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The Adventures of the Pisco Kid
Michael Standaert. Arriviste (arrivistepress.com), $16.95 paper (196p) ISBN 978-0974627038

Standaert’s unconventional first novel follows Pisco, a disillusioned rodent exterminator and taxidermy enthusiast. The main thrust of Pisco’s life is spent killing bats and rats, attempting to coexist with a ragtag assembly of neighbors and lamenting the tragic death of his apartment building’s handyman Paul Putty. Pisco’s unhinged, naturally suspicious mother (who calls him by his given name, “Moses”) is a black Jamaican woman who adopted him; she and her much younger boyfriend, “Fly Boy,” add little to his life of joyless annoyances, the zaniness of which is mind-bogglingly excessive: Pisco is bitten by a bat and develops rabies-like symptoms, he’s fired then beaten down after vomiting on his boss’ shoes, he wrestles emotionally with being an adoptee, then finds his friend Father John dead after a night of drinking and winds up in jail accused of murder (and is then rescued by a great flood)—all while corresponding with a gal named Sarah Ellen Roberts who may or may not be his niece. The author of Skipping Towards Armageddon: The Politics and Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire (Soft Skull) and a blogger at the Huffington Post, Standaert targets the soulless options for 21st century living in this frenetic, bitterly funny paean to defeat. (Sept.)
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