First of all I have to cop to cheating on this. Kind of. The beginning of this review is maybe 2 years old, however, I just reread the book! So…recycling and expanding. It’s fine! la la la just never you mind
I READ THIS IN ONE SITTING. It’s funny, it’s dark, it’s cartoonish, it’s Tarantinoesque, it’s either brilliant social/political/economic/mental health commentary or the rantings of a crazy person. Or both. I loved it.
The friend who gave it to me said, “Yeah, he is pretty fun. It’s like a kick ass movie…but with some French lefty politics swirling around in the background.” Yes. All that and more!
The quick spoiler-free synopsis: wealthy guy hires woman directly from an asylum to care for his orphaned nephew. Then he hires an assassin with major ulcer problems to kill both of them. It’s almost needless to say, but it doesn’t go well, and hilarity ensues…but seriously it kind of does. The violence is ludicrous but is SO ludicrous that it somehow wasn’t disturbing and the mayhem makes a kind of deranged sense.
It’s so spectacularly cold-blooded, and quick. It’s less than 100 pages. I loved it. Not for nothing, this New York Review Books Classics edition (and I’m not cool enough to know if there even are other editions available in English) is a pleasing object. It feels good to hold. And now that I’ve displayed a little more of my weirdness, Happy New Year y’all.
