Janet Maslin, The New York Times: “‘Dog Days’ manages to be doubly conventional: it follows both an old-fashioned love-betrayal-redemption arc and the newer, bitchier nanny-Prada chick-lit motif. Melanie is a myopic and self-interested heroine by the standards of either genre. The reader will learn about Melanie’s expensive shoes, Melanie’s drinking, Melanie’s buying of groceries at drugstores, Melanie’s playing with sushi and Melanie’s first shirt with French cuffs. Then there are Melanie’s descriptions of cellphone noises, the Delta shuttle terminal and Washington’s byzantine parking laws. Throughout all this, the ‘Berry’ – a word used as both a noun and a verb – is never more than a pesty ping away.”
USA Today: “The novel has a stripped-down story line and limited character development. The plot is predictable and matter-of-fact. But it does have a blunt, albeit tawdry, honesty.”
Publishers Weekly: “Fans of Wonkette’s wit will find themselves better served by her blog.”
The Book Standard: “[R]eaders hoping for some real-life dirt (or at least a salacious facsimile) will be dealt nothing more than lightweight fluff and throwaway farce.”
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
While lots of reviewers may be criticizing Dog Days for not being the book people expected Cox to write, if you approach the book without the Wonkette baggage, it’s entertaining enough. Is it Henry Adams’ Democracy? Not by a long shot, but then what the hell else is? People who dig Joe Klein’s novels should enjoy this one well enough.
I haven’t read it. So I can’t comment upon its merits or failures. But I think the expectations are high here, because people actually expected a comic narrative from Cox that applied her vim and wit to penetrating insight and got a skimpy and banal narrative instead.
I noticed the Times review called it a blovel. I had thought the operative term was blook.
What, you’re expecting Janet Maslin to know something remotely cutting-edge?
Ouch, bad day for Ana Marie to quit the blog, huh?
Carolyn: I wasn’t going to say it, but yeah…
Ron says: “…lots of reviewers may be criticizing Dog Days for not being the book people expected Cox to write…”
Who are the reviewers doing this? Not Maslin, who according to Ron’s own assertion on Galleycat “…doesn’t really seem to know that much about Ana Marie Cox…”
Don’t you love it when contradictory arguments are applied depending on what’s convenient?
Christopher Buckley seems to be playing the role of Ana Marie’s Critic in Shining Armor.
Dear Lula, among the reviewers using the tactic I described are the very USA TODAY and PW reviews Ed quotes above. I said “lots of” rather than “all” for a reason.