People Are Alike All Over). Stephen King has made a career in them, Derry, Castle Rock, Jerusalem’s Lot…ad infinitum. TV has mined this heavy lode as well. In addition to Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, X-files, and god-knows how many more, there are some more recent shows that indulge, including Wayward Pines, the town of Hope in The Leftovers, Haven, Eureka, Royston Vasey from The League of Gentlemen. Small towns, it would appear, are in our literary, and certainly in our entertainment DNA. So the something-off-small-town of Night Vale should feel familiar. Of course this one is a bit more unusual than your typical Oddsville offering, being rather flamboyant in its strangeness, to the point of silliness at times.

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As for the story, Jackie Fierro has been 19 for many, many years (like some of us?). She runs the town pawn shop, and will accept pretty much anything. A mysterious man in a tan jacket, gives her a slip of paper with “KING CITY” written on it. Every time she tries to get rid of the thing, or even to put it down, it keeps coming back to her, which, as you might imagine, is alarming. So she goes in search of tan-jacket man but no one in town can seem to recall seeing him. Hmmm.

Diane Crayton is a single mom to a shape-shifting fifteen-year-old son (what parent of a teenager cannot relate?). Of late she has been seeing Josh’s long absent Y-chromosome source all over town. Josh has been showing an interest in tracking down his father, despite Diane’s attempts to dissuade him. Diane and Jackie’s quests, and Josh’s too, lead them in a direction that is as obvious as an MC Escher roadmap. Does an endpoint even exist?

Diane and Jackie are certainly likeable sorts, and their tale is intriguing, with plenty of challenges to face and mysteries to solve, but the real deal with Welcome to Night Vale consists of three things, location, location, location. Fink and Cranor are trying to re-create in book form the delightfully weird experience of their podcast world. The story seems secondary. The atmosphere is rich with intense strangeness. I found most of it delightful, a dry delivery masking outrageousness. Sometimes they try too hard, generating eye-rolling that has been made mandatory by the City Council. You really, really do not want to fight city hall here, particularly on days when human sacrifice is on the calendar. But it is good, weird fun most of the time. The authors must have had some bad experiences with librarians in their youth. Literary comeuppance is had.

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The locale includes, among other things, roads that lead nowhere, mysterious lights floating above the town, black helicopters, yes those black helicopters, a faceless old woman who lives, unseen, in someone’s house, a sentient house, a diner waitress who struggles with fruit bearing tree branches growing from her body, car salesmen who offer howlingly good deals, a woman who keeps reliving her life in a perpetual loop, a sentient patch of haze, angels named Erika, people who exist but when you try to recall them, you can’t. Wait, what was I talking about? I just bet that if someone opens a nightclub in NV, they name it Studio 51. The list goes on, plenty to keep your brain engaged and your funny bone tickled.

When you partake of the Night Vale Kool Aid, you will be joining a horde that has sprung up in impressive numbers. There are fan sites galore, with artwork, fan fiction, and a host of ways in which what remains of your consciousness can be further shaved and fed to the glow-cloud. I have included some links to those in the usual place.

You have never read anything like this before. Unless, of course you are in a time loop and are living your life over and over and over. This means you, Sheila. Yes, I know you have read this book many times, all for the first time. OK, happy? But for the rest of us…

Fink and Cranor’s sense of humor is definitely not for everyone. But if you check your kitchen cabinets and find that your supply of weird is running a little low, I suggest heading over to Night Vale. They are running a special and you won’t want to miss out.

PS – more volumes are planned. Be sure to keep up with your local community newscast for further details.

Review Posted – 11/6/15

Published – 10/20/15

=======================================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s, well to Night Vale’s main, Twitter and FB pages

You can download individual podcasts here

Interviews
—–Early Influences – The Arcade
——Stephen Colbert appearance, including a reading of the Community Calendar
—–Jackie Lyden’s NPR interview with the authors – Welcome to Night Vale: Watch out for the tarantulas

Some fan sites
—–The Shape from Grove Park
—–Fuck Yeah Night Vale
—–A Softer Night Vale

A Night Vale Wiki
The actual Wikipedia entry for Night Vale

A fun vid from the Idea Channel that links Night Vale to HP Lovecraft – How Does Night Vale Confront Us With the Unknown?

The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg by Betsy Robinson

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People believe anything that’s in writing

A word to the wise to scoundrels everywhere, and there are plenty on display in Betsy Robinson’s satiric whirlwind.

So you think you’ve got it bad? You might consider the case of one Zelda McFigg. She had a pretty tough go of it at school. The hand she was dealt must have been delivered from the bottom of the deck by a particularly hostile card sharp. Despite having a pretty decent brain, Zelda got stuck with short, fat, and malodorous when stressed. She is also given to bouts of dramatic blushing. Her classmates made matters worse by labeling her Stinky Pinky. Doesn’t make for an educational venue conducive to learning, or anything for that matter except exceeding anyone’s RDA for misery. Not that home was any great shakes either. Mom was an alcoholic, as likely to drown in her own vomit as she was to burn down their abode with a feckless cohabitation of Marlboros and painting materials. Dad was pretty much out of the scene anyway.

Needing to make at least some use of her hooky day, 14-year-old Zelda decides to take a chance and goes to Manhattan to visit a beat poet-musician (Mike the poet) whose work she admires. Turns out he could use some help. Turns out she is just the girl for the job. Turns out, when she never quite makes it home, that this is the beginning of a thirty-five year odyssey for Zelda.

Betsy Robinson – from her Twitter page

It is not a particularly easy road she travels. There are hazards aplenty and it seems that she has provided more than her share of them. She carries with her the twin DNA of schlemiel and schlemazel. Oy! Her journey takes to her such exotic experiences as a free-the-test-animals raid on a hospital lab, a less than stellar audition for Annie, working props in a New England summer theater, and burning down her landlady’s house in an ill-fated attempt to rescue her pet. She does settle down after her initial wanderings, in the lovely tundra of Vermont, having left a trail of carnage in her wake. Part-time hall monitor at the Moose Country Middle School, she is pulled into action when a ninety-year-old English teacher catches a bad case of dead and an immediate fill-in is needed. It looks like she has gotten off the road this time. She continues with teaching The Call of the Wild, and picks a pet, the overweight, smelly, and socially tormented Donny Sherman, a local Native American kid. It looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship

There are some uncomfortable elements here and some wonderful ones. The apparent fondness of New England teachers for their under-age students is hardly unique, but feels dodgy nonetheless. Zelda’s regard for the law is like that of a passenger on a bus noting a billboard. It might be worth some consideration, but not for too long. On the other hand, there are some seriously LOL nuggets in Zelda’s path

I soon found myself doing props for a small summer theatre in New England run by a man who, had he not been a Jewish homosexual hippie named Rainbow, I might have mistaken for Adolph Hitler.

She also comes across a pet parrot that speaks in the voice of its owner’s late husband, to raucous effect. Satirical objects whiz past with satisfying frequency, as Robinson goes not only for some low-hanging fruit like shamanism, Tony Robbins, Hollywood faddism and Oprah, but also directs some attention to the darker elements of life, things like police overreaction to a school hostage situation that isn’t, being backstabbed by those you thought were close to you, being kicked out of your home by the rich and feckless, and the scandal ridden hell that is small town life in Vermont. I did cackle out loud from time to time while reading this on the subway, causing some fellow riders to glance furtively, wondering whether I was receiving instructions from the dog god in my head, as they tried to shift their bodies and belongings out of potential harm’s way.

The writing life comes under scrutiny, and it is not a pretty image, heavily laden as it is with ghosts, plagiarists, thieves, absurd expectations, lifetimes of labor for non-existent rewards, familiar features for most who put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboards. Teaching life is also a subject clearly close to Ms Robinson’s heart. The details of the school experience she scewers will seem familiar to most, and are, at times, darkly hilarious.

The peripatetic Ms McFigg seems reasonably pure of heart, a road worrier more than a road warrior, although she does engage in righteous battle from time to time, and is easy to root for as she stumbles through her trials. There is plenty of emotion in this life, both joy at this or that success, and sadness at this or that betrayal. We can certainly all relate when Zelda goes looking for help in getting from point A to point B, and finds the proffered assistance less than helpful. Most of us can probably relate to her inability to lose weight, but can admire her insistence on carrying on as best she can. I was most reminded of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, another saga of a square peg in a round world.

Betsy Robinson has had an interesting career sojourn herself. In her site, she notes that she

was raised an atheist and went on to make her living as a writer and editor of spiritual subject matter: as managing editor of Spirituality & Health magazine for six and a half years and as an editor of spiritual psychology and books about shamans and traditional healers

so she certainly brings an appreciation of irony to her writing. She has worked as an actress in nearly-on-Broadway, somewhat-close-to-Broadway and just-down-the-block-from Broadway, had scripts produced in Iowa, Amherst, LA and darkest cable TV, and has authored many article and several books, so brings that experience to bear when writing of the publishing and theater worlds through which Zelda stumbles.

Betsy Robinson has written an entertaining romp, both raucous and endearing, rich with wit and observation. It is funny and foul, dark, but lightly, a bit disturbing, but only slightly. There’s much to enjoy in this book (it’s not big), The Last Will and Testament of Zelda McFigg. It’s all written down. You can believe it.

Review posted – 9/25/15

Publication date – 9/13/14

P.S. – The book was provided by the author in return for an honest review. And I plan to return it real soon. It is impressive how good I have become at removing cat vomit from paper, (soooo much experience) and the singe marks, well, they’re not all that obvious, the downside of reading while standing and preparing supper, then putting the book the tiniest bit too close to the burner. The watermarks may be a bit dodgier. We do enjoy reading while on the throne and parking the book du jour on the sink edge while getting up. Problem is that our large tabby, Scout, is the founding, and so far as we can tell, only member of the Occupy Sink movement, and has been known, on rare occasions, to lay claim to her territory by Divine Right, by removing from said territory any invading objects. Thankfully the volume was spared a watery grave in the nick of time, but not before taking on just a few wee drops. I am sure there are useful instructions on the internet that will allow me to remove the offending stain and…um…fragrance. But don’t worry. I guarantee I will be getting that volume back to the author any day now.