Archive for the ‘Satire’ Category
THE ASTRAL by Kate Christensen
THE ASTRAL, by Kate Christensen, gets its title by way of its namesake, the Astral building in Brooklyn, New York. This building houses the protagonist of this book, an aging poet named Harry Quirk. His last name befits him and his family. They are interestingly dysfunctional in many ways.
Harry was once a somewhat well-known poet, teaching poetry workshops and writing his lyrical poems in rhyming and sonnet style. His publisher and mentor has moved to Europe and his style is now out of favor in the United States. His wife, Luz, decides after thirty years of marriage that Harry is having an affair with his best friend, Marion. Despite Harry’s pleading innocence – and he is innocent – Luz does not believe him and she kicks him out of their apartment in the Astral.
August 1, 2011
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Judi Clark · 
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Tags: Brooklyn, Contemporary, Family Matters, Kate Christensen, Quirky · Posted in: Award Winning Author, Contemporary, Drift-of-Life, Family Matters, New York City, Satire
A YOUNG MAN’S GUIDE TO LATE CAPITALISM by Peter Mountford
If for nothing else, A YOUNG MAN’S GUIDE TO LATE CAPITALISM will be remembered as a clear-eyed, unsentimental look at money and our complicated relationship with it. The protagonist in Peter Mountford’s debut novel is a young biracial man, Gabriel de Boya, who is on assignment for The Calloway Group, a New York hedge fund. He finds himself in La Paz in Bolivia—where the novel is set—on the eve of the election that would usher in Evo Morales as President.
Gabriel’s assignment is to predict first the outcome of the election, and subsequently its effect on the Bolivian gas industry. Gabriel’s boss in New York, the aggressive Priya Singh, would essentially like to speculate about whether Morales would nationalize the Bolivian gas industry right away, as he promised. To obtain such sensitive information, Gabriel works incognito in the city passing off as a freelance reporter on assignment.
April 12, 2011
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 21st-Century, Around-the-World, Bolivia, Humorous, Money · Posted in: Contemporary, Debut Novel, Greed & Corruption, Humorous, Reading Guide, Satire, South America
PYM by Mat Johnson
Chris Jaynes has just been fired from his position as the token black professor at a prestigious liberal arts college, and retaliates by visiting the president and snatching off his red bow tie. This none-too-subtle reference to the preferred attire of Leon Botstein, president of Bard College where author Mat Johnson also taught, launches the book as a satire, but gives little hint of the likability of its hero or the fascination of the study of race that will follow. Johnson turns the subject inside out, standing it on its head, looking at race with an outrageous accuracy whose aim falls on black and white alike. Forgive me, therefore, if I set the comedy aside for the moment and concentrate on the book’s intellectual underpinnings.
Much of the debate concerns the nature of blackness itself, beginning with the protagonist’s own racial identity.
April 3, 2011
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 2011 Favorites, Contemporary, Humorous, Spiegel & Grau · Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Class - Race - Gender, Contemporary, Humorous, Mash Up, Satire, Unique Narrative
SERIOUS MEN by Manu Joseph
Manu Joseph’s debut book is seriously good – a wickedly funny, surprisingly warm and stunningly stylish satire that strikes its target over and over again, taking the reader along for a rollicking ride.
The book SERIOUS MEN introduces us to two equally willful men with runaway egos: Arvind Acharya, a bigger-than-life astrophysicist at the prestigious Institute of Theory and Research, a would-be Nobel candidate who is rumored to have been banned from the Vatican for whispering something untoward in the pope’s ear. The other is his personal assistant, Ayyan Mani, a Dalit (or “untouchable”) who is “smarter than the average bear” (in this case, the average Dalit) with an IQ of 148.
January 2, 2011
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 2010 PB Release, Around-the-World, Humorous · Posted in: Award Winning Author, Class - Race - Gender, Debut Novel, Humorous, India-Pakistan, Satire, World Literature
THE FINKLER QUESTION by Howard Jacobson
Nevertheless, Howard Jacobson does talk about it, together with gentile anti-Semitism and that philo-Semitism that may well be anti-Semitism in disguise. This brilliant novel, at once comedic and penetrating, is nothing less than a study of Jewish identity, at least as reflected by a group of middle-class Jews in contemporary London. This is satire, but equal-opportunity satire; there is nobody who may not be offended by it at one point or another, yet nobody who will not recognize the wisdom of Jacobson’s insights, as loving and humane as they are witty.
December 23, 2010
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 2010 PB Release, Humorous, Jewishness, Kindle Book · Posted in: 2010 Man Booker Shortlist, Award Winning Author, Class - Race - Gender, Humorous, Identity, Man Booker Prize, Satire, United Kingdom
FOXYBABY by Elizabeth Jolley
Nothing prepared me for Elizabeth Jolley’s novel FOXYBABY. What was I expecting? Well a gentle novel, a comedy of manners, perhaps? Instead FOXYBABY is packed with quirky characters whose attendance at a private summer course unleashes a range of odd behaviours.
December 5, 2010
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 2010 PB Release, Elizabeth Jolley, Humorous, Literary · Posted in: Australia, Character Driven, Humorous, Literary, Satire
