You are Gwendolyn Mati. You’re a young, attractive Filipino-American stockbroker. It’s the early ’90s and the market is crashing this Easter weekend. Your boyfriend Belford is too worried about his lost French monkey Andre to pay attention to your financial concerns. You would settle for your psychic friend Q-Jo’s psychobabble for advice, except that she is missing. And the one man who may be able to help you, an ex-stock market guru just back from Timbuktu, is the same man whom you suspect is responsible for Q-Jo’s disappearance. Even if you can get past your suspicion of him, your inexplicable attraction to Larry Diamond and the way he seems to hypnotize you with his crackpot theories about an amphibious armageddon keep distracting you from your goal of finding fiscal security. Maybe you should just be a good girlfriend and ask Belford for money once you find his monkey on the streets of Seattle. Maybe the strange tarot card you found in Q-Jo Huffington’s apartment holds the answer to all your troubles. What do you do?
No, this isn’t a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. This is Tom Robbins.
My first Robbins experience was a real treat. This hilarious, intricate, sometimes awkwardly erotic mystery really got me smiling. Despite feeling a bit dwarfed intellectually by the vocabulary, I was delighted to be placed squarely behind the eyes of Gwen as she makes a wonderful series of foolish and morally dubious choices. Q-Jo Huffington is such an interesting character that the few pages she occupies is enough to carry her persona all the way through the story. Larry Diamond is fascinating as the long-winded, mind-reading philosopher who is absolutely enchanted by Gwen. Belford Dunn makes an excellent foil for Larry as the big-hearted dolt who trusts Gwen implicitly despite her not-so-subtle disdain for him.
The fast pace of a novel that takes place during a single weekend keeps you turning the page. The language is so well-crafted as to be called poetic, without producing the effect of a narrative that takes itself too seriously (quite the opposite, in fact). And on top of that, the social commentary in the face of an economic downturn happens to be quite poignant today.
Grab your dictionary and crack open Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas for a great, fun read. Don’t keep Uncle Larry waiting.
Happy reading,
Matt
