"The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure"
(Reviewed by Debbie Lee Wesselmann DEC 12, 2005)
Jack Pendarvis has the kind of wit that ambushes you - and then bludgeons you until you can no longer suppress the laughter. This collection of nine stories and a novella mocks bad writing and moronic thought through a complete submersion in each, with protagonists believing in absurd premises (like the dead-beat husband who imagines himself as a famous historian and the security guard who becomes attached to the air pipe of a buried alive DJ). The subtitle - "Curious stories" - only begins to describe these off-the-wall forays into the hilarity of self-importance.
At first, readers might not be certain of the author's intentions. Is this satire, or just plain bad writing? The first lines of the book, of the story "Sex Devil," could be either: "Gentlemen: I would like to give you my idea for one of your comic books. Well it is not one of your comic books yet, but it soon will be! I call my idea Sex Devil." This "idea" involves a teenage boy named Randy White who has a cleft palate, pretends to know karate, and is picked on by his classmates, who call him "Wandy Wite, Kawate Kiwwah." The letter writer proceeds to elaborate on the details on his superhero - all mildly amusing - until Sex Devil gets sprayed with chemicals in "the genital region" and gains an extra superpower. It becomes clear that this comic book premise is the fantasy of a nerdish teenage boy who doesn't have the slightest clue what makes a good story. When he concludes his proposal of violence, sex, and power with "I hope you will start making the comic book Sex Devil because it deals with issues that young people care about today," the reader knows that he is in tongue-in-cheek territory for the rest of the book.
From the publisher's copywriter who gets increasingly frustrated with the schlock he has to promote to the mock, contributor's notes, Pendarvis skewers his subjects. One of the most developed stories in the collection is "The Pipe" about a DJ buried alive in the desert as a publicity stunt, with a security guard and a paramedic watching over the pipe for signs of distress. The paramedic is more interested in smoking pot and fooling around with women, but the security guard takes his job seriously - to the point of obsession. The story has hints of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and "Waiting for Godot;" the security guard's dedication to the pipe is touching, as deranged as it is.
The funniest piece in the collection is the title novella, which satirizes amateur writing. The narrator is the self-described laziest man in South Preston who decides to be a historian: "In fabled times of days of yore, only the 'landed gentry' had time to write and contemplate. In today's modern age, it is the unemployed and the upset who enjoy such luxuries." As he researches the history of probably the blandest place in America, he decides instead to track down a treasure. Peppered with exclamation marks, elaborate dialogue tags, rhetorical questions, clichés, unnecessary adverbs, stilted phrases, and redundancy (see the title), this has to be the funniest send-up of bad writing I've read. Pendarvis manages to (mostly) maintain it for ninety pages as the protagonist fumbles his way through his own life.
Often, Pendarvis does not know when to stop his literary antics. Many of these stories, including the novella, go on for too long, with scenes and new characters that deflate the energy leading up to their introduction. As a result, these stories, although a hoot to read, are not as memorable as they could be. To the author's credit, not a single one of these stories is predictable; their ludicrous twists and turns can be as funny as the writing itself.
One word of warning: Don't read this collection in a public place unless you want people to stare. When Pendarvis sneaks up on you with one of his offbeat lines, you won't be able to stop yourself from laughing.
- Amazon readers rating:
from 6 reviews
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Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)
- The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure (November 2005)
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Book Marks:
- Beatrice.com interview with Jack Pendarvis
- Fondling Your Muse interview with Jack Pendarvis
- Creative Loafing interview with Jack Pendarvis
- Samples of Jack Pendarvis stories in McSweeny's, Mississippi Review, more McSweeny's
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About the Author:
Jack Pendarvis spent much of his childhood and adult life in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. In 1993, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia to write promos for Turner Broadcasting. He quit in 1999.
His writing has been published in the Believer, McSweeney’s Online Tendency, and 14 Hills, and his stories have been anthologized in Stories from the Blue Moon Café II, The Alumni Grill, and the Pushcart Prize anthology.
He now lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
