The Full Ridiculous
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A funny, compelling novel about love, family, and the precarious business of being a man.
Michael O’Dell is hit by a car. When he doesn’t die, he is surprised and pleased. But he can’t seem to move from the crash position. In fact, the accident is just the first in a series of family crises: His wife Wendy is heroically supportive, but when his daughter Rosie punches out a vindictive schoolmate, all hell breaks loose. His son Declan is found with a stash of illicit drugs. A strange policeman starts harassing the family and ordinary mishaps take on a sinister desperation. To top it all off, Michael’s professional life starts to crumble.
Mark Lamprell’s extraordinary debut examines the terrible truth: sometimes you can’t pull yourself together until you’ve completely fallen apart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Screen writer Lamprell debuts with a first-rate novel told almost exclusively in the second person. It begins with Michael O'Dell being hit by a car, an accident that sets off a yearlong descent into an "Alice-less Wonderland" of personal and familial trouble. Michael is a sardonic film critic who gave up his reviewing gig to work a book about the decline of Australian cinema, a fitting subject given his growing conviction that "the good part of your life is over; the bad part has begun." To wit: his daughter picks a fight with a girl from a particularly vengeful family; his son may be using, or worse, dealing drugs; and then there is Constable Lance Johnstone, the off-kilter policeman whose buffoonery makes his obsessive hounding of the O'Dells no less sinister. As Michael and his family work to resolve their crises, Lamprell manages to temper sentimentalism with a tonic wryness. Despite the relatively uncommon second-person narration, the dysfunctional family plot feels familiar. However, in Lamprell's hands, the reader won't necessarily mind.
