false 1059463 7 "I am bad. A bad, bad man," Willy Muller tells us, and on first evidence the reader might be inclined to agree. A suspected murderer and a confirmed hack, the protagonist of <I>Everything You Know</I> is a Hollywood-style bottom feeder with no evident sense of shame. In London, years ago, Willy went to prison for killing his wife. Once released on appeal, he alienated his few remaining friends by writing a tell-all memoir of his married life before making the natural progression to churning out second-rate "sleb" bios. ("The crap just bubbles out of me, uncorrupted," Willy muses, half proud, half appalled. "Bad writing is my gift.") Did Willy kill his wife? Or did she hit her head in a fall? Either way, he is still alarmingly full of bile, raging against a world populated by "malignant dwarfs," "trolls," and "lipsticked ferrets." When his daughter kills herself using pills, Willy counts his blessings: after all, "Sadie might have done herself in in any number of vulgar or grotesque ways." The man even calls his dying German mother "Herr Kommandant"--to her face.<p> Temporarily shacked up in Puerto Vallarta with his girlfriend, a cosmetic surgery victim who wears "a perpetual expression of parched exhilaration," Willy takes his rage out on everyone around him, including himself. In fact, he waxes almost loving about his own physical decay--his skin with its "ancient, battered look of fried liver," ears with "a violet tinge at their curly edges, like exotic salad leaves," sagging belly gazing up at him "like an affectionate haggis." There are certainly pleasures to be found in this particular brand of literary nastiness, although Willy does pick some rather large and stationary targets: agents, facelifts, pretentious directors with German accents, and so on. Happily, debut novelist Zoe Heller has something larger in mind than the spectacle of a man savaging everything hateful in reach, and the book undergoes a subtle shift in tone midway through.<p> The medium is Sadie's diary, delivered to Willy's door four months after her death. Written in a style as straightforward and affecting as Willy's is blustering and cruel, it describes a childhood of Dickensian loneliness and an adult life ruled by a heartbreaking--and unsuccessful--search for love. At first Willy can't read without feeling "terrible, fluttery pains" in his gut. Later, however, the diary elicits what is--at least in Willy's terms--a kind of moral thaw. "Only when you die do you run out of chances to be good. Until then, there is always the possibility of turning yourself around," his accountant tells him, and amazingly, Willy pays heed. (Fortunately, for those of us who have come to enjoy his misanthropy, not <I>too</I> much heed; to the bitter end, he can't help noting of his former sister-in-law, "Boy, did her arse get big.") It's a mark of Heller's skill that we never stop caring about Willy, no matter how repulsive he seems; half victim, half perpetrator, half German, half Jew, he muddles through life with a moral passivity that might resemble our own. <I>Everything You Know</I> is a sharp, stylish, and wickedly funny first novel, but like its hero, it has real sadness concealed underneath. <I>--Mary Park</I> 193386 1999 Everything You Know total:84|5:10|4:26|3:33|2:15|1:0| 84 283 130 14 2 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 08:58:04 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 11:32:03 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Nov 16 19:09:46 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 16 19:16:30 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Feb 08 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 04 10:12:35 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 08 15:15:40 -0800 2008
Willy reminds me of a few folks that I've known. Terribly bitter and sarcastic, and yet you get the feeling that they are absolutely at peace with being terribly bitter and sarcastic. Will grumble...more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Jul 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 10:57:50 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 10:59:35 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Mon May 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 11:27:33 -0700 2009 Mon May 04 18:02:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Aug 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 11:01:09 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 02:51:46 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Feb 16 06:25:35 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 16 06:25:41 -0800 2009 http://superfastreader.com/everything-yo...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Jun 10 12:53:47 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 10 12:55:03 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 14 10:53:16 -0700 2009 Sun May 24 06:27:45 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 29 07:54:04 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 31 05:51:31 -0700 2007 What Was She Thinking? I love how in both books she's able to make the reader empathise with such morally dubious characters, as repugnant as their actions may be one can't help hoping things work out for them in the end.more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Sep 10 16:35:39 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 09:52:33 -0700 2007 2 0 false false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Apr 03 15:24:22 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 03 15:24:53 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Wed Jan 02 19:35:30 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 02 19:36:07 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Thu Mar 06 15:06:54 -0800 2008 Thu Sep 11 18:12:07 -0700 2008 once 3 0 true false Sat Nov 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 02 21:41:54 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 07 22:06:57 -0800 2009 1 0 0 false false Thu Oct 01 13:37:15 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 01 13:37:15 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu Sep 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 23 04:59:53 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 23 05:00:49 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 05:57:02 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 05:57:02 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Sep 05 21:23:57 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 05 21:23:57 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Aug 31 14:23:09 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 14 06:54:45 -0700 2009