50 Book Blog: Reviews 12, 13, 14, and 15

In this edition: Meth! Naked hula-hooping! Smellavision! Gunslinging amnesiacs! All in a fortnight's work.

Welcome back to the 50 Book Blog after my latest hiatus. Yeah, yeah. I know. Being on number 16 with September fast-approching doesn't show much promise for reaching 50 this year...but I have faith the fall and winter will provide more opportunity to shut in and read. It's just this damned-good weather, with all the backyard bbq-ing, the all-day happy hours, the suffocating fatigue brought on by the humidity...and, yes, the severe slacking off that is customary to Manhattan summers. Nevertheless, here are a quick three for your consideration; as usual, I'd love to hear your thoughts on these if you've read them, or some suggestions for what I should read next. (Special thanks to Maggie M. for the copy of Tweak, and Kate R. for taking me to the pay-by-the-pound book sale where I found the rare copy of The Man Called Noon).

TWEAK: Growing up on methamphetamines
a memoir by Nic Sheff
Two things right off the bat: first, this is not another fiction disguised as a drug-addled memoir (many of which have come to light in recent years) -- this is a legit tale with plenty of evidence piled up against the author. Secondly -- and even more unfortunately -- this book is not nearly as interesting or well-written as its fabricated contemporaries. The young author, son of journalist David Sheff (whose book, Beautiful Boy, tells the same story as Tweak, but from the family's perspective), may have a story to tell, but the telling is not his strong suit. Nic's prose emulates that of a teenager's journal -- replete with bad grammar and colloquialisms -- dulling the sharp edges of his otherwise harrowing history. I understand that this is intentional, but like a bad joke told badly on purpose, all you get in response is a painful groan. The result for the reader, then, is a laborious redundancy -- relapse, empty promises, relapse, empty promises, relapse, etc -- which had this reader OD'd on Sheff's tale of woe by page 50.

Perhaps it's David's book, then, that inspired Brad Pitt's film studio, Plan B, to option both books. I'll give you my opinion of Beautiful Boy in my next review, so stay tuned.


Obsessive Branding Disorder: The illusion of business and the business of illusion.
by Lucas Conley
From socially and politically conscious publisher Public Affairs Books comes the illuminating title Obsessive Branding Disorder, which tears the packaging off of our hyper-marketed culture for an honest -- and disconcerting -- look at a contemporary business innovation run amok. In this exposé, journalist Lucas Conley enumerates past and present examples of corporate insidiousness, in which psychology is used against the unsuspecting buyer to enforce customer loyalty -- largely to products that are commoditized or falsely represented, and in many cases altogether unnecessary to our daily living.

Being occupationally close to the branding business, I found few examples in Conley's book to be as shocking as his presentation insisted, but I nevertheless enjoyed the author's approach to the subject matter. Eminently readable, often humorous, and insightful throughout, Conley's book is a must-read for the everyday, brand-obsessed, hyper-extended, can't-live-without-it consumer (that means you).

The Man Called Noon
a novel by Louis L'Amour
Really, what can you say about a 190-page Western except: "Whoooooeeee!" In what reads like a Raymond Chandler novel with tumbleweeds and twang, L'Amour's 1970 classic novel is a fast, fun, and silly mystery about a gun-slingin' stranger set off to find either love or money or revenge, or all three.

The Big Happy
a novel by Scott Mebus
The story goes like this: David's a normal enough guy, living in New York, trying to find love and meaning in his seemingly wayward existence as he nears the thirty mark. There are old friends, new girls, average-joe problems like a too-small apartment and, obviously, naked hula-hooping.

Maybe I'm getting too old for the whole lad lit thing (as my own 30 seems fast-approaching as well), but in spite of David's entertaining narrative voice, I had a bit of a tough time staying interested in Mebus' novel. By no means an altogether bad book -- the writing is strong at parts, and the characterization (cliché, but consistently and justifiably so) makes for some fun drama. There's just no major imperative here: David could finally sell that novel he's been working on, and find happiness in love, and reunite his old friendships, and hula successfully in the nude...but nothing in here moves me in the way I've come to expect from contemporary fiction. That said, Mebus is a good storyteller, so a paperback copy of The Big Happy would prove a good companion on a day in the Park.

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