Blood Test by Charles Baxter

Published by ‎ Pantheon on October 15, 2024

The quality of being ordinary might seem like a curse to ordinary people. We are often told that none of us are ordinary, that everyone is special. When a Sunday school student tells Brock Hobson that he’s special, not ordinary at all, he rejects the premise. He knows he has no superpower. He thinks of himself as just one of God’s creatures, a boring one at that. Blood Test suggests that living an ordinary life with decency, charity, and forgiveness might be a superpower that anyone can develop.

Brock sells insurance in a small Ohio city. He has teenage kids — a son and a daughter — with his ex-wife Cheryl. His wife left him for Burt because Burt, while a complete idiot, is unpredictable (meaning impulsive), while Brock is “predictable as a clock.” Burt is also good looking and great in bed, qualities that offset his idiocy in Cheryl’s mind.

Burt belongs to a cult that believes particles in plastic bottles have “wormed their way into your bloodstream and your brain. The plastic promotes indifference and apathy and online shopping.” I knew there was an explanation!

The kids spend most of their time with Brock, even when they’re supposed to be with their mother. Burt belittles Brock’s son Joe because Joe is gay. Cheryl assures Joe that she loves him “even though you’re queer.” Brock’s daughter Lena is in love with her boyfriend and plans an idyllic lifetime with him, beginning by attending the same college. But when does the future ever follow a teenager’s plan?

Brock is a decent, conventionally religious midwestern guy. He feels sorry for the dead animal when he sees roadkill and imagines their last frightened moments of life, “though my grief is not excessive.” Brock is dating a woman he calls Trey. Her superpower is standing very still until deer and birds will take food from her hand. They make a good couple.

The novel’s amusing plot follows Brock’s response to a shady sales pitch for a product that can, by testing his blood and analyzing his answers to bizarre questions, predict his future. Brock would like to know whether he will do anything interesting with his life, so he pays the fee and takes the tests. The company predicts that he is “about to embark on a major crime wave. It’s all down on paper. I wish you luck and Godspeed.” He later learns that the crime spree will include a murder. Fortunately, the shady company can sell him insurance that will pay for his legal defense. The company even sells him the gun he will use to commit the crime.

It occurs to Brock that he now has complete freedom, including a license to kill. If bad acts are destined, we can hardly be blamed for committing them. “I can go wild,” Brock thinks. “I have a perfect alibi. The mainframe has said so.”

Apart from struggling with the ramifications of losing free will, Brock needs to decide how to address his son’s dark writings and drawings, the kind of things that parents should see as red flags. An apparent lunatic gives Brock some simple advice for dealing with his son: “Ask him what he wants.”

It’s probably not a spoiler to say that Brock (who occasionally speaks directly to the reader) reveals that the book isn’t about a blood test at all, but is actually a love story. I’m not sure I see it that way, although it might be a bunch of love stories, a romcom with an ensemble cast. Brock’s daughter is in love or in lust with her boyfriend. Brock’s love for Cheryl still motivates him to help her despite his betrayal. Cheryl’s love for Burt — even after Burt suffers a disability for which he blames Brock — is inexplicable. Brock’s love for Trey and for his son are integral parts of the story.

Brock might be predictable, but the plot is not. It leads to a duel, but only after Brock nearly shoots someone by accident. Gun violence is a problem in society that only becomes larger when someone as inept as Brock is armed. One of the novel’s lessons is that ordinary people don’t need guns.

Another lesson — at least in Brock’s view — is that being handsome makes life too easy. For losers like Burt, “having any woman you want degrades your character. The whole idea of monogamy stops making sense.” No sensible woman would want Burt for anything but his body. “Except for the gym and the hunting, Burt is lazy and empty-headed. He’s quite at home here in America, if I could generalize for a moment.”

There are also lessons in tolerance and forgiveness, on top of the question of free will. Fortunately, the lessons blend nicely with the plot’s goofiness. They don’t come across as lectures and never get in the way of the genuine laughs that the story inspires.

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I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin

Published by ‎ St. Martin's Press on September 24, 2024

I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom is both an indictment and a celebration of the internet. It’s also one of the funniest books I’ve read this year.

Abbott Coburn is an incel. Like other incels, he blames women for problems that extend beyond involuntary celibacy. Abbott has an anxiety disorder and depends on his medication to function. Even medicated, Abbott has no social skills.

Abbott lives with his father Hunter and earns money from a ride-share app by driving Hunter’s SUV. Abbott was bullied in high school and blames high school girls for the bullying because girls reward bullies with sex. Abbott has joined the hordes of young male vloggers who insist that they are victims of a conspiracy. The conspirators are either feminists or attractive women who won’t shag them, depending on the moment.

Abbott is such a dunce that he’s almost likeable. The dynamic between Abott and his father encourages the reader to feel Abbott is far from evil and not irretrievably lost to the internet’s dark side.

A woman named Ether asks Abbott for a ride across the country, from the West Coast to the East. When he explains that the app does not permit long-distance travel, she offers him a large payment of cash to work off the app, half in advance, provided he leaves behind his phone and laptop. The other hitch is that she’s transporting a large black box that might or might not display radiation decals. A mysterious employer paid Ether a large amount of cash to bring the box to his place outside of D.C.

Abbott sets aside his suspicion of women and accepts Ether’s terms because he needs cash to reboot his life. He soon realizes that Ether didn’t tell him that she’s being followed by a biker named Malort who wants to acquire the box for his own (presumably nefarious) purposes. Things get out of hand when Reddit users begin tracing Abbott and Ether on their trek, having convinced themselves that they are terrorists or heroes, no theory being too crazy to express as a certainty.

The story picks up additional characters as it bounces along, some of whom live almost entirely in the digital world. Zeke Ngata is in a wheelchair. He’s active on Reddit and a fan of Abbott’s vlog. Phil Green was a genius who lived off-grid in Canada. An anti-technology conspiracy theorist, Phil was convinced that software was rewiring human brains to turn us into zombies. Maybe he was right, but Phil is dead now, survived only by his blog. Phil had the black box when Ether first saw it, although he refused to reveal its contents.

A former FBI agent named Joan Key has a long list of problems (that’s why she’s a “former” fed). She sees the black box as an opportunity to rekindle her relationship with the FBI. Or, if she’s lucky, she’ll be near the box when it explodes, perhaps gaining postmortem recognition for her effort to avoid a catastrophe.

Key contributes to the narrative by expressing interesting opinions. She attributes school shootings and other random acts of mass violence to “aggrieved narcissism, a total inability to put personal affronts into perspective. Why shouldn’t others die for your petty humiliations, when you’re the Main Character of the Universe”? Key teams with Hunter to find Abbott before a wannabe internet hero kills him.

The characters come together in an action-adventure comedy that is driven by misunderstandings and (since people get their information from questionable internet sources) outright fabrications. The story is amusing — and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny — for multiple reasons, but my favorite is its depiction of Reddit as a haven for “mostly young males with a vast arsenal of shallow knowledge and free time.” Transcripts of Reddit conspiracy theories surrounding Abbott are hilarious. Was he taken hostage by a crazy woman? Was he abducted by aliens? Does the box in his father’s SUV contain the radioactive corpse of an alien? Is the box stuffed with the corpse of a woman who disappeared while visiting the state where Abbott lives? Is Abbott a terrorist who intends to set off a dirty bomb in Washington D.C.? Are people who post groundless conspiracy theories working for Russia or is that also a groundless conspiracy theory?

A reader might surmise that the title refers to the black box in Abbott’s SUV, but the “black box of doom” actually refers to the screens on our communication devices and the algorithms that assure our exposure to bad behavior, driving us to fear the badly behaving, who are inevitably depicted as people different from ourselves — different by race, gender, political affiliation, place of birth, or any other factor that allows us to distinguish ourselves as good people, unlike all the different kinds of people who are always causing trouble.

Abbott’s arguments with Ether about female manipulation of males are insightful in their realistic portrayal of opposing viewpoints, even if the viewpoints of both characters are easily mocked. I agree with Abbot’s view that it’s silly for women to put on a bikini and then complain that they feel objectified when they are noticed by visibly appreciative men. But it’s even sillier for Abbott to claim that he’d rather be raped than to be falsely accused of rape because rape victims get sympathy while society always condemns accused are men.

Ether wants to teach Abbott a lesson that all incels should internalize — “you can actually get over bad things that happen to you.” The story at least forces Abbott to grow up, to start making decisions for himself rather than blaming the world for his empty life.

What’s in the box? The answer, carefully set up by scenes that might quickly be forgotten in this fast-moving story, is delightful. Just know that the climax is wild and funny. Some scenes have the credibility of Road Runner cartoons, but comedy doesn’t need to be credible.

I would recommend the novel just for its goofiness and the Looney Tunes feel of its final act, but I am even more enthused about the characters’ semi-serious discussions of significant social issues: the potential impact of growing up with screen interactions rather than human touch; the incel movement that links young men with stunted social skills; and the ridiculous (and potentially dangerous) nature of the conspiracy theories that these socially challenged men devote their lives to spreading in the hope of improving their self-worth. Those are discussions that society should be having. For that reason, I'm Starting to Worry would be a good book for book clubs that actually discuss books rather than gossiping about book club members who didn't make it to the meeting.

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Has Anyone Seen My Toes? by Christopher Buckley

Published by Simon & Schuster on September 6, 2022

The fear of dementia probably strikes most people as they age, at least those who have a mind they would miss if they lost it. On the theory that humor conquers fear, Has Anyone Seen My Toes? could be a therapeutic read for older readers who wonder whether they should end their lives before they forget the combination to the gun safe.

The nameless protagonist is a writer. He’s staying in a small community in South Carolina, the location of his disastrous movie about patriotic prostitutes during the Revolutionary War (a movie that still sells well in hotel pay-for-views). He’s gained weight during the pandemic. In fact, he put on so much weight he can’t see his toes when he stands on the scale and his I-phone no longer recognizes him (he believes the phone is fat shaming him).

The protagonist’s behavior is becoming increasingly erratic. His wife complains when he sits in the dark at night, prepared to shoot moles that are ruining his yard (he suspects her of siding with the moles). He has started a screenplay that turns out to a version of the movie The Eagle Has Landed, substituting Roosevelt for Churchill. He is certain that he has seen attack ads in an election for coroner, but his inability to recall his conversations about the ads with the candidates suggests that he is suffering from the onset of dementia.

On the other hand, a different sort of mental disturbance might be to blame, one that counts paranoia among its symptoms. The writer is convinced that Putin is trying to sway the coroner’s election and that only he can thwart Putin’s dastardly plan. At the same time, he’s certain that the mortician running against Putin’s favored candidate has been burying people alive. It’s no surprise that the writer visits a psychiatrist before the story ends.

Has Anyone Seen My Toes? is a novel of digressions that magically add up to a plot. The progtagonist is always looking things up. We learn obscure details about Gone with the Wind, Carl Reiner, and celebrity deaths. We learn that Donald Sutherland’s tongue is periodically ravaged by parasites. We learn the etymology of several fun but useless words. We learn about writers who committed suicide. We learn the many reasons why the protagonist (like me) has never been able to force himself to finish reading Proust’s unbearably dull Remembrance of Things Past (or whatever they’re calling it these days).

It might not be politically correct to build a comedy around dementia (or any other disease) but Has Anyone Seen My Toes? is awfully funny. And no spoilers here, but maybe the writer’s problem isn’t quite what it seems. In any event, confronting the fear of dementia with humor might be the best approach to mental health, given the failure of expensive but profitable drugs like Aduhelm.

While the novel’s focus is on the fear of dementia, its humor is wide-ranging. The writer pays $7500 a year for a concierge doctor because, for that price, the doctor won’t hassle him about his bad habits. Christopher Buckley makes fun of the South, “where people start driving at fourteen and by eighteen are competing in NASCAR.” He mocks plantation tourism and its tendency to overlook the slave quarters.

Buckley also has fun with Trump and the far right. The doctor responds to COVID by prescribing whatever drug Trump has most recently mentioned. The writer goes along with it, although he would draw the line at “injecting Clorox or shoving a lightstick up my ass.” And when the writer takes the 5-word memory test that Trump regarded as proof of his genius, he comes up with a 5-word phrase from his screenplay, possible proof that he is even more demented than the last president. Quotations from Mein Kampf illustrate how American propagandists on the right are following Hitler’s advice: tell bold lies, repeat them endlessly, appeal to emotion rather than reason, and wait for weak minds to bow to your authority.

Buckley’s political humor scores bullseyes because he aims at unmissable targets. For the most part, however, the story is apolitical. The pandemic, with its toilet paper shortages and spreading bellies, is the source of familiar humor. By giving his protagonist an addled mind, Buckley takes the story a step or two beyond the familiar, sometimes reaching toward the absurd, but he never has to reach far to get a laugh.

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Jeeves and the Leap of Faith by Ben Schott

Published by Little, Brown and Company on October 13, 2020

Jeeves and the Leap of Faith is Ben Schott’s second homage to P.G. Wodehouse. It is, I suspect, the first Jeeves novel to end with a cliffhanger. The hanging question involves romance, and for once the question isn’t how Bertie Wooster will escape an impending engagement. In fact, Bertie deftly avoids romantic entanglements throughout the novel, with the able help of Jeeves.

As fans of Bertie Wooster well understand, nothing good comes of having an English aunt. They are given to arranging unwanted marriages and scolding, reacting to poor displays of posture and manners with swift correction and responding to tardiness with “What time do you call this?” They live in a place of their own invention where standards are kept and stations are known. Bertie plainly does not occupy that realm. At Oxford, Bertie was more admired for night climbing than for scholarship (night climbing: a sport involving the scaling of old buildings that school administrators wish to discourage despite its venerable tradition). In the present, Bertie banters with his friends at the Drones Club, gambles on unlikely competitions, ponders crossword clues until Jeeves suggests an answer, experiments with hangover cures, haggles with Jeeves about clothing and wallpaper choices, and does his best to avoid being productive.

This book has more of a plot than the typical Wodehouse Jeeves novel, in that Schott focuses part of the story on Jeeves’ role as a clandestine agent of the British government. Fortunately, the plot does not distract the reader. The Wodehouse books were, like Bertie Wooster’s life, delightfully aimless, and Schott again captures Bertie’s essence. Still, as a service to the government, Bertie does impersonate a man of the cloth (making rather a bungle of the prayers) and tests his night climbing skills, culminating in a leap between buildings to which the title alludes.

The novel takes us to the racetrack in the hope that the Drones Club (with the help of Jeeves) can pay its back taxes with a well-placed bet. Other eventful moments largely involve romance (or the lack thereof). Bertie conspires to avoid the latest match contrived by his aunt while various friends and enemies pursue a confusion of women, including a maid who is apparently an old flame of Jeeves. The same aunt has been trying to convince Bertie to discharge Jeeves, so another scheme must be concocted (with Jeeves’ help) to avoid calamity. A diamond heist lurks in the background.

Schott has given intense study to Wodehouse and his characters, as is evidenced by the extensive notes he appends to the text. For the casual reader, it suffices to understand that there is little distance between Schott’s version of Bertie and Jeeves and the originals as crafted by Wodehouse. The writing style and dialog are much the same, as is the flavor of the stories. The plot, such as it is, is light and silly and full of the digressions that characterized Wodehouse’s work.

The Wodehouse novels are celebrated as some of the best comedic works of the first half of the twentieth last century. I suspect that most Wodehouse fans can’t get enough of Bertie and Jeeves. Thanks to Schott, the Jeeves well has not yet run dry.

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Year Zero by Rob Reid

Published by Del Rey on July 10, 2012

The alien members of the Refined League share a superior aesthetic sense, at least when it comes to art, architecture, fashion, interior design, and stained glass -- everything, in fact, except music, the one realm in which humans rule.  Aliens who have unwittingly pirated Earth’s music have discovered (as have myriad American college students) that the Copyright Damages Improvement Act is “the most cynical, predatory, lopsided, and shamelessly money-grubbing copyright law” ever devised in the history of the universe.  They owe the music industry pretty much the net worth of every planet.  Unfortunately, the aliens’ solution to the problem is even more draconian than the law itself.  It’s up to a young copyright lawyer to save the world.

Making fun of lawyers is easy, particularly the self-serving lawyers who think you should pay a royalty every time you hum the theme from Welcome Back, Kotter.  As suggested in Year Zero, the scorched earth approach to music piracy benefits law firms while harming everyone else on the planet, including musicians.  The music industry and its pet politicians are equally tempting targets, as are reality tv shows, trendy Manhattan restaurants, and celebrities (or wannabes) who indulge the desire to live life publicly via Twitter and other social media organisms.  Rob Reid skewers them all.

The bottom line is that Year Zero is funny, although quite a few of its laughs derive from silliness.  The aliens have access to superheavy metals and, music lovers that they are, have given them names like metallicam.  The atmosphere of a planet is identical in composition to Drakkar Noir.  One alien species resembles a vacuum cleaner.  And so on.  The narrative also takes well-aimed shots at Microsoft (Reid is clearly a Mac user).

The text is riddled with footnotes.  Most of them are amusing but the more informative notes reveal hard truths about the music industry and its suicidal, thought-deprived executive decision-makers.  Reid’s incisive and insightful takes on music piracy are a must-read for anyone with an interest in the subject.

Year Zero has a definite political point of view.  Rabid fans of Orrin Hatch are unlikely to enjoy the novel.  Highly placed music industry executives and partners in law firms specializing in intellectual property are equally unlikely to enjoy its stinging criticism (associates in those firms, on the other hand, will probably get a kick out of its accurate depiction of young lawyers as fodder that fuels the money machine).  Readers who don’t make their living extorting ridiculous sums of money from college kids who download songs illegally are likely to appreciate the novel’s humor.  The story provokes more chuckles than belly laughs, but as light comedy, Year Zero worked for me.

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