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Woman Alone at
Night by Tamara Faith Berger Soft Skull Press $13.95 Tamara Faith Berger wants
to shock readers with her semi-pornographic novel, A Woman Alone at Night. Instead,
she merely repels them. Written in workaday prose from the first-person perspective of stripper turned amateur porn star,
A Woman Alone at Night tries to encapsulate Jewish anxiety, nihilism, rug burns
on the knees, self-loathing, and inclinations to bestiality in a little under 200 pages. What results is one of the most godforsaken
messes in recent memory. Unfortunately, the premise
is somewhat intriguing, and a more thoughtful exploration of the character’s descent could have been an interesting
look into female sexuality and self-defilement. Instead, we are left with a confused and frankly boring look at getting repeatedly
ass rammed. With all the pretensions of a literary equivalent to Leaving Las Vegas,
what we end up with is a story from Penthouse Variations without the titillation. Run away from
this book. Far away. |
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Under My Roof by Nick Mamatas. Growing up isn’t easy, especially with an oppressive mother and a terrorist father, but for Herbert Weinberg this
is life… oh, and he’s psychic. Under My Roof features young “Herb’s” journey through
a chaotic post-911 world as he builds a nuclear device with his father out of smoke detectors, and they declare their small,
sub-urban house to be a free nation, independent from the United States. Weinbergia, the first micro-state to go nuclear,
initially sparks laughter, but as more and more radicals declare their independence throughout the United States, the FBI
begins taking things seriously and tongue-in-cheek liberal hilarity ensues. Mamatas handles his comic narrative well. His characters are goofy, but the implications of the book’s events still
manage to carry enough clout to be edgy. The text is easily digestible, and the average reader should be able to blow through
it in an afternoon or two of sunbathing, but it should leave you thinking. Despite the obvious political edge of Under My Roof, the most unique, well written material is the development
of Herb and his psychic powers. Mamatas manages to write a believable yet fantastic youth who is stuck in the frustrating
position of being omniscient. There is nothing you know that he does not, a fact he makes that clear in the opening lines
of the first chapter. However, despite his seemingly limitless psychic potential, he is still handled like a child by his
overbearing mother and his enemy of the state father. Imagine a psychic version of Seth MacFarlen’s Stewie at age twelve
and you have an idea of Herb’s frustration with the world. The irony of course, is that, in the end, his psychic powers
essentially get him no where. In many ways, all his powers do is make him even more aware of the fact that the chaos surrounding
him is actually as chaotic as it seems, and no one, not even the government or the army, has a master plan for repairing the
fractured nation. Between the farcical action, the identifiable character types, and the hilarious minutia of details observed from the
perspective of a super-twelve-year-old, Under My Roof has its fair share of laughs and insights. Definitely worth the
thirteen bucks.
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