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The Pleasures of Queuing
When Olaf Montcocq emerges from the plush seclusion of his mother’s uterus in the early 1970s, his parents turn out to be a good deal more than he bargained for. His mother Anne is an ultra-Catholic, alt-feminist Irishwoman and Martin his father a disturbingly eccentric Frenchman convinced that the Second World War is a moveable feast. But Olaf’s predicament doesn’t stop there. Anne’s beliefs make her staunchly anti-contraception and Martin happens to be unstoppably oversexed. Before long, Olaf is surrounded by a horde of bickering siblings that make queueing for basic amenities an inescapable feature of his life. By the time he starts to compose the Great Franco-Irish Family Chronicle, Olaf discovers that attempting to put pen to paper in a household of twenty plus children is about as easy as trying to concentrate with your head in a beehive. Seeking to find relief from overcrowding and parental eccentricity, Olaf encounters a series of disconcerting young women who will drive him to even greater distraction. Will he and his siblings be able to inhibit his parents’ procreative frenzy in time to save the household from mayhem? Can he juggle his increasingly outlandish relationships without losing his marbles? Erik Martiny’s madcap comedy takes the reader on a whirligig of a ride through a post-hippy world of bicultural collisions.
- GenresFiction
206 pages, Paperback
Published May 15, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 30, 2020
The second book by Martiny I've read. This one was very different from Night of the Long Goodbyes. Both were singular in their content, and contained a mix of traditional and non-traditional techniques. I would call this a hysterical picaresque novel infused with mesmeric weirdness, peppered with quirky satirical aplomb and sensual, imagistic fabulism.
The sarcastic title is carried into the text, given new weight, and the author leaves very little time for the reader to breathe, since the laughter he induces will be fairly constant.
Frank, polished, memorable, nostalgic, wise and innocent at the same time. A gift for detail marks the first half of the novel. The second half slides into an uncanny valley of sexual frustration and fulfillment.
Extraordinary straight-faced humor draws the reader in to the overabundant Montcocq family, bilious with their modern trappings, but far more unstable than the average 2.5 kid-Lower? middle class fin de Twentieth siècle domestic unit. Martiny charms with multilingual literacy, very rapid jokes in every paragraph, outlining unique family dynamics using sophisticated language while commenting plentifully on religiosity, societal complacence, Irishness and Frenchness, playing with narrative distance, playfully reminding the reader of key details, and addressing them directly with instructions and apologies when necessary. I found this to be the antidote to the tiresome clichés of everyday life. The historical perspectives offered, the sexual revolution enacted on the scale of an individual, the tongue in other cheek feminism, conveys ecstatic enthusiasm for the richness of human life, though it is rife with digressions, with mazelike brambles of commentary. It purports to be a memoir by our first person narrator - every plot development might turn out to be a joke, keep your ears peeled for corny moments, as outrageous, vivid descriptions assail the senses, at times masterfully capturing an absurd but touching moment, in quick-paced, haphazard bildungromanesque fashion.
The author can milk a situation for all it’s worth, and historical recaps provide grandiosity, albeit excessively, while being morbid and hilarious footnotes to the events in the life of our hero. It is also anti-idyllic, a sort of anti-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, charming childhooddom pervades even the adolescent and pseudo-adult time periods he covers, with impeccable comedic timing, ranging from elevated storytelling from the perspective of an infant, and juxtapositions which are thrillingly relatable. Resistance, repression, not much guilt, familial bureaucracy, eccentricity, overpopulation of the household, deliberately wordy descents into momentary madness, proliferation, excess, overproduction of testosterone, all make for a chockablock barrel of laughs. The lengths his parents go to to live out their ideals is astounding, while the naivete, cruelty, childlike sense of awe and horror, the ridiculous levels of character quirks, the domestic insanity, schoolhood days, and bizarro-lucid maniacal categorization of psychologically disturbed behavior as symptoms of societal conditions, all make more a good read. It is Wodehouse uncensored, Bill Bryson, but unhinged, complete with body horror, male adolescent egregious over-sexualization, and a bulbous, generous, beating heart.
The sarcastic title is carried into the text, given new weight, and the author leaves very little time for the reader to breathe, since the laughter he induces will be fairly constant.
Frank, polished, memorable, nostalgic, wise and innocent at the same time. A gift for detail marks the first half of the novel. The second half slides into an uncanny valley of sexual frustration and fulfillment.
Extraordinary straight-faced humor draws the reader in to the overabundant Montcocq family, bilious with their modern trappings, but far more unstable than the average 2.5 kid-Lower? middle class fin de Twentieth siècle domestic unit. Martiny charms with multilingual literacy, very rapid jokes in every paragraph, outlining unique family dynamics using sophisticated language while commenting plentifully on religiosity, societal complacence, Irishness and Frenchness, playing with narrative distance, playfully reminding the reader of key details, and addressing them directly with instructions and apologies when necessary. I found this to be the antidote to the tiresome clichés of everyday life. The historical perspectives offered, the sexual revolution enacted on the scale of an individual, the tongue in other cheek feminism, conveys ecstatic enthusiasm for the richness of human life, though it is rife with digressions, with mazelike brambles of commentary. It purports to be a memoir by our first person narrator - every plot development might turn out to be a joke, keep your ears peeled for corny moments, as outrageous, vivid descriptions assail the senses, at times masterfully capturing an absurd but touching moment, in quick-paced, haphazard bildungromanesque fashion.
The author can milk a situation for all it’s worth, and historical recaps provide grandiosity, albeit excessively, while being morbid and hilarious footnotes to the events in the life of our hero. It is also anti-idyllic, a sort of anti-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, charming childhooddom pervades even the adolescent and pseudo-adult time periods he covers, with impeccable comedic timing, ranging from elevated storytelling from the perspective of an infant, and juxtapositions which are thrillingly relatable. Resistance, repression, not much guilt, familial bureaucracy, eccentricity, overpopulation of the household, deliberately wordy descents into momentary madness, proliferation, excess, overproduction of testosterone, all make for a chockablock barrel of laughs. The lengths his parents go to to live out their ideals is astounding, while the naivete, cruelty, childlike sense of awe and horror, the ridiculous levels of character quirks, the domestic insanity, schoolhood days, and bizarro-lucid maniacal categorization of psychologically disturbed behavior as symptoms of societal conditions, all make more a good read. It is Wodehouse uncensored, Bill Bryson, but unhinged, complete with body horror, male adolescent egregious over-sexualization, and a bulbous, generous, beating heart.
September 9, 2020
Erik Martiny's fun and self-deprecating novel makes for an entertaining read. If you ever wondered what it would be like to grow up in a family of 25 kids, you have come to the right place. Add in a healthy dose of adolescent sexual discovery, strange quirky behavior on the part of the overly-copulating parents, and time capsules taking us through two decades and you have it. Martiny is certainly gifted with a keen sense of humor and makes no fuss about breaking the 4th wall and addressing the reader directly which helps us enter more easily into this overwhelming and crowded world in Cork, Ireland.
Erik was kind enough to give me a copy for review and I am glad he did!
Erik was kind enough to give me a copy for review and I am glad he did!
August 16, 2020
A very funny novel, with extremely enjoyable language and style. The narrator is an aspiring writer named Olaf, who grows up in Ireland in a "felicitously dysfunctional" family with a French father, an Irish mother, and a (literal) score of siblings. Olaf tells the story of his school life, of his first experiences and constant obsession with sex (how could it be otherwise when your name is 'Montcocq'?), and of his creative and artistic drives. How can you truly be yourself when you are constantly surrounded by so many people? How can you truly fit in when you are so diverse and multicultural (Olaf Montcocq the Irishman)? Olaf's journey is filled with stories of self and others, with contradictions, with tenderness and humour. Erik Martiny's first novel is to be enjoyed from cover to cover.
March 21, 2026
"Well, it's mostly semi-autobiographical stuff, actually. . . . I'm not radically postmodern or anything, but I like to challenge the standards of the gentility principle. I'm into breaking taboos mainly. And I rather like the idea of trying to make the main character, or even the narrator into somebody who's not particularly likeable. I've been writing a kind of parody of a family chronicle."
This is a meta passage towards the end of the book that undersells just how absurd, funny, and well-written it is. Every line feels so deliberate, either through its structure, the clever joke nestled within, or various observations and descriptions of the main character’s life.
As it's a coming-of-age tale, the narration in each chapter is reflective of the age of the main character, demonstrating, on one end, the curiosity, creativity, and bluntness of a child that is so difficult for adults to capture:
"Time passes, and then I notice one day in my parents’ bed how my mother's belly has grown round and hard as a very big ball. I whack the belly with my hand. No! she says. I ask her why she is so fat and she says I'm going to have a baby brother, or maybe a sister. What is that, I ask, and she says it is a little person like you only smaller like a doll or a teddy bear . . ."
And on the other end, there is a scene written from the perspective of a virginal horny teenager, trying his damnedest to find the right hole, and is described by Martiny himself as worthy of “The Literary Review Prize for the worst depiction of sex”:
"I manage to keep most of me erect but somehow fail to shove the essential semi-flaccid part into the officially sanctioned place. Dominique's oyster seems to harbor a whole array of clitoral pearls, multiple entries, sliding jellied portals, slithery side-doors, smooth slippery slopes outlined in abrasive urchin hair and a multitude of walled-up windows, or is it just the one or two that keep recurring? . . . The whole thing is ultimately a mechanical, soulless affair with no palpable pleasure or affection on either side. I go home delighted to have done it."
But that's not all, as there are also many passages written from a more detached and reflective perspective, as the narrator covers events across the globe that he does not personally experience or remember, such as his own conception and birth:
"I am left holding the placenta against my chest like a deflated Gaelic football."
The whole book feels like a blend of Flowers For Algernon, No Longer Human, and Norwegian Wood; not in prose but in story content and narration choice. You get the childlike narration from Keyes, the static scenes and monologues from Dazai, and the sex life of a young male from Murakami.
But to say it's nothing more than a mishmash of three iconic authors is a disservice to how unique the book is, as there are many elements that I have nothing compare to.
This is a meta passage towards the end of the book that undersells just how absurd, funny, and well-written it is. Every line feels so deliberate, either through its structure, the clever joke nestled within, or various observations and descriptions of the main character’s life.
As it's a coming-of-age tale, the narration in each chapter is reflective of the age of the main character, demonstrating, on one end, the curiosity, creativity, and bluntness of a child that is so difficult for adults to capture:
"Time passes, and then I notice one day in my parents’ bed how my mother's belly has grown round and hard as a very big ball. I whack the belly with my hand. No! she says. I ask her why she is so fat and she says I'm going to have a baby brother, or maybe a sister. What is that, I ask, and she says it is a little person like you only smaller like a doll or a teddy bear . . ."
And on the other end, there is a scene written from the perspective of a virginal horny teenager, trying his damnedest to find the right hole, and is described by Martiny himself as worthy of “The Literary Review Prize for the worst depiction of sex”:
"I manage to keep most of me erect but somehow fail to shove the essential semi-flaccid part into the officially sanctioned place. Dominique's oyster seems to harbor a whole array of clitoral pearls, multiple entries, sliding jellied portals, slithery side-doors, smooth slippery slopes outlined in abrasive urchin hair and a multitude of walled-up windows, or is it just the one or two that keep recurring? . . . The whole thing is ultimately a mechanical, soulless affair with no palpable pleasure or affection on either side. I go home delighted to have done it."
But that's not all, as there are also many passages written from a more detached and reflective perspective, as the narrator covers events across the globe that he does not personally experience or remember, such as his own conception and birth:
"I am left holding the placenta against my chest like a deflated Gaelic football."
The whole book feels like a blend of Flowers For Algernon, No Longer Human, and Norwegian Wood; not in prose but in story content and narration choice. You get the childlike narration from Keyes, the static scenes and monologues from Dazai, and the sex life of a young male from Murakami.
But to say it's nothing more than a mishmash of three iconic authors is a disservice to how unique the book is, as there are many elements that I have nothing compare to.
August 10, 2020
"The Pleasures of Queuing" tells the story of Olaf and his many siblings growing up in Cork, Ireland. Olaf is the first-born son of Anne and Martin Montcocq, a couple that doesn't seem to be able to stop having babies. The reader watches as Olaf grows and tries to become a writer - a rather difficult task when your siblings are constantly interrupting you. I can't recommend it enough for whoever is looking for a good laugh.
August 11, 2020
Looking forward to reading this novel from an old friend.
June 7, 2023
I liked the different ways he broke the 4th wall.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews