No doubt about it, 34-year-old Tom Violet has hit a bad patch. He's got a novel in his drawer that he has worked on secretly for five years, finished, but is now afraid to show to anyone. He's mired in a job he loathes: writing copy for a corporation that does he knows not what. The bright spot there is his colleague Katie, a 23-year-old hottie. That has its downside, too, because Tom is married and the father of a much-loved five-year-old daughter. His wife, Anna, smart, fit and trim, is being flirted with by one of her gymmates, a married banker. To top it off, Tom and Anna have a problem in the bedroom; yes, the one that has given rise, pun intended, to all those TV commercials. What a mess.
As the story opens, Curtis Violet, Tom's father, has arrived in his gorgeous Porsche, hungover, smelling like pot and announcing that he will "just spend the night." Turns out that he has split from his fourth wife. On the very day that he arrives, his agent calls to announce that he has just won the Pulitzer Prize. Yes, Curtis Violet is a very famous author, cut out of the same cloth as a Saul Bellow or a Philip Roth. He has very good luck with his books, having won every prize there is, and very bad luck with his personal life. Tom hero-worships him, not as a father, because he was a lousy one, but as an author, so he is glad to see him. Also, he owns the house that Tom and his family live in.
Matthew Norman's debut novel is a tour de farce of grand proportion. He takes on academia, the literary life, the world economy, corporate bull, adultery--and has his way with all of them. He is such a witty writer that you will laugh out loud at least five times and smile and chuckle a lot. His witticisms aren't just one-liners; they are carefully thought out takes on the human condition. His is the humor that depends upon real intelligence and insight, not shtick.
How Tom resolves all his problems is a story sweetly told with a snapper at the end that is absolutely original. --Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: Tom Violet is in a peck of trouble; at home, at work and in his very soul. Norman's debut novel is funny and incisive, and hard on sacred cows.