- Hardcover: 180 pages
- Publisher: ECW Press (April 1 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1550228595
- ISBN-13: 978-1550228595
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #262,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Quill & Quire
Stripmalling is both a semi-autobiographical first novel from Winnipeg-born author Jon Paul Fiorentino and something more complex and metafictional. The hero, Jonny, is a 31-year-old aspiring writer and instructor at a “mildly respectable university” in Montreal (Fiorentino teaches at Concordia). Jonny is going through a “pre-emptive mid-life crisis” that involves writing a novel titled Stripmalling, about the time he spent working at a suburban Winnipeg mall – pumping gas, stocking shelves, and dealing drugs out of the back of his Chevette. In addition to chasing its own tail, the book also takes itself apart, recasting the main characters in a graphic novel (illustrated by Evan Munday), the script and preliminary sketches for which are included in an appendix of “bonus materials.” Jonny’s mall story is interspersed with “mid-life crisis reports,” which are themselves corrected and reinterpreted by his ex in a series of “Dora reports” that undercut Jonny’s authority (“That obviously never happened,” one begins). Dora, in turn, has her eye on Jonny’s partner, an artist coincidentally named Evan Munday. . . This is all very knowing and postmodern, but handled with a light comic touch, which is set in deliberate opposition to “dead ‘serious’ prose fiction.” Fiorentino’s sensibility is pure Coupland: from the Gen Y slackers alienated from nature (a Manitoba winter is dimly evoked as passing “like a slow-moving ice-type thing”) to the Morrissey constantly playing in the background. The personal and the political bleed into each other, but both are tinged with the same sense of youthful apathy and indifference. For example, the mall is bought by a Wal-Mart clone and then shut down in the face of union organization, but everyone just moves on. Jonny is bisexual, but doesn’t seem to care very much either way. A collage-like experience, Stripmalling is a hybrid book forged out of multiple angles and perspectives. It is also a funny and clever experiment in tale-telling.
Review
“Fiorentino is wickedly funny.” —The Globe and Mail
"What Jon Paul Fiorentino is up to is sly and self-effacing, deeply real and hilarious. Stripmalling is an absolute bender." —Emily Schultz, author, Joyland
"A wall-to-wall shag carpet of variegated grimness and hapless hilarity; a mid-life crisis you can hold in your hand; a horny walking tour of sub-industrial, suburban Winnipeg." —Guy Maddin, screenwriter and director
"This incredibly comedic, somewhat tragic literary work is unlike anything you'll read, ever. Fiorentino details the desperate life of an aspiring writer with wit, oddness, and complexity." —Joe Meno, author, Tender as Hellfire
"Both a semi-autobiographical first novel from Winnipeg-born author Jon Paul Fiorentino and something more complex and metafictional. . . . A collage-like experience, Stripmalling is a hybrid book forged out of multiple angles and perspectives. It is also a funny and clever experiment in tale-telling. —Quill & Quire
"Worth reading for its wry, sardonic humour and delightfully self-deprecating tone . . . Thoroughly enjoyable ." —Montreal Review of Books
"Outrageous, intriguing and quietly powerful, Stripmalling offers readers the curious and ultimately rewarding experience of stepping outside their own stories." —Scene Magazine
"Expands our concept of what makes something worth reading . . . [Jonny is] a metafictional anti-hero for the new millennium." —Fiction Writers Review
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A hybrid book,
By
This review is from: Stripmalling (Hardcover)
A hybrid book--not quite graphic, not enough novel. But really funny and dark and the two kinds of storytelling complemented each other quite well here. It wasn't strong on plot, mostly feckless, self-loathing characters. The Jonny character was hilarious and you're always skating on the thin ice the author deliberately sets up between what is autobiography and what is fiction. Both are funny and no decision is necessary. They both get thumbs up from me. I will definitely seek out some of his earlier work.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review roundup,
By Publicity (Montreal) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stripmalling (Hardcover)
Stripmalling is the first novel by Jon Paul Fiorentino, and a very funny one it is.... Amid the hilarious scenes that make up Stripmalling - gas-station hot-boxing, desperate ploys for sex, moderate success in the writing world ... Fiorentino produces peaks of warmth and true sadness.-- Globe and Mail Stripmalling is an entertaining, occasionally disorienting trip through the wires of Jonny, a presumably semi-fictional character working in and around a strip mall in suburban Winnipeg.... Outrageous, intriguing and quietly powerful, Stripmalling offers readers the curious and ultimately rewarding experience of stepping outside their own stories. -- Scene Magazine Stripmalling is an author's memoir freed from the tyranny of facts. Jonny shares his personal issues with an off-the-wall candour.... From the top of Stripmalling, you see a keen mind at work under the quirky surface. -- Xtra ...poignant, politically savvy and laugh-out-loud-funny... -- Montreal Mirror Stripmalling is worth reading for its wry, sardonic humour and delightfully self-deprecating tone . . . Thoroughly enjoyable. -- Montreal Review of Books [Stripmalling has] a poignant tension between narrative and fragmentation, hopefulness and cynicism. . . . [Fiorentino has] become one of Montreal's -- and Canada's -- most prolific and accomplished young writers. -- Hour A collage-like experience, Stripmalling is a hybrid book forged out of multiple angles and perspectives. It is also a funny and clever experiment in tale-telling. -- Quill and Quire "Jon Paul Fiorentino's Stripmalling is a wall-to-wall shag carpet of variegated grimness and hapless hilarity; a midlife crisis you can hold in your hand; a horny walking tour of sub-industrial, suburban Winnipeg -- in a word, singular." -- Guy Maddin, director of My Winnipeg and The Saddest Music in the World. "What is this book exactly? Part memoir, part diary, part how-to, part novel, part comic book, this incredibly comedic, somewhat tragic literary work is unlike anything you'll read, ever. Fiorentino details the desperate life of an aspiring writer with wit, oddness, and complexity." -- Joe Meno, author of The Boy Detective Fails and Hairstyles of the Damned. "If you've ever had a mid-life crisis before reaching mid-life, worked for minimum wage, or been told to tuck your shirt in, this book is for you. What Jon Paul Fiorentino is up to is sly and self-effacing, deeply real and hilarious. Stripmalling is an absolute bender." -- Emily Schultz, author of Joyland and Heaven Is Small.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mangled, messed up fun,
By STEFANO BOSCUTTI "Author, YOU KNOW WHAT I LIK... - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Stripmalling (Paperback)
Fiorentino's "Stripmalling" is a lot of fun. Mangled, messed up fun that rolls and spills all over the place. But that's what makes it fun. Yes, it's very meta. But then what isn't these days. Loved the marked-up screenplay and the lame teen comedy freeze frame snapshots over the closing credits. Go on, immerse yourself.[...]. |
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