Mr. Hooks

What an odyssey! A man who believes he caused his wife’s three miscarriages learns to love himself again.

--Start with a lawyer drowning himself in the river

--Add a film critic catfish who rescues said lawyer and nudges him back to sanity by discussing auteur theory and dissing Deniro

--Throw in the lawyer’s sign-wearing crusade to squash sex (thus eliminating the possibility of anyone having another miscarriage)

--And don’t neglect the three meth makers from the uncharted woods who assault the lawyer’s nicotine-addicted wife

--Resulting in a child 

--Whom the wife’s billionaire, cattle-raising father would destroy like a calf with three eyes.

--End with an enigmatic quote from the Book of Job about “angels”

--And you have a novel with a strong, twisting plot. And if you recall from your pompous Teaching Assistant with the scraggly beard and nicotine-stained fingers in Eng.101: stories with strong, twisting plots are usually genre fiction i.e. trash. Read this one and see. 

If you like Terry Pratchett mixed with your Garcia Marquez, you’ll enjoy this novel by three-time Pushcart nominee Lance Levens.