- Hardcover: 328 pages
- Publisher: University Of Toronto Press; No edition edition (Sep 1 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0864926308
- ISBN-13: 978-0864926302
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 15 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #255,503 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Quill & Quire
Given that this good-natured debut by film producer Doug Harris takes the unconventional form of a second-person narrative, the reader should not assume that its title is directed at him. Instead, it likely refers to the book’s slacker hero, 28-year-old Montreal resident Lee Goodstone.
Despite the quirky narrative voice, which is fluently handled and becomes scarcely noticeable after a few pages, Lee is a familiar character in what is sometimes called LoserLit. He is a scrawny, sensitive, self-deprecating, going-nowhere kind of guy, living in a spectacular loft apartment that he admits is a cliché while making a comfortable living selling (mostly soft) drugs. Other generic elements on offer here include the gang of friends who have hung together since childhood – cases of arrested development – and the unprepossessing hero’s baffling ability to get gorgeous, intelligent women to go to bed with him.
Various unrelated things happen. One of Lee’s friends is accused of murder. The girlfriend of another takes up with Lee. His drug business, which he is apathetic about anyway, starts to go down the tube. All of these plot points are just pegs on which to hang a tapestry of observational humour as Lee casts his cold eye on the Montreal scene.
Genuinely funny at times, and always easy to like, YOU comma Idiot nevertheless exhibits the limitations of its genre. The characters rarely rise above types, the one exception being Lee’s eccentric dealer, who is a wonderful comic creation. Some parts of the book, like the satire of the news media, don’t come off at all. The tone frequently becomes overly sentimental, and the subplots are resolved in perfunctory and uninteresting ways. But at his best, Harris gives plenty of evidence that he is a writer capable of doing more with less formulaic material.
Product Description
“You’re the kind of guy who falls in love after one date.” Marginalized and alienated, perennial fuck-up Lee Goodstone is a resounding zero: a low-rent hash-dealer with delusions of inadequacy. He’s content to while away the hours of his life drinking, smoking, hanging out, playing the occasional game of hockey, and generally ignoring the world outside his tiny neighbourhood. But Lee’s near-idyllic existence is about to grind into second gear. His friend Henry has been accused of kidnapping and Lee’s been cornered by the local media. Another friend has decided to shoehorn his way into Lee’s drug business. And he’s just made it with his best friend’s girlfriend. Clearly, Lee needs a Plan B — not easy for a guy who long ago decided that the correct plan of action is to have no plan at all. A hip, comedic novel, Doug Harris’s YOU comma Idiot is a dark, demented, deeply delightful excursion into youthful alienation and ennui.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Humourously snide & pithy man-lit,
By
This review is from: YOU Comma Idiot (Hardcover)
I will admit that the first few pages were difficult. 2nd person point of view is a bit jarring. Fortunately, though, this style doesn't dominate the story after the first few pages.
It is like chick lit for men. (Man-lit?). In it, we get a look at a young man's mostly dysfunctional life as he realizes that life can't always be a free ride, and that growing up requires choices that have repercussions. And, even though his lifestyle, choices and temptations might be different from the average reader's, the story was believable and the main character's decisions made great sense in the context of his life. The book covers some activities that are generally frowned upon, but there is no moralizing on the subject, which is nice. I was more than pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the story, and how much I wanted things to work out okay in the end. And I have to admit that I really enjoyed how the main character was humorously snide. The conversations were realistic, the situations dreadful but handled with humor and the characters flawed, but what humans aren't? And, by the way, I really liked the dust jacket and inside cover "embellishments".
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
