Ian Frazier -- The Cursing Mommy's book of days =============================================== Don't read this if you are in a down mood yourself. You will have to get through a lot of the Cursing Mommy's difficult days before you can perhaps laugh at her. And, most of all, don't read the rest of this review if you plan on reading the book. In what follows, I reveal altogether too much that you will have more fun discovering and puzzling out for yourself when you read the book. And, seemingly, you never get to laugh *with* the Cursing Mommy. Or, perhaps I'm a bit dense and am not seeing through something. Much of the content is similar to the Cursing Mommy articles in the New Yorker. But, in this book, there is a continuing story behind those short episodes about the Cursing Mommy and her two sons and her husband (Larry) and the Cursing Mommy's Book Group and other characters who seem to have attached themselves to the Cursing Mommy's life in various troublesome ways. A few of the book's characters: (1) The Cursing Mommy herself. (2) Kyle -- The Cursing Mommy's younger son, who gets hives every time he is sent of to elementary school as often as not he has to to janitorial work and repairs because support has been de-funded. (3) Trevor -- The Cursing Mommy's older son is in middle school and requires multiple psychotropic drugs to reduce the amount of arson he commits. (4) Larry -- The Cursing Mommy's husband, who is only moderately depressed, but who picks up once his dream of acquiring and selling capacitors becomes reality. (5) Russ -- The chronically depressed husband of Angie who ran off with the inspirational author that the Cursing Mommy invited to speak at Book Group. Russ is able to limp through life only because his two adopted children, who are in about first and second grade, keep him on heavy medications. (6) The Hendersonites -- A religious cult, possibly from Latin American, who refurbish the elementary school using materials from questionable sources. (7) The evil client/boss who pursues the Cursing Mommy in a white limo with flowers and champagne and who only tries to have Larry killed two or at most three times. I never really figured out the thing about capacitors. But, then, part of the fun with this book is trying to figure out what is "really" going on through the hints and ravings of the Cursing Mommy. It is a severely depressing story about severely depressed people. Most of the characters are either on heavy medication or should be: (1) The Cursing Mommy drug of choice is alcohol, without which she can often to get through to Noon. (2) Her husband merely cries quietly on the way to work. (3) The financial problems are severe and get worse through out the book. (4) The schools have been de-funded. (5) The local stores, grocery and pharmacy, provide no help or services. (6) The Cursing Mommy's father is a burden after a life of giving not attention to the Cursing Mommy or her family. (7) A fellow "Book Group" member runs off with an author that the Cursing Mommy formerly worshiped as inspirational, dumping her chronically depressed husband in the psychiatric hospital and her two adopted children on the Cursing Mommy and other Book Group members. It gets worse and worse. I won't even try to explain the renegade prairie dog colony. A few of the book's low points: (1) The need for drugs by most of the characters and, in particular, the need to drug one of the Cursing Mommy's children. (2) A husband who is depressed and apparently has no conversations with his wife (the Cursing Mommy). (3) Serial, serious disasters, for example, a tree collapses and crushes the garage, a fire destroys the garage (possibly started by the arsonist son), the son sets fire in a public building and is given even heavier medications, sand storms and snow and dirt storms, a vacation at a lakeside resort where the lake has dried up. (4) The elementary school burns down after having been stripped and gutted of materials by the under paid laborers. The solution to this one is quite good, actually: The school board promotes all the kids to the ninth grade and tells the high school to deal with them. (5) And on and on. You have to understand, feel, believe, whatever that as things get so extremely wrong, they also become ridiculous and funny. For me, that did not happen until late in the book. So, most of the book was an unhappy grind, until then. I think the turning point for me was when the Cursing Mommy, who has taken her own kids and the two adopted kids of Russ, who are in the first and second grades, who had to fill out the paperwork to get their clinically depressed father out of the hospital, to the county fair and how Russ's kids have won the Best of Show for their series of tempura paintings entitled "Medicating the chronically depressive" in a competition sponsored by medium Pharma. After that, I felt: Well, this is ridiculous enough so that even I can laugh. Still, much of it does seem like a bizarre telling of the hard times and financial difficulties of over-stressed middle class American families. And, let's not even think about families that are trying to support themselves on minimum or near minimum wage jobs. It does, however keep you interested. You keep wondering where this bizarre series of catastrophes is going to lead? Will any of these creeps get what they deserve? And, (when I've still got half of the book yet to read), how can things possibly get any worse? More specifically, what will happen to Larry and his capacitors? What will the Hendersonite religious cult finally to do the school? Will the evil client/boss finally be able to seduce the Cursing Mommy? One question -- Why did not the deal with the Nigerian Archbishop turn out to be a scam? When Larry was required to wire a down payment and then a full payment before receiving his shipment of capacitors, that should have turned out to be a (not so) standard Nigerian Internet scam. But then, part of the "charm" of this book is that things often do not turn out the way the reader might expect them to. The back story does get some resolution, though not a particularly strong one. You make up your own mind about that. A few bad guys get "just deserts". A few not quite so bad guys have their strings jerked. A good guy or two, including the Cursing Mommy, do get moderately happy endings, or at least, not-so-bad endings, not as bad as their stupidity deserves. And, the Cursing Mommy herself remains cheerful and positive through it all, ... except of course when she is cursing, ... and drinking (or maybe especially when she is drinking). 01/21/2013 .. vim:ft=rst:fo+=a: