false 50815500 277552 131527 067976349X 9780679763499 39 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172001493m/131527.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172001493s/131527.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/131527.The_Tetherballs_of_Bougainville 3.68 288 Mark Leyner's hyperactive, relentlessly vivid The Tetherballs of Bougainville stars a fictionalized 13-year-old version of himself.
Young Leyner - who sounds just like the author, the conceit is insincere - must watch the state of New Jersey execute his PCP-addled father; lose his virginity in a drunken, drugged revel with the comely warden; and write a screenplay about these things, all within the space of a day. Don't be alarmed, just turn off your left brain and keep reading.
The Tetherballs of Bougainville is a soup of observation, weird juxtaposition, parody, and ribaldry that will leave some people stymied, but others positively delighted. The satire - and sense - is where you find it. Here's Mark, with an aside: "As I browse through this astonishing array of contraband, I can't help but marvel at the ingenuity of the inmates. In the Body Cavity/Rectal section, for instance--I can imagine someone smuggling in a wrapped shank ... but four 5-piece place settings of Bastille stainless-steel flatware? I can see how, during a visit, a girlfriend could convey, through a kiss, a condom partially filled with heroin. But a 959-piece Alsatian Village Puzzle? How? Piece by piece, one kiss per visit per week? Imagine the incarcerated hobbyist's Zen-like equanimity."
Rich stuff, this. But as disorienting as the book may be, it possesses a brutal amount of horsepower - the amount of laughs it will induce excuse myriad indulgences. Half novel, half screenplay, packed to the endpapers with pop culture, The Tetherballs of Bougainville is a full-body experience.]]> 4414 3.50 3268 474 1997 4 0 false Thu Apr 16 09:35:47 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 29 11:17:09 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 16 09:35:47 -0700 2009