Life Is Good, Day 1

Day 1 of the 10-day “my life is good” challenge. I am to post a picture that brings me joy. I’m not supposed to provide an explanation but I will anyway because how else will you know why it brings me joy?

If you are familiar with The Bloggess (Jenny Larson), you may remember her essay about the giant metal rooster she named Beyoncé, and her husband’s reaction when she brought it home.

Every time I drive past this giant metal rooster in front of a second-hand store on Highway 78 in Lilburn, I grin because I remember that essay and how hard it made me laugh.

Knock knock motherfucker.

Book review: Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward

Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Take one mystery involving marijuana-cultivating siblings in Northern California. Add two dueling authors writing alternate chapters. Throw in a headless corpse, a cat with an unnecessary backstory, a mysterious plane crash, snippy footnotes, and increasing disagreement over the direction of the plot. Mix thoroughly.

This is the recipe for Heads You Lose, a new laugh-out-loud entry in the cozy mystery shelf of your local book store.

When siblings Paul and Lacey Hansen find a corpse on their front lawn one night, their first thought involves law enforcement, but not in the sense of “Quick, call the sheriff!” Instead, their first thought is, “Quick, get rid of this body so no one finds the pot plants in the basement!” And so they trundle the corpse into the back of the pickup and dump it in a remote area of the county. Cue one verse of “The cat came back, he wouldn’t stay away…” and the corpse reappears on the lawn within another day. This time they decide to hide their cash crop and call the sheriff.

Thenceforth, our hero and heroine get pulled in multiple misdirections depending on who wrote the chapter. Authors Lisa Lutz and David Hayward write notes to each other between chapters, and footnotes in the chapters. Said notes begin in a civil enough manner, but quickly become snippy, rancorous, and even downright rude, but they’re funny as hell, especially when they begin to reference events from their past romantic relationship which apparently ended rather badly….Ms. Lutz accuses Mr. Hayward of pretentious literary aspirations and Mr. Hayward dismisses Ms. Lutz’s chapters as “Nancy Drew escapades”. New characters show up as a deus ex machina with a tidbit of necessary information. Established characters are killed off in retaliation for events in a previous chapter. And just what exactly is going on with the folks in the assisted living facility and what about that plane crash?

All these questions, including whether or not the authors can satisfactorily finish the book with sanity and plotline intact, can be resolved by setting aside a few hours and tickling your funny bone by reading this highly entertaining and original novel.

Thank you to Goodreads First Reads Program for the opportunity to read this book. It was pure delight.

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Book review: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

So, here’s the thing. I know this is supposed to be one of the seminal works of American literature, and blazingly funny to boot. And while I have no doubt Catch-22 will maintain its place in the canon regardless of anything I write, I found the whole thing quite tedious.

Perhaps that was Heller’s point: that war is tedious, that war doesn’t make sense, that the only way for a soldier to survive a war with sanity intact is to develop a sense of the absurd and act on it. But after 144 pages, I knew I didn’t care enough about Yossarian or any other character to follow the absurdity for another 300 pages.

Thus, a two-star rating simply because I didn’t care. No reflection on writing quality. Just bored with content.

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