Mourning Wood: A Novel
By Daniel Paisner
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Best-selling author Daniel Paisner creates an indelible impression with an offbeat novel reminiscent of the humor found in the novels of Carl Hiassen and Peter Lefcourt. Terence Wood, a fading Hollywood icon, stages his own death, and "disappears" into the workaday world of a Maine coastal town... Axel Pimletz, a never-shined-enough-to-fade newspaper hack, catches the assignment of his nothing special career when his front page obituary of the presumed dead Wood wins him the chance to complete the man's "posthumous" memoirs... Behind a full growth of beard and a name and back-story borrowed from one of his forgettable pictures, Wood throws in with the louts and fishermen of Bar Harbor, Maine like it's in his blood... he takes a job as a costumed cartoon-crustacean character at a seaside amusement park and feels he's doing the best acting of his career... he even falls for a dramatically overweight coffee shop matron who takes him in, offers girth and succor, and eventually wises to Wood's secret... Pimletz, desperate to write his way out of his lone opportunity, begins to take on the trappings of Wood's life... he lives in the great man's cabin... he sleeps with the great man's estranged (and strangely widowed) wife... he does what little he can to make sense of the big mess Wood has left behind. Meanwhile, Wood celebrates his transformation and learns to greet each day like it's brand-new... Pimletz tries on Wood's abandoned persona and struggles with the fit... and Wood's left-behind family (his son, an NYU film student with a fruit-flavored drinking problem, and his variously problemed ex-wives) take turns mourning the great man's death, in what ways they can manage. Eventually, Pimletz's assumption of the fallen icon's persona takes him to Bar Harbor, where he hopes to track down the misdirected letters Wood had meant to deliver to his son Norman, to explain his sudden "death" and make repairs...in the end, Wood's old world collides with his new one, and he returns to the rest of his life with his overweight coffee shop matron in tow, and his "ghostwriter" on call... the man Wood was has indeed died in the fallout from his staged death, although it's not entirely clear what kind of man he has become...Customer Reviews
Funny, perceptive and highly entertaining!!
This is a great book. A real surprise. What a treat.
On the one
hand, this is a tale of reinvention. It's a story about having (or
having had) everything you wanted - and then still wanting to call a
do-over.
On the other hand, it is hysterical. Sometimes it's
hysterical in a laugh-out-loud sort of a way. Sometimes in a
sneak-up-on-you-the-next-day-in-the-shower sort of a way. It is a
biting, insightful look at pop culture through the lens of a one-time
A-list Hollywood leading man who sees the opportunity to make himself
relevant again - to himself and to the world, by dying. Sort of.
From
the writer's bio it seems that he has written a number of books with
celebrities. And that inside feel really comes across when you read
this book. You have the feeling of getting into the mind and culture of
someone who has lived his life under the watchful eye of the media and
his adoring public. There's a kind of Being John Malkovich thing going
here - as the writer brings you into the head of a Jack Nicholson kind
of guy, and he's got the street cred and the chops to really pull it
off. On the other side of the story is this kind of hapless, deadbeat
newspaper obit writer - and the vivid accounts of his life and
perspective, to often bitingly hilarious result.
I highly recommend
this book.
Extremely entertaining,
Paisner is consistently good. Whether he is writing one of his
numerous celebrity biographies or a novel, his style and story keep you
interested from page one. The characters in Mourning Wood are so
innovative and interesting; they are a breath of fresh air from your
standard pop culture fare. I believe this is the second novel of
Paisner's and I can only hope that he turns more of his attention to
fiction as both of these have been treats.
are you serious
"mourning wood". surly this guy realizes the joke. make sure to
get the HARDcover version.
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