The Full Ridiculous
A Novel
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Michaelo O’Dell is hit by a car, and when he doesn’t die, he is surprised and pleased. But he can’t seem to move, frozen in the crash position. He can’t concentrate, or control his anger and grief, or work out what to do about much of anything. His professional life begins to crumble, and although his wife Wendy is heroically supportive, his teenage children only exacerbate his post-accident angst. His daughter Rosie punches out a vindictive schoolmate, plunging the family into a special parent-teacher hell. Meanwhile, his son Declan is found with a stash of illicit drugs, and a strange policeman starts harassing the family, causing ordinary mishaps to take on a sinister desperation.
Equal parts hilarious and painful, this compelling novel delves into the difficulties of family, love, and the precarious business of being a man. 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.
