Nedra and I have
participated in a book discussion group since the early 1960s so we have had
quite a range of fiction and non-fiction to read over the past half century. I
was given a gift of a paperback by Richard Janda, a linguist who is now on
sabbatical leave with his family in France.
It is a novel by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel. Its title is LUNATICS. I had not read any of their works before but I have occasionally
read satirical novels (Orwell’s 1984
and Huxley’s Brave New World are
classics). A more recent satirical novel
is Jonas Jonasson’s The 100 Year Old Man
Climbs Out of the Window and Disappears.
Lunatics uses alternate chapters to
describe shared experiences of two characters, one a pet shop owner and the
other a “forensic plumber.” The pet shop owner, Stephen Hortman, and the
plumber, Jeffrey Peckerman, hate each other.
Jeffrey believes Stephen made a bad call in a girls’ soccer game. The two chase each other and create chaos
that escalates into bungled traffic accidents, a downed helicopter, a blocked
bridge, and a belief that terrorists are at work. Things get worse at the Central Park Zoo as
they are pursued by real terrorists and the police. They escape and their actions lead to the beaching
of a cruise liner in Cuba. Their actions
somehow get them out of trouble only to create more trouble as they go from
Cuba to the Middle East and to China. They
become celebrated as international heroes and end up at the Republican National
Convention and that chapter brought tears of laughter and bouts of uncontrolled
giggles. They reminded me of Zero Mostel
at his best. For old timers like me, it was like a revival of the slapstick
comedy of Laurel and Hardy, the Keystone Cops, and the Marx Brothers.
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