Domestic Violets

Feb 25, 2013 Bennett Gavrish rated it 4 of 5 stars

Grade: B-

L/C Ratio: 70% Literary / 30% Commercial

Thematic Breakdown:
25% - Writing
20% - Corporate America
15% - Infidelity
15% - Fatherhood
10% - Sex
10% - Humor
5% - Washington DC

Addictiveness: Medium
Movie Potential: 1 Thumb Down
Re-readability: Low

Domestic Violets opens with an internal monologue about the narrator's malfunctioning penis. It's a scene that sets a comedic, yet emotional tone for the rest of the novel and lets Matthew Norman showcase his vibrant literary voice. From there, the plot an...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Ti rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-sent-to-me, galleys-completed-net-galley

The Short of It:

Domesticity gone wild!

The Rest of It:

Tom Violet is your typical office dweller. Unsatisfied with his job, he takes great pleasure in deconstructing the ridiculousness around him. But times are tough and the economy has tanked and with a wife and daughter to support, he’s glad to have a job. His real dream though is to be a writer. In fact he has written a secret novel, but with his own father just winning the Pulitzer, he’s hesitant to share his work. Struggling to get through th...more

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May 11, 2012 Dani Peloquin rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I finished this book, I realized that I had been waiting for it for over five years without even knowing. Norman is able to create the perfect recipe that includes laughs, tears, heartache, and forgiveness. I rarely say this, but this novel has it all! Therefore, I recommend it to all.

Tom is tired of his work as a copywriter and can see his marriage slipping away from him but he is helpless to do anything. When his father wins the Pulitzer Prize, Tom's problems grow exponentially. Curtis Vi...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love Tom Violet. I love his personality, his love of family and his ability to use sarcasm to his advantage, mainly towards people he doesn't care for. Not since Jess Riley's DRIVING SIDEWAYS have I enjoyed such snarkiness. Granted, he uses the snarkiness to make up for his lack of confidence, but he does it in a way that makes you root for him. Well, it was that way for me, anyway. I enjoyed all of the characters in this book, even the less than significant ones because they were easy to beli...more

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Mar 04, 2013 Michelle Sallay rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: on-my-blog, own, favorites

Originally on my blog: http://ilovedthisbook.blogspot.com

There is a scene in Sex And The City when Carrie meets Burger and finds out he is an author who "relates to men the way her writing relates to women." And then Burger makes some comment how men don't want to read books like that. Do you know that scene? Every time I watch it I wish that weren't true, that there were more books by men that were light funny books about what it was like to be a guy. So discovering Domestic Violets, a chance t...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Becky rated it 4 of 5 stars

I would give this book 4.5 stars - the title is what caught my eye, made me laugh. I LOVED the humor in the book!! I would kill to have the quick wit of the main character (and probably the author).

Tom Violet has always been in the shadow of his famous author father, Curtis Violet, and Tom has always subconsciously wanted to be Curtis. So in the beginning of the book, we find Tom in a boring, corporate job, unhappily getting through each work week. His only bright spot is Katie, the young girl...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Amelia rated it 2 of 5 stars

Ugh... OK, I am starting to lose my patience for contemporary novels starring this guy: handsome, comfortably successful/family money, precocious child/ren, hot, intelligent wife (whom he is bored/stifled/misunderstood by, ALWAYS), approaching 40, and life is just like, so hard! And like, no one "gets" me! And what if I'm like, not fulfilled by my hot wife and beautiful family and lovely home? BOOHOO, ENDURE MY HANDSOME MIDLIFE ANGST! It's just... enough out of you, guy. Why are you in every nov...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Tzippy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: warning-cheaters-prosper, quotable, unlikeable-main-character, unsatisfying-ending, hard-to-read, depressing, rant, reviewed, that-s-not-love, you-call-that-a-happy-ending, not-enough-groveling

There are two things in fiction that have the ability to make my stomach literally churn: rape and cheating. And yet, I keep reading books that include these subjects. Even worse when the book is well-written. It's like a car wreck: I know that reading these books will make me sick, but I can't look away. More likely, I want to read a book where these things get some sort of real closure; where the victim is able to stand up tall at the end and the perpetrator is satisfactorily punished. (Speak ...more There are two things in fiction that have the ability to make my stomach literally churn: rape and cheating. And yet, I keep reading books that include these subjects. Even worse when the book is well-written. It's like a car wreck: I know that reading these books will make me sick, but I can't look away. More likely, I want to read a book where these things get some sort of real closure; where the victim is able to stand up tall at the end and the perpetrator is satisfactorily punished. (Speak comes closest out of all the books I've read.)

And on another note:

Just divorce the poor woman already!

Seriously, what is it with fiction and having relationships plod on through every conceivable obstacle? I've never read a book where one partner cheats and the other one says, "Okay, you crossed the line, get out of my life," and then they move on to happier relationships. (The Molly Blume series kind of does, but it all takes place before the first book starts.) Why is that? What makes these characters (and thereby, the authors) think that a relationship that includes infidelity is worth "saving"? Why don't these people ever cut their losses, get out of the relationship, and go find someone else who hasn't cheated on them?

The rest of the ~~review~~ rant will actually be about the book, so it'll include spoilers:
(view spoiler)

In short, I've got to stop reading books about cheating; it is no good for my blood pressure.(less)

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Jul 22, 2012 Carrie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Quotes:

My phone rings, and I cringe. Ringing phones often lead directly to one having to do work, and I'm in no mood for that today. (24)

I've found that knowledge is usually a burden. I prefer to be surprised and then eventually horrified. (30)

In one of his novels, my dad compares a beautiful girl to a wrecking ball--a force that destroys everything in its path. Like most famous, white, male authors of the last hundred years or so, he's sometimes criticized for being misogynistic, but you can't...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Sara Strand rated it 5 of 5 stars

Without going into the personal trials of my own marriage, I will tell you that this is such a close description of it that it's almost kind of alarming. And I say alarming because to read it from an outsider perspective it makes living it to be a little harsher.

So let me talk about all of the things I really loved about this book in the hopes to sway you to read it. Because I really believe this book highlights the typical marriage so well but what makes this book different is that it shows th...more Without going into the personal trials of my own marriage, I will tell you that this is such a close description of it that it's almost kind of alarming. And I say alarming because to read it from an outsider perspective it makes living it to be a little harsher.

So let me talk about all of the things I really loved about this book in the hopes to sway you to read it. Because I really believe this book highlights the typical marriage so well but what makes this book different is that it shows that adults can be rational, can forgive, and can work towards something better rather than just say, "Screw you, I want a divorce!" because that's just a trigger reaction for someone who isn't willing to be an adult and work through something.

1. Can I just say I really loved Tom Violet? I did. He reminds me so much of Matt from his previous job that reading it in this perspective made me really understand what he was trying to tell me all along but never really could.

2. I appreciated his wife Anna because I knew exactly what she would have been feeling and although I didn't make the choices she does, I certainly wanted to.

3. I loved how funny this book was. It was such a real humor that it feels like this is your buddy calling you up to vent about something and you totally sympathize.

4. Can I just say I love how he resigns? Epic.

5. I loved the ending. I really did. There are not many books that end in a way that makes me think about it long after I finish the book. Was it just fates way of leading his life down another direction? The father and son dynamic of it makes me think of when one door closes, another opens, but in this case, when one generation bows out, another comes in.

One of my favorite passages of the book hit me because it's true. You know this author is married because nobody who is single will ever totally get this:

" Anna and I maneuver through our small bathroom, going about our nighttime routines of brushing and moisturizing. Tonight, we've managed to do it in complete silence. Married silence is a specific kind of silence, typically one in which the woman goes mute while the man pretends as if it's perfectly normal that she hasn't spoken in hours. In the face of conflict with their wives, most men choose to remain oblivious and passive, and I'm no different. Our shoulders touch as she scrubs her face with these little medicated pads. I say excuse me and drop my used floss in the garbage bin. We could be traveling salespeople, sharing a bathroom for some strange reason."

That right there? Is just a sampling of the realistic humor that married people just get and can identify with. I'm so excited to read another Matthew Norman novel because he's got such a talent that can weave a story that sounds like it's a memoir but bring humor to serious situations and it's all good. Everything about this book was good and I thoroughly enjoyed it. (less)

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Jun 02, 2012 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Though I really liked this book and gave it 4 stars, it's really more of a 3.75 star book.

Tom Violet is stuck in corporate hell in a dead-end job he despises, his marriage is about to fail at any moment, he has a horrible crush on his 23-year-old-direct report, and his dog smells bad. To make things worse, aspiring-writer Tom learns that his father - an extremely famous, successful, and womanizing writer - has just won the pulitzer prize. This book follows Tom as he tries to figure out his 35-ye...more

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May 06, 2012 Florinda rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the characters in Domestic Violets remarks that most first novels are autobiographical. Whether or not they’re autobiographical, it seems to me that a lot of first novels tend to be reminiscent of other people’s novels. That’s not meant to say that they can be derivative; it’s more likely due to the fact that a new author doesn’t have an established record yet, so he or she really can’t be easily evaluated against his own catalog. This can work either for or against them, depending on the...more One of the characters in Domestic Violets remarks that most first novels are autobiographical. Whether or not they’re autobiographical, it seems to me that a lot of first novels tend to be reminiscent of other people’s novels. That’s not meant to say that they can be derivative; it’s more likely due to the fact that a new author doesn’t have an established record yet, so he or she really can’t be easily evaluated against his own catalog. This can work either for or against them, depending on the connections a reader makes between the new author’s work and other fiction that seems similar--and with Domestic Violets, just about all of my associations were favorable.

I think it’s an interesting comment on how quickly we process current events in the 21st century that Domestic Violets was published in the early autumn of 2011, and its events very specifically take place in the early autumn of 2008. The presidential election and the spread of the Great Recession both influence what’s happening to Tom Violet. Having said that, Domestic Violets isn’t about either of those events; as its rather punny title implies, this novel is firmly located in the domestic-fiction sphere. Its concerns--marital strains, friction between parents and adult children, career dissatisfaction--are everyday and entirely relatable, although in most everyday lives they’re not as funny.

The humor runs high in Domestic Violets, as narrator/protagonist Tom Violet relies on it as a coping mechanism for the chaos of his life. He’s just worked up the nerve to show people the novel he’s been working on secretly for five years, while his world-famous novelist father has finally won the Pulitzer Prize--and moved into his spare bedroom, He and his wife Anna are in what’s best described as a “rough patch,” and his attraction to his young coworker isn’t helping smooth that out. The attractive coworker, and the amusement of an ongoing feud with a MUCH less attractive coworker, may be his primary reasons for going to the office each day, because the work holds almost no attraction at all. Things are pretty clearly on the verge of falling apart...and they do, quite entertainingly. Seeing how Tom picks up the pieces is quite entertaining as well.

As I mentioned earlier, Domestic Violets reminded me of several other novels and novelists--all favorably. Matthew Norman’s style is his own, but his approach to some aspects of the novel reminded me of Jonathan Tropper and Greg Olear, while some of the work-oriented sections brought to mind Joshua Ferris’ Then We Came to the End. But Norman’s depictions of the domestic misadventures of literary people, particularly in the later portions of the novel, most made me think of Michael Chabon’s second novel, Wonder Boys. Chabon’s one of my very favorite authors, and Wonder Boys is my favorite of his books, so my connecting Domestic Violets with it is a very good thing for Matthew Norman and the future of our reading relationship. (less)

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May 05, 2012 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Tom Violet is having a midlife crisis. Besides suffering from erectile dysfunction, he thinks his wife Anna might be having an affair. His dog Hank suffers from anxiety. Although the manuscript he’s been secretly working on for years is finally finished, his father Curtis has just been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. (In addition, Curtis seems to have left his latest wife and moved in with Tom and his family.) His job at a soul-killing corporation writing copy filled with...more BOOK DESCRIPTION

Tom Violet is having a midlife crisis. Besides suffering from erectile dysfunction, he thinks his wife Anna might be having an affair. His dog Hank suffers from anxiety. Although the manuscript he’s been secretly working on for years is finally finished, his father Curtis has just been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. (In addition, Curtis seems to have left his latest wife and moved in with Tom and his family.) His job at a soul-killing corporation writing copy filled with meaningless buzzwords bores him to tears. He makes work bearable by needling his arch-nemesis Gregory. The only good thing? His relationship with his cute young coworker Katie … who seems like she might reciprocate his inappropriate feelings towards her. What’s a sarcastic, frustrated writer with a larger-than-life father and a hot wife who doesn’t seem to need him anymore do to get his life back on track?

MY THOUGHTS

This book was a hoot! Although this is his debut novel, Norman writes with self-assurance and gives Tom a blackly comic voice that tickled my funny bone and had me wondering just how he was going to work through all his problems. The book reminded me a bit of Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You, in that both deal with wacky, dysfunctional families with major issues to tackle. I mean this as a very high compliment, as I adored Tropper’s book.

Although most of us probably couldn’t relate to having a father who is one of the greatest living American writers when our secret aspiration is to be a writer, most of us can relate to soul-killing jobs in offices that are full of backstabbing, empty buzzwords and nebulous goals. The sections where Tom is at work were my favorites. They brought back memories from my own office experiences.

I also thought that the marriage between Tom and Anna felt true and lived in. Although both of them are seeking attention and validation outside of the marriage, they still love each other and are trying to find a way back to each other. I think most long-term marriages might go through patches like this—where the person we love is almost too familiar and trapped with us in the drudgery of daily life to be exciting and appealing. In addition, the relationship that Tom has with his coworker Katie seemed believable. I’ve observed several situations in my own life when the coworker relationship crossed some kind of line without straying all the way to affair. It is a curious dynamic that I haven’t seen addressed too often in fiction, and it was interesting to see how it developed.

The book is a fun, fast read, and I look forward to finding out what Norman writes next. Recommended for readers who enjoy narrators with a sarcastic sense of humor, flaws and messed-up lives just like most of us!(less)

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Apr 30, 2012 Marialyce rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: april-2012

I really teetered on giving this book a three, but at about the midway point I decided that I was reading something quite good. It was funny, endearing, and one of those books that is hard to put down because the characters are so engaging.

This first novel by Matthew Norman explored first and foremost the relationship of the protagonist, Tom, to his well known, women chasing Pulitzer prize winning father. Tom tries to be someone and at the age of thirty five, but finds himself less than what he...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 4 of 5 stars

Thirty-five year-old Tom Violet is having an existential crisis. His marriage is crumbling, he's afraid his wife is having an affair, he's attracted to a 23 year-old co-worker, he hates his job and the 'cubicle life' it represents, he has a male co-worker who he hates, he's having impotency problems and he's been working on a novel for five years. To top it off, his father is a famous author who has just won the Pulitzer Prize.

The book is a riot, laugh-out-loud funny at times, and also poignant...more Thirty-five year-old Tom Violet is having an existential crisis. His marriage is crumbling, he's afraid his wife is having an affair, he's attracted to a 23 year-old co-worker, he hates his job and the 'cubicle life' it represents, he has a male co-worker who he hates, he's having impotency problems and he's been working on a novel for five years. To top it off, his father is a famous author who has just won the Pulitzer Prize.

The book is a riot, laugh-out-loud funny at times, and also poignant and real. The scenarios that Tom is up against could be those faced by 'every-man'. Tom worries a lot about his manhood and his impotency which has negatively affected his marriage. He is also dealing with his father's arrogant personality. Recently, his father has separated from his third wife and moved in with Tom and his family. Curtis, Tom's father, is supposedly working on a novel but it's been five years since his last novel was published. The Pulitzer is for a collection of his short stories written over the years. Tom has not told his father that he's written his own novel. He's too embarrassed to do so. What if it's no good or falls short?

As Tom tries to figure out how to repair his life and marriage, he makes a mess out of his work life. His nemesis, Gregory, is on him like white on snow and Tom can't let things go. They go at each other all the time and Tom finds his work meaningless and stressful. He works for a company that is called MSW that is supposed to do training for other companies so that they can run more efficiently. Truthfully, Tom is not sure what his company does. Tom is a copywriter for MSW, putting out brochures and training manuals.

Life at home is complicated by Tom's dog, Hank, who is very anxious. Tom's daughter Allie is a gem, five years old going on forty. She is too sweet and self-sufficient for belief. If all children were like Allie there would be an overnight population explosion. Curtis's third wife, an ex-model and beauty, is stalking Tom's home, sitting in her car with binoculars trying to get a glimpse of Curtis. She is a perfect narcissist.

Overall, I liked this book a lot but sometimes I felt that the author, Matthew Norman, tried too hard. What I really enjoyed was the novel's poignancy mixed in with the humor. As the book says, "We all have roles to play in our families". This is made very clear as we see Tom as 'son of famous writer' and trying to parent differently than his own father who walked out on Tom's mother when Tom was a young child. As Tom's life starts spinning out of control, the reader is with him all the way, cheering him on and hoping he can succeed in finding himself.
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Feb 12, 2012 Jodie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

This book was great, laugh out loud great. If you can get past the first few pages of erectile dysfunction talk (obviously it is a guy thing) you will not be disappointed.

The writing style is contagious, do not pick this up if you haven't got a significant chunk of time because you likely won't want to put it down. It is snarky and sarcastic, touching and infuriating, so all up it is everything I like in a novel. Tom Violet is one of the funniest characters I have had the pleasure of reading for...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

The reviews that I'd read up until I recommended this to my husband glowed with enthusiasm. I'd also heard it was featured at this year's Book Expo America. It's potential for comedic relatability (even so far as the dog with acute anxiety, yes we have one of those) seemed like something my husband might really enjoy so I recommended it to him. And since I just happened to have a review copy, he began reading it right away. He started laughing within seconds of starting it and continuously for t...more The reviews that I'd read up until I recommended this to my husband glowed with enthusiasm. I'd also heard it was featured at this year's Book Expo America. It's potential for comedic relatability (even so far as the dog with acute anxiety, yes we have one of those) seemed like something my husband might really enjoy so I recommended it to him. And since I just happened to have a review copy, he began reading it right away. He started laughing within seconds of starting it and continuously for the rest of his reading experience. It was one of those where we'd both be sitting on the couch and I'd look over at him like "really?... let me turn down the volume on my show so it doesn't interfere with your laughing"... hehe. But really, he enjoyed it from the very beginning. So it wasn't long before I picked it up as well in between his readings, and we both ended up finishing it the same day (which just so happens to be the same day I started reading it).

Tom Violet is the lead character. He has the anxious dog, a wife with whom he is trying unsuccessfully to conceive a second child (makes for a funny opening scene), and a father who has overshadowed him in the biggest way - by winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Tom, meanwhile, is wasting away in corporate dullness and hopes for his secretly written manuscript to one day be published. Tom's life seems to be quickly spiraling downward when he unexpectedly takes back control in a spur-of-the moment way we all wish we could. But really Domestic Violets isn't about that one thing. It's about that mid-life drama that makes you question everything about your life. But it was done in a fun, witty way.

Now, I will say I found this book to be fairly standard "guy-lit" but it was solid and incredibly engaging. After all, I read it in a day. But I'm finding that some people think that label minimizes it, so maybe it's just that all the "guy-lit" I've read has been really good. I found this book surprisingly hopeful. Although it deals with parental issues, trying to live up to the outrageous success of one parent, issues with adultery, what we're meant to do in life, and the drudgery of the daily lives we often end up in, Domestic Violets was still fun and, ultimately, uplifting. I sort of got from it that things happen and we can't necessarily predict it all. We have to more go with the flow and let things play out. And not take things too seriously.

I think other big readers will enjoy the focus on the literary world. Tom's dad, Curtis Violet, wins the Pulitzer Prize and is a celebrity. I wonder if that's how it is in real life, where everywhere the author goes people recognize him. Maybe I'm just in an area with few readers because I have trouble seeing that happen here, but maybe it does, and it was fun to read about anyway. Overall, the characters felt truly genuine, as did the flaws Norman painted onto each character.

Domestic Violets was a thoroughly enjoyable read and one that both my husband and I (with our varying tastes) read quickly and have shared good conversation about already. I had a smile on my face as I read and that's always a good sign!

Taken from my blog at www.takemeawayreading.com (less)

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Jan 20, 2012 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was not a book I would have picked up had it not been recommended to me by someone whose opinion I trust. I am so glad that I did pick it up, because I devoured it compulsively in one sitting. The protagonist Tom Violet is a slightly-better-than-average guy with a job he hates, a wife and daughter he loves, and a famous father with whom he has an uneasy relationship. The novel made me wish I could be friends with Tom Violet so I could daily partake of his humorous work-rants, but also so I...more

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Dec 23, 2011 Avadhut rated it 5 of 5 stars

http://avadhutrecommends.wordpress.com/

My Rating – 5/5

Summary –

Domestic Violets is brilliant and sparklingly humorous account of Violets, Tom and his legendary writer father Curtis. Narrated in first person by Tom, it is an amazing and marvellous tale of his midlife crisis and his coming into his own groove as a writer himself and all the things in between.

Review –

One of my favourite bloggers gave this book a big thumps up. So I instinctively went ahead and bought it. Glad I did that because thi...more http://avadhutrecommends.wordpress.com/

My Rating – 5/5

Summary –

Domestic Violets is brilliant and sparklingly humorous account of Violets, Tom and his legendary writer father Curtis. Narrated in first person by Tom, it is an amazing and marvellous tale of his midlife crisis and his coming into his own groove as a writer himself and all the things in between.

Review –

One of my favourite bloggers gave this book a big thumps up. So I instinctively went ahead and bought it. Glad I did that because this surely is one of the best novels I read this year. I don’t like to rank books. (It’s as smart as or as stupid as ranking batsmen in cricket. How do you rank Tendulkar, Bradman, Viv Richards? So how the hell you rank To Kill a Mockingbird, The Fountainhead or Darkness at Noon? I never got that.) But Domestic Violets is sitting pretty tight near the top of the pile that I finished this year. I am really happy to end the year on a high note.

Tom Violet is 35, married to beautiful Anna, father of seven year old sweet Allie, Director of marketing Copy-writing and an aspiring writer. Picture perfect? Well.. Almost except that his marriage is disintegrating, he is stuck up with a job he loathes aboard a company (dubbed Death Star by Tom) whose real contribution to the world he is unsure of. He has a hopeless crush on Katie, his 23 year old chirpy assistant copy writer and the Pulitzer winning novel he has been writing for last 5 years is finally complete but buried in his drawer. Even his dog suffers from acute anxiety. The world around him is sinking fast (courtesy Lehman Brothers and others). Meanwhile his father, a celebrated writer actually wins the Pulitzer.

Tom Violet is such a likable guy. He is someone you can easily relate to. (Albeit more daring and witty.) Stuck up on corporate ladder.. Dreaming to be something else. He is insecure, vulnerable not sure about himself and therefore hides the manuscript of his unpublished novel. He conceals his anxiety behind a mask of complete cynicism. As the novel progresses, his life goes from bad to worse. He makes some pretty awful mistakes along the way too. Yet he is an honest and quite a good guy deep down. So one day he finally decides to take things in his own hands and as they say the rest is history.

The centre piece of the book though is the relationship that Tom shares with his brilliant, famous but philanderer dad who has left his recent trophy wife and come to stay with Tom’s family. It’s heartening to see Tom emerge slowly but surely out of the shadows of his dad. Books on father-son relationships are comparatively far and few between and probably that’s one of the reasons I liked this book so much.

It’s a hilarious book and Norman certainly has style and knows how to tell a story well. The book is interspersed with sharp one liners that certainly will make you LOL. Through Tom who pretends that knowledge is a burden and therefore prefers to be surprised and eventually horrified, Norman dwells upon love, marriage, faith, corporate world (Cubeland with ear splitting words like “synergy” and “best practices”) and following your dreams. Reading Domestic Violets was a fantastic and funny ride. I am sure I will visit it again sooner. Recommended whole heartedly.(less)

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Oct 22, 2011 Mary (BookHounds) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, amazon-vine

Tom Violet is having a bad day, well, actually a bad life. His sex life is down the drain, his famous father just won the Pulitzer Prize for a book he wrote years ago, he has a dead end job and HIS book will never be published. When his father shows up in his home (actually his father owns the house Tom lives in) states he just left his wife and proceeds to get drunk, Tom really thinks it can't get any worse. Then his mother's husband, Gary shows up as well. If all this sounds depressing, it rea...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Christa (More Than Just Magic) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, arc, bea-2011, comedy, genre-contemporary, own

This review originally posted at

It just doesn't seem like life could get any more tedious for Tom Violet. His job sucks, his marriage seems to be at a stand still, his celebrity father has left yet another wife and it seems like his step mother is stalking him. To top it all off he's finally finished his novel and he's just not sure what to do with it. Is he having a midlife crisis? That would be putting it lightly!

This debut novel is a hilarious look at the life of a man who's just trying to f ...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

WOW! Thank you Matthew Norman! I'd give this book the "Jack Lemmon Everyman Award" if one existed. If this book had been written back in the 60's, someone would be calling Jack Lemmon's agent to play Tom
Violet in the movie! I want the office next to Tom's!!

Tom Violet is stuck in a rut, having a midlife moment when he can't "perform" on command anymore, thinks his life is over as he knows it. And things only gets worse when his random father shows up in the middle of the night causing the famil...more

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Sep 10, 2011 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Tom Violet is a thirty-something husband and father working at a thankless corporate job in Washington DC. He’s just finished writing a book and although he’s too unsure of himself to actually show it to anyone, he dreams of becoming a famous novelist. It just so happens that his father, Curtis, IS a famous novelist and has just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

It’s getting harder for Tom to stomach his life in the corporate world and to make matters worse, he and his wife haven’t been communi...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Nadia rated it 5 of 5 stars

I heart Tom Violet! He is my first bookish crush. He's smart, creative, funny, and flawed - just the type of guy you want to marry and have babies with (yes, I still want to marry him in spite of that night with Katie). Tom is such a realistically drawn out character: he's struggling with his marriage; battling his arch nemesis, Gregory, at work; crushing on his assistant Katie; and dealing with the fact that his father, the famous Curtis Violet, has just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. You...more

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Sep 07, 2011 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of life's greatest pleasures is reading a debut novel and absolutely loving it. It's thrilling to discover a new talent and be able to proclaim to everyone you know- "You MUST read this book by this new author. It's fantastic!"

A lot of people have been talking about Matthew Norman's debut novel, Domestic Violets, and since they were people whose judgement I trust, I was hopeful. I opened the book and read the novel in two sittings. It lives up to the hype, a delightful surprise for me.

Tom Vi...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Yvann S rated it 2 of 5 stars

"When Lyle is gone and I've hung up the phone, I'm faced with the grim prospect of having do my job and write some more corporate propaganda."

Tom Violet, 35, married to the beautiful and compassionate Anna and father of the adorable Allie, is a copywriter who is singularly uninspired by his job. To make matters worse, his adulterous, pot-smoking father has just won the Pulitzer Prize. So Tom's debut novel, slaved over in secret for years, looks like a non-starter. Oh, and he's struggling in bed,...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Linda Baker rated it 5 of 5 stars

Domestic Violets has been on my TBR list (compliments of netgalley.com) so I decided to read it this Hurricane Irene weekend. To be honest, I had read a few pages earlier but was put off by the beginning, which features an episode of erectile dysfunction. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I tend to think erectile dysfunction belongs neither in a book I want to read, nor as ads placed in televised golf matches! Despite a slow start, I soon found myself chuckling and caught up in Tom's various dilemmas.

T...more Domestic Violets has been on my TBR list (compliments of netgalley.com) so I decided to read it this Hurricane Irene weekend. To be honest, I had read a few pages earlier but was put off by the beginning, which features an episode of erectile dysfunction. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I tend to think erectile dysfunction belongs neither in a book I want to read, nor as ads placed in televised golf matches! Despite a slow start, I soon found myself chuckling and caught up in Tom's various dilemmas.

Tom Violets thought his life would be perfect by the age of 35, full of fame, fortune and success. Instead, he is trapped in a soul-destroying copy writing job for a company that doesn't do anything that can be quantified, which Tom refers to as the "Death Star". He has an inappropriate crush on his cute young assistant, and his marriage is on shakier ground than even he imagines. Even the family dog has an anxiety disorder. Tom has a finished novel sitting in a desk drawer, but since his father is a "real" celebrated novelist this,too, is problematic. Then his father wins a Pulitzer, another in a long line of literary prizes, it sets off a whole chain of events that Tom stumbles, and often trips, through.

Other reviewers have called Domestic Violets hilarious. I don't go that far, but I found it witty, clever and charming-and very poignant in its' look at unrealized expectations and dysfunctional family dynamics. My major laughs came from Tom's snarky comments about the emptiness of American Corporate culture and the publishing industry, which gives a book contract to Snooki of Jersey Shore, and lets real writers languish. No "hook" no book!

Tom Violet is a great character, bright, funny and subversive. His moral compass may be a mite skewed, but his heart is pure. The cast is vivid and fully realized, from famous father Curtis Violet (a Norman Mailer-esque figure but with loads more charm), to Tom's equally conflicted wife, to Curtis' latest whack-job ex-wife, to Katie, Tom's assistant.

By the book's end, Tom's life has completely changed, at least in all the ways it should have. Essentially, Tom has grown up. In fact, I see Domestic Violets as a coming of age tale, with a couple of satisfactory twists at the end. Domestic Violets is one of the best reads I've had in a long time and I look forward to more of Matthew Norman's work. Highly recommended!

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Aug 26, 2011 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/20...

If I could describe Domestic Violets in one word, it would be: hilarious.

If I could use two, they’d be: brutally honest

Matthew Norman’s Everyman tale of Thomas Violet, a D.C. copywriter, is anything but regular. In a story that reads like a cross between Office Space and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Norman seriously nails his first novel.

Stuck in a dead-end, lack luster job, Violet is forever in the shadow of his famous, prize-winning writer of a dad and in const...more http://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/20...

If I could describe Domestic Violets in one word, it would be: hilarious.

If I could use two, they’d be: brutally honest

Matthew Norman’s Everyman tale of Thomas Violet, a D.C. copywriter, is anything but regular. In a story that reads like a cross between Office Space and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Norman seriously nails his first novel.

Stuck in a dead-end, lack luster job, Violet is forever in the shadow of his famous, prize-winning writer of a dad and in constant pursuit of some small strand of success to grasp that is truly his own. His marriage is floundering under the pressures of middle age and his relationships with his co-workers, specifically a perky 20 something, named Katie, leave much to be desired.

Domestic Violets reflects on those existential questions we hate to ask ourselves but always dwell on. Tom’s hopeless, yet relentless self-deprecation provides most of the witty prose for the novel. Though the writing is sparkling and well, novel-worthy, it could easily be the inner monologue of any cubicle-bound Joe with unfulfilled dreams.

Even though I weigh in about ten years younger than Tom and find myself in a very different life position, I have to say that there are inherent questions and problems brought up in the book that I found myself nodding along to. Insecurity and uncertainty are the major forces of nature on the surface but there is also an unrelenting voice of urgent self-fulfillment that carries Tom through the novel’s more impressive parts.

For some reason, this reminded me, at moments, of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From The Goon Squad. I think most of that stems from the way in which both books look at stress, success, failure and the simple, mundane parts of life. I think that somewhere between Generation X and the Millennials (hey, that’s me!) we were all told that we should want “more” out of life. You know, like having a simple 9-5 wasn’t good enough and that we should strive to have the very best we could possibly imagine. For me, these books both reflect and poke fun of that impossible ideal.

I really enjoyed this and I hope that Matthew Norman has more of this wonderful stuff in the works. I highly recommend this to anyone who has ever had a job, a life or a dream. No, seriously. Just read it.(less)

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Aug 23, 2011 Greebs rated it 4 of 5 stars

Domestic Violets is a great suprise - funny, tender and poignant and with more than a few plot twists, a terrific debut from Matthew Norman.

Tom Violet is disgruntled, with his job, his sex life and his dysfunctional family. If it's not a problem in the bedroom, it's with his co-workers and boss (Violet is a copywriter for MSW, a consulting organization that is never clearly defined, largely because no one seems to actually know what they do). Additionally, his father - who left when Tom was youn...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Jackie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: work-review-related-reading

Tom has always lived in his father's shadow--he's a renowned author who has just won the
Pulitzer Prize for fiction (and just as renowned a womanizer). So Tom is keeping the
fact that he has just finished his own book an extreme secret. What he is not keeping so
secret is the fact that his job as a public relations copy-writer for a huge company
makes him crazy. His daily clash with one of his uptight, tie-wearing co-workers is
laugh out loud funny. What's not so funny is the fact that Tom is experie...more

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