23. Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross

Category: 50 Books

This is one of those “most anticipated books of the summer!” type of books. It was reviewed by tons of peeps including thumbs up from  Stephen King and Scott Turow, and when other authors really dig a book I think that says something.

from the jacket:

 David Pepin has been in love with his wife, Alice, since the moment they met in a university seminar on Alfred Hitchcock. After thirteen years of marriage, he still can’t imagine a remotely happy life without her—yet he obsessively contemplates her demise. Soon she is dead, and David is both deeply distraught and the prime suspect.

Mesmerizing, exhilarating, and profoundly moving, Mr. Peanut is a police procedural of the soul, a poignant investigation of the relentlessly mysterious human heart—and a first novel of the highest order.

I’m glad I read the book, it has loads of things in it I love in my fiction:

1. cleverness. I’m a sucker for it.

2. meta-fiction. I’m also a sucker for this.

3. homages. I love it when authors borrow from other authors in such a way that it’s obvious but not gimmicky.

4. pop-culture references. Does this make me shallow? probably.

This book was very good, but I did not like it. This may have to do with me being a girl. This book has a lot to do with marriages. Long marriages that have run out of steam for whatever reasons, and they are looked at from the husbands points of view. Three different marriages, three different husbands, and there seems to be one point of view, so the whole static marriage-trap-wife murder-but no wait, i love my wife-i hate my wife-let’s kill my wife-no, let’s not-i’m still trapped-mobius strip, get it? GET IT?!-i love my wife-she’s dead!-or is she?-i love her-i miss her-i’m trapped-marriage thing feels not only incredibly redundant, but also like beating a dead horse (or poodle, zing!) and maybe I could look past that if it weren’t that all the wives (and all the women in the book, really) come off as selfish harpies.

Do I think that the author hates his wife/women? No, I don’t, I think he really loves her/them.

It’s not like the husbands are perfect. They are pretty weak. It’s just that the women all seem so unreasonable. Especially Hannah all, “You still don’t get it.” –  “Don’t get what?”-“exactly.” kind of thing.

And? since it seemed like really all the men were the same man, all the women were the same woman and all the marriages were the same marriage? The book felt too long and overdone.

I did love the Hitchcock stuff in the book. However, all of that stuff? COMES IN ON PAGE 301. Yes. What is mentioned in the first sentence of the jacket cover? STARTS AT THE LAST 30 PAGES OF THE BOOK. I probably can’t fault the author for this as he probably didn’t write the jacket cover. And while I’m blasting the jacket cover let me also add, “police proceedural of the soul” is a bullshit description. I don’t think anyone who has read this book would describe it as a police proceedural of any kind.

So the Hitchcock stuff: good. I liked the meta-fiction. I like the Dr. Lector/Mobius jail cell scene, a really nice touch.

The Dr. Sheppard/detective Sheppard bit was way too long.

I also liked the touch of Poe/Borgian/Fight Club feel of is David really Mobius? is David really Harold? I loved that, really.

I really love how ambitious this novel was. I think it may have been an impossible undertaking, but I love all the effort. If this book could’ve been shaved down to 250 – 275 pages I think it would have been perfect. So to sum up: I’m glad I read it, I didn’t like it, it really made me think, but I can’t think of a single person I’d recommend it to.

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