The Funnies

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY FEB 1, 1999

A dysfunctional family that has been idealized in a comic strip finds harmony upon the death of its creator in the second novel by the winner of Barnes and Noble's 1997 Discover Great New Writers Award (The Light of Falling Stars). This touching, acutely drawn portrait of family angst is seen against the interestingly detailed background of the funnies industry. Carl Mix's Family Funnies transformed him from "rotten father," according to his son Tim, into the "preeminent architect of Good Clean Fun," and made him and his family--who resent being characters in the strip--rich. With his death, the job of carrying on the syndicated strip falls to failing artist Tim, if he can learn, in three months' time, to draw it to the satisfaction of the Burns Syndicate. Tim soon stops resisting the task, abandoning both pretensions to art and his girlfriend, Amanda, and moving back to the family home, which has been left to Tim's brother Pierce, the only family member not to appear in the strip. Pierce's major problem is paranoia, which keeps him, at the age of 28, locked in his bedroom. Tim's deeper insight into his father's cartooning genius is paralleled by his profound understanding of his family. Tim vacillates between growing confidence in his skill, as he is tutored in the finer points of drawing and gags by his Dad's former collaborator, and worrying that the syndicate will replace him with another cartoonist. Easily grafting elements of the family novel onto the subtext of the funnies culture, he incorporates elements of the comic-book business, from the names for the little marks that indicate movement (e.g., hites and agritrons), to the rivalries among cartoonists. Though some plot twists are predictable (early on, the reader suspects that Amanda's place in Tim's heart will be filled by his new editor, Susan), Lennon has his finger on the pulse of domestic behavior. One family's emotional sprawl, with all its maddening idiosyncrasies and emotional baggage, becomes somehow more real as it is filtered through Tim's apprenticeship in cartooning. Author tour.