The Wishbones [Paperback]

Tom Perrotta's The Wishbones follows the various travails of Dave Raymond. Though in his 30's, Dave still lives at homes with his rather long suffering parents. Dave also has a long suffering girlfriend of 20 years. Actually, virtually everyone Dave knows well is long suffering--that appears to be the price you pay for having a son/friend who hasn't quite grown up.

Saddled with a dead-end day job, Dave's life actually revolves around his Band, The Wishbones, which plays wedding gigs on the weekends.

Dave is intelligent and aware enough to recognize his shortcomings--he's a good, not great guitarist with no original music vision of his own whatsoever--but not yet sufficiently emotionally mature=or secure-enough to toss in the towel on his dreams of musical stardom.

As event unfold, Dave finally gets up the nerve to propose to his girlfriend--then immediately stars getting cold feet.

There is not one single surprise to be found anywhere in this entire novel. Yet, the book is anything but boring. Perrotta has a wonderful talent for developing intricate, interesting and engaging characters, skillfully evokes the sense of Dave's New Jersey neighborhood, has a finely tuned sense of comedic flair and is adept with dialog. This is one of those books that proves that predictable doesn't have to be boring.

In point of fact, a lot of surprise and unexpected plot machinations would not have worked anyway, making what is, and was always meant to be, on ordinary, daily life sort of story seem contrived and hokey.

The ending is rather anti-climatic even so, and there are some rough passages to be gotten through--Dave's whole flirtation with joining a Christian rock band seems out of place, for instance. But these are minor flaws in an otherwise competent, witty and engaging story.

So, tune into the Wishbones and enjoy a pleasant read!