What do you think?
Rate this book
Elect H. Mouse State Judge
A terrible crime occurs in Elect H. Mouse State Judge.
Two young girl are abducted and held hostage by a band of religious fanatics. The girls' anxious father, a politician on the eve of an important election, has reasons of his own not to go to the police, so he hires a pair of shady private eyes to investigate. All the elements of a classic noir—except that the kidnapped girls are mice, the abductors are Sunshine Family dolls, and the detectives are Barbie and Ken.
Part 1970s childhood dreamscape, part Raymond Chandler, this is a world both familiar and transformed. Sex shops, illicit affairs, spies, political hypocrisy, and dangerous zealots may coexist with Barbie and Ken's acrobatic poolside sex, but the crises of faith that Nelly Reifler's characters face are as real as our own. Elect H. Mouse State Judge is an unusual—and masterful—blend of irony and tenderness, and a moving portrayal of a father trying and failing to do the right thing.
Two young girl are abducted and held hostage by a band of religious fanatics. The girls' anxious father, a politician on the eve of an important election, has reasons of his own not to go to the police, so he hires a pair of shady private eyes to investigate. All the elements of a classic noir—except that the kidnapped girls are mice, the abductors are Sunshine Family dolls, and the detectives are Barbie and Ken.
Part 1970s childhood dreamscape, part Raymond Chandler, this is a world both familiar and transformed. Sex shops, illicit affairs, spies, political hypocrisy, and dangerous zealots may coexist with Barbie and Ken's acrobatic poolside sex, but the crises of faith that Nelly Reifler's characters face are as real as our own. Elect H. Mouse State Judge is an unusual—and masterful—blend of irony and tenderness, and a moving portrayal of a father trying and failing to do the right thing.
113 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 6, 2013
2 people are currently reading
263 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
August 28, 2013
Hilarious, dark, and unexpectedly gripping, this book had me in its hand right from the start. Almost immediately, I forgot that the characters are all dolls but even so, the humor of them being dolls, did not leave me. At the core, this book has a beating heart and strives to answer the most important question H. Mouse asks (the one we all want the answer to in our own lives: "Do I really only get one chance at this?"
October 17, 2016
Superbly written. This book made me ask myself questions. But why was Skipper there? She seems like filler.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 17, 2016
Elect H. Mouse State Judge is a weird book, and not just because the main character is a mouse running for judge.
The basic storyline is this: on Election Day, H. Mouse (a village councilman with some sordid events in his past) has his daughters abducted by religious fanatics. H. decides not to call the police because they would have to investigate him, to clear his name, and he doesn't want them to find out about some of the things he's done. So he hires operatives Barbie and Ken to track down his daughters, who are being held in a van by a toy called "Father Sunshine" and indoctrinated into something called "The Power" that is sort of a religious pyramid scheme.
That's all weird enough, but, as I said, the main character is a literal mouse, as are his daughters. Barbie and Ken are toys who live in their dream house with Skipper, and the rest of the 'people' are toys or small animals who nonetheless have county elections and run pornography and sex-slave shops and drive ATVs.
While I read the book (which is really short, just over 100 pages) I kept trying to figure out whether it mattered that H. Mouse was a mouse, that Barbie and Ken were actual toys instead of people named Barbie and Ken. For most of the book, I thought it didn't really matter, that it was just something thrown in to make the story weird, like how indie movies throw in some sort of magical realism or something, a way to in effect put a bird on the story
But after I finished it and thought about it for a while, I decided that making the characters be mice and lizards and toys actually worked really well on an almost subconscious level.
One of the best and most hauntingly creepy short stories I ever read was Melt With You by Emily Skaftun. You can read the whole thing here, but in summary it's a story in which everyone in the world has been reincarnated as knickknacks, garden gnomes, yard ornaments, and small toys. They have the ability to move and think but otherwise are limited to their physical forms. The story is told by a man who has become a plastic flamingo, together with his wife. They hop around on their one metal leg and try to make a new life until a group of religious fanatic garden gnomes starts a holy war.
It's a story that is terrifying on an almost primal level, mostly because of the ending, but also because of the sheer madness of the world it posits: a world in which people believe in God and do vicious things in his name, but a world which could in no possible way be one created by a God with any sort of gentleness or love in him, given how horrible that kind of ... "life"... seems to be.
If we believe in a God who is all-powerful and all-knowing, can that God be all-good, too, while evil exists? I know that's a question that's been pondered by smarter people than me. There is an argument about God's omnipotence that goes like this: If God is all-powerful, are there limits on what that power could be? For example, could an all-powerful God make a rock so heavy that God himself could not lift it? On the one hand, if he is omnipotent, then he can make such a rock -- but if he could not lift that rock, then he is not omnipotent.
I bring that up because both Melt With You and Elect H. Mouse State Judge deal with moral and religious issues in an offbeat way that allows them to discuss the message without being didactic. The message I think they are discussing is the question of whether everything happens for a reason. This is something that I believed for a long time, but have begun lately to question. In one sense, yes, everything does happen for a reason: earthquakes occur because the continental shelves are moving and create areas of friction. You end up working a certain job because of where you went to school and what you studied, which in turn is a result at least in part of where your parents decided to live and how they raised you. I often say that the only reason I live in Wisconsin is because my grandfather settled here in the 1930s, so my parents were raised here and stayed in Wisconsin which meant that I could get cheaper tuition and automatic admission to the Wisconsin bar when I graduated law school.
In that sense, my being a lawyer in Wisconsin happened for a reason, but that's not how people (including me, in the past) meant it. We meant that God had a divine plan that made it necessary for me to be a lawyer in Wisconsin for some higher purpose.
It's nice to think that. It's nice to think that people get cancer or have autism or are poor or die in a tornado at age 3 because it's all part of a greater plan. But is it true? Can it be true?
Do we want it to be true?
I mentioned in an earlier review of a book that the phrase in a song I found out I am really no one was sort of a relief for me: the idea that we are nobody and that our every action is not laden with portent can be a relief to people. Could you imagine living every moment of your life as though it was your last? Who would ever do laundry or clean the kitchen or show up to work? If we all act like we'll die tomorrow none of us would be blogging or reading blogs. Similarly, if everything you do affects the vast machinery of the universe in some important way, if choices you make this morning might mean that history turns out differently 50 years from now, the burden you would have!
I frequently point out to people that their absolute positions are absurd when taken to absolutes. When my brother said he would never go shopping at midnight on Thanksgiving I said "What if they were giving $1,000,000 to first 10 people through the door?" He said well of course he'd consider that -- so never went out the window.
Any position you take as an absolute can almost immediately be contradicted. I would never punch a baby in the face, you say. Unless doing so was the only way to save 100,000 people from immediate horrible death.
Everything happens for a reason is an absolute: it sets up the absolute meaning of every single thing we do, makes every choice meaningful, but at the same time it defeats the idea that choice is meaningful or even exists: if everything happens for a reason then you are freed from any moral responsibility for your choices. I shot those two bank security guards for a reason.
In Melt With You, many of the characters believe in God, but God has allowed them to have a startlingly freakish life -- and one that gets so much worse at the end of the story that I can't hardly think about it but also can't stop remembering it. It's easy to say everything happens for a reason but it's hard to see what the reason could be for that type of thing.
These are modern-day parables, fables, helping us understand our beliefs better by setting up something so outside the norm that we don't feel as though our beliefs are being challenged -- something that makes our minds close up -- even as the story itself does attack those fortresses of certitude we've erected.
H. Mouse is widely believed by everyone in the county to be a great moral character. He is a shoo-in for judge, almost hand-selected by the retiring state judge. They are wrong. There is a scene in the book where H. Mouse is sitting at his kitchen table, tired, and nearly drowsing. He is a day away from being sworn in and his daughters have not been found; he hasn't told the authorities about them, relying on Barbie and Ken to find them by his inauguration. He thinks to himself how sad he is with them missing, and for a moment tells himself that he would give anything to have them back safe and sound.
Then he realizes that, no he wouldn't because he opted to continue the election and not go to the police rather than have his past uncovered.
He is not a great mouse, H. Mouse. Barbie and Ken, as idealized toys that work in a morally ambiguous world -- at one point Ken suggests that if they can't find H. Mouse's daughters, they should go to the child slavers and buy him two more to fill in-- set up a contradiction in thought that helps demonstrate the moral vacuum people can exist in, convinced they are doing good even when they clearly are not.
In the end, as I've written this, I went from thinking this was a pretty good book to it being a great book. I think that by putting these horrible situations into the lives of mice and toys, Reifler has created a story that allows us to think about the meaning behind the story. If it were simply a basic story of a man whose daughters get abducted, no toys or mice or lizards, it would still be a pretty good story. But by putting it firmly into the unreal situation it is, Reifler makes the questions behind the story more real.
Reifler doesn't offer answers to the questions, either. Like Melt With You, and like many great books, the story just serves up questions. When I was in college, taking a writing course, the teacher said that one way of looking at writing is that we write the things we will never understand. I think the same can be said of reading.
The basic storyline is this: on Election Day, H. Mouse (a village councilman with some sordid events in his past) has his daughters abducted by religious fanatics. H. decides not to call the police because they would have to investigate him, to clear his name, and he doesn't want them to find out about some of the things he's done. So he hires operatives Barbie and Ken to track down his daughters, who are being held in a van by a toy called "Father Sunshine" and indoctrinated into something called "The Power" that is sort of a religious pyramid scheme.
That's all weird enough, but, as I said, the main character is a literal mouse, as are his daughters. Barbie and Ken are toys who live in their dream house with Skipper, and the rest of the 'people' are toys or small animals who nonetheless have county elections and run pornography and sex-slave shops and drive ATVs.
While I read the book (which is really short, just over 100 pages) I kept trying to figure out whether it mattered that H. Mouse was a mouse, that Barbie and Ken were actual toys instead of people named Barbie and Ken. For most of the book, I thought it didn't really matter, that it was just something thrown in to make the story weird, like how indie movies throw in some sort of magical realism or something, a way to in effect put a bird on the story
But after I finished it and thought about it for a while, I decided that making the characters be mice and lizards and toys actually worked really well on an almost subconscious level.
One of the best and most hauntingly creepy short stories I ever read was Melt With You by Emily Skaftun. You can read the whole thing here, but in summary it's a story in which everyone in the world has been reincarnated as knickknacks, garden gnomes, yard ornaments, and small toys. They have the ability to move and think but otherwise are limited to their physical forms. The story is told by a man who has become a plastic flamingo, together with his wife. They hop around on their one metal leg and try to make a new life until a group of religious fanatic garden gnomes starts a holy war.
It's a story that is terrifying on an almost primal level, mostly because of the ending, but also because of the sheer madness of the world it posits: a world in which people believe in God and do vicious things in his name, but a world which could in no possible way be one created by a God with any sort of gentleness or love in him, given how horrible that kind of ... "life"... seems to be.
If we believe in a God who is all-powerful and all-knowing, can that God be all-good, too, while evil exists? I know that's a question that's been pondered by smarter people than me. There is an argument about God's omnipotence that goes like this: If God is all-powerful, are there limits on what that power could be? For example, could an all-powerful God make a rock so heavy that God himself could not lift it? On the one hand, if he is omnipotent, then he can make such a rock -- but if he could not lift that rock, then he is not omnipotent.
I bring that up because both Melt With You and Elect H. Mouse State Judge deal with moral and religious issues in an offbeat way that allows them to discuss the message without being didactic. The message I think they are discussing is the question of whether everything happens for a reason. This is something that I believed for a long time, but have begun lately to question. In one sense, yes, everything does happen for a reason: earthquakes occur because the continental shelves are moving and create areas of friction. You end up working a certain job because of where you went to school and what you studied, which in turn is a result at least in part of where your parents decided to live and how they raised you. I often say that the only reason I live in Wisconsin is because my grandfather settled here in the 1930s, so my parents were raised here and stayed in Wisconsin which meant that I could get cheaper tuition and automatic admission to the Wisconsin bar when I graduated law school.
In that sense, my being a lawyer in Wisconsin happened for a reason, but that's not how people (including me, in the past) meant it. We meant that God had a divine plan that made it necessary for me to be a lawyer in Wisconsin for some higher purpose.
It's nice to think that. It's nice to think that people get cancer or have autism or are poor or die in a tornado at age 3 because it's all part of a greater plan. But is it true? Can it be true?
Do we want it to be true?
I mentioned in an earlier review of a book that the phrase in a song I found out I am really no one was sort of a relief for me: the idea that we are nobody and that our every action is not laden with portent can be a relief to people. Could you imagine living every moment of your life as though it was your last? Who would ever do laundry or clean the kitchen or show up to work? If we all act like we'll die tomorrow none of us would be blogging or reading blogs. Similarly, if everything you do affects the vast machinery of the universe in some important way, if choices you make this morning might mean that history turns out differently 50 years from now, the burden you would have!
I frequently point out to people that their absolute positions are absurd when taken to absolutes. When my brother said he would never go shopping at midnight on Thanksgiving I said "What if they were giving $1,000,000 to first 10 people through the door?" He said well of course he'd consider that -- so never went out the window.
Any position you take as an absolute can almost immediately be contradicted. I would never punch a baby in the face, you say. Unless doing so was the only way to save 100,000 people from immediate horrible death.
Everything happens for a reason is an absolute: it sets up the absolute meaning of every single thing we do, makes every choice meaningful, but at the same time it defeats the idea that choice is meaningful or even exists: if everything happens for a reason then you are freed from any moral responsibility for your choices. I shot those two bank security guards for a reason.
In Melt With You, many of the characters believe in God, but God has allowed them to have a startlingly freakish life -- and one that gets so much worse at the end of the story that I can't hardly think about it but also can't stop remembering it. It's easy to say everything happens for a reason but it's hard to see what the reason could be for that type of thing.
These are modern-day parables, fables, helping us understand our beliefs better by setting up something so outside the norm that we don't feel as though our beliefs are being challenged -- something that makes our minds close up -- even as the story itself does attack those fortresses of certitude we've erected.
H. Mouse is widely believed by everyone in the county to be a great moral character. He is a shoo-in for judge, almost hand-selected by the retiring state judge. They are wrong. There is a scene in the book where H. Mouse is sitting at his kitchen table, tired, and nearly drowsing. He is a day away from being sworn in and his daughters have not been found; he hasn't told the authorities about them, relying on Barbie and Ken to find them by his inauguration. He thinks to himself how sad he is with them missing, and for a moment tells himself that he would give anything to have them back safe and sound.
Then he realizes that, no he wouldn't because he opted to continue the election and not go to the police rather than have his past uncovered.
He is not a great mouse, H. Mouse. Barbie and Ken, as idealized toys that work in a morally ambiguous world -- at one point Ken suggests that if they can't find H. Mouse's daughters, they should go to the child slavers and buy him two more to fill in-- set up a contradiction in thought that helps demonstrate the moral vacuum people can exist in, convinced they are doing good even when they clearly are not.
In the end, as I've written this, I went from thinking this was a pretty good book to it being a great book. I think that by putting these horrible situations into the lives of mice and toys, Reifler has created a story that allows us to think about the meaning behind the story. If it were simply a basic story of a man whose daughters get abducted, no toys or mice or lizards, it would still be a pretty good story. But by putting it firmly into the unreal situation it is, Reifler makes the questions behind the story more real.
Reifler doesn't offer answers to the questions, either. Like Melt With You, and like many great books, the story just serves up questions. When I was in college, taking a writing course, the teacher said that one way of looking at writing is that we write the things we will never understand. I think the same can be said of reading.
May 27, 2021
Experimental novel attempts to portray the difficulties of using the dreams of childhood in a world that is so out of control. Sometimes good, but mostly weird. One hundred pages, meant to be read in one sitting.
September 27, 2013
Imagine a big-budget, feature-length episode of Robot Chicken, about a very proper widower mouse whose two daughters are kidnapped by religious cultists on the same day he stands for election as State Judge.
H Mouse is a figure of immaculate rectitude, only slightly stained by some minor sins that won't bear inspection on Election Day. So H chooses not to reveal the kidnapping to the proper authorities, and instead turns to two agents of chaos that have helped him out of the previous aforementioned scrapes: Barbie and Ken, a pair of amoral, hypersexual private detectives and fixers (who operate out of Barbie's Dream Townhouse with elevator and pool deck). Living with these two is Skipper, a perpetual tween trying hard to discover a sexuality that will never exist.
Thus begins a relatively brief odyssey into the seedy underworld that connects the orderly, Apollonian world of H Mouse, politician, with the wild Dionysian lust and criminality of prostitution and child slavery, and the madness of a Manson-like family of kidnappers.
The characters are rendered believable, within their necessarily narrow archetypes, by the lucidly simple and direct prose. This is a short novel, and not a word is wasted. But aside from the convention of using sentient animals and toys as characters in what is essentially a modern tale of hard-boiled noir (which is surprisingly powerful), the story itself is straight genre writing, reminiscent of Jim Thompson. the tone tends toward the nihilistic throughout.
I enjoyed this as a very clever experiment in fiction, which can certainly use the freshening.
H Mouse is a figure of immaculate rectitude, only slightly stained by some minor sins that won't bear inspection on Election Day. So H chooses not to reveal the kidnapping to the proper authorities, and instead turns to two agents of chaos that have helped him out of the previous aforementioned scrapes: Barbie and Ken, a pair of amoral, hypersexual private detectives and fixers (who operate out of Barbie's Dream Townhouse with elevator and pool deck). Living with these two is Skipper, a perpetual tween trying hard to discover a sexuality that will never exist.
Thus begins a relatively brief odyssey into the seedy underworld that connects the orderly, Apollonian world of H Mouse, politician, with the wild Dionysian lust and criminality of prostitution and child slavery, and the madness of a Manson-like family of kidnappers.
The characters are rendered believable, within their necessarily narrow archetypes, by the lucidly simple and direct prose. This is a short novel, and not a word is wasted. But aside from the convention of using sentient animals and toys as characters in what is essentially a modern tale of hard-boiled noir (which is surprisingly powerful), the story itself is straight genre writing, reminiscent of Jim Thompson. the tone tends toward the nihilistic throughout.
I enjoyed this as a very clever experiment in fiction, which can certainly use the freshening.
October 17, 2019
I loved this book. There is something irresistible about a story that features toys from childhood... but not in the ways we were "supposed" to play with them. It's Toy Story meets adult thriller, complete with political corruption, sex, and cults. Everything is twisted in this world filled with our popular childhood toys. And it's so clever and fun, that half of the enjoyment of the book is simply immersing yourself in the world and seeing how it unfolds. I actually squealed with glee when GI Joe appeared.
And yet it's dark and tragic. There's a dirty underworld that deals with REAL human questions. Goodness, for example. Or our own relationship to our parents and siblings. The emptiness we feel. The insecurities we have. Ambition. Lust. All of these adult concerns are tied up in this fun little package. It's impossible not to be sucked in.
Besides which, "Citizens vs. Fawn Doe" is just about the best made up court case name for an imaginary playroom world I've ever heard.
And yet it's dark and tragic. There's a dirty underworld that deals with REAL human questions. Goodness, for example. Or our own relationship to our parents and siblings. The emptiness we feel. The insecurities we have. Ambition. Lust. All of these adult concerns are tied up in this fun little package. It's impossible not to be sucked in.
Besides which, "Citizens vs. Fawn Doe" is just about the best made up court case name for an imaginary playroom world I've ever heard.
February 2, 2019
This was fascinating. The novel itself is modern noir with slight political intrigue elements, however, it’s cast is made up of literal mice and toys.
Barbie and Ken are nymphomaniac guns for hire who are frequent public exhibitionists who live with Barbie’s younger sister, Skipper, who watches on and questions her stunted sexuality and inability to feel arousal.
No, that’s not hyperbole.
Human trafficking, adulterous marriages, and plain murder are also occurrences.
Oh, and there’s essentially a Manson Family composed of Sunshine family dolls.
I enjoyed this book for its brevity and dark humor. It’s a very quick read, and does tackle some serious topics like trauma, though briefly.
I would recommend it to you if any of the aforementioned sentences even slightly intrigued you.
Barbie and Ken are nymphomaniac guns for hire who are frequent public exhibitionists who live with Barbie’s younger sister, Skipper, who watches on and questions her stunted sexuality and inability to feel arousal.
No, that’s not hyperbole.
Human trafficking, adulterous marriages, and plain murder are also occurrences.
Oh, and there’s essentially a Manson Family composed of Sunshine family dolls.
I enjoyed this book for its brevity and dark humor. It’s a very quick read, and does tackle some serious topics like trauma, though briefly.
I would recommend it to you if any of the aforementioned sentences even slightly intrigued you.
August 21, 2013
Bitingly funny. Sharp witted and clever. Strong and thoughtful look at religion, politics, family, and a general sense of being human (decisions and priorities in particular). Told through mice, Barbie, Ken, Skipper, and an assortment of other oddball/provocative characters, Reifler holds back nothing and delivers a brilliant novella.
September 2, 2013
A charming idea that just doesn't come off. The mouse family is interesting enough, but we get precious little time with them. The kidnappers are creeps of the dullest variety, and the Barbie/Ken storyline, for me, fell flat. That said, give more supporting characters like the old woman who casts her vote for H, and I'd try a sequel.
September 12, 2013
Reviews keep saying that this book is a mash-up of Toy Story / Wind in the Willows / a Philip Dick Sci-fi novel. I'd say it's more like a lesser-known Animal Farm meets Gone Girl. It's inventive, quirky, and at times disturbing -- but overall a very thought-provoking read in only 103 pages. Loved it.
January 30, 2021
This was an entertaining book,more like a short story.
September 28, 2013
Quite strange. Feel I would have liked it better as part of a collection.
December 6, 2020
Wonderfully weird, surreal, and nostalgic.
March 23, 2024
Nelly Reifler's Elect H. Mouse State Judge is an absolute delight. The novel follows H. Mouse as his daughters are kidnapped on the eve of his election. Mr. Mouse cannot go to the police, so he summons Detectives Barbie and Ken. Yes, the dolls. The world of Elect H. Mouse State Judge is one in which toys are sentient and animals are intelligent. Humans as we know them are conspicuously absent. This results in a setting of imagination and intrigue that, even without the gripping plot, will keep readers turning the pages.
The Sunshine Family dolls are religious fanatics and the mice’s kidnappers.They strive to convert the girls to worship a force known as The Power. Meanwhile, Barbie and Ken follow the clues that will lead them to the girls, if they can rescue them in time. What makes Elect H. Mouse State Judge especially striking is that its grittiness is never gratuitous. Even Barbie and Ken’s sex scenes are relevant to the plot and the characters. Every detail in the novel tells its own story. It is a fascinating world and story, and one I would highly recommend!
The Sunshine Family dolls are religious fanatics and the mice’s kidnappers.They strive to convert the girls to worship a force known as The Power. Meanwhile, Barbie and Ken follow the clues that will lead them to the girls, if they can rescue them in time. What makes Elect H. Mouse State Judge especially striking is that its grittiness is never gratuitous. Even Barbie and Ken’s sex scenes are relevant to the plot and the characters. Every detail in the novel tells its own story. It is a fascinating world and story, and one I would highly recommend!
July 22, 2019
I really wanted to like this book. I had to stop reading halfway through. I was just getting annoyed and disgusted by all of the characters the entire time. I really tried to push through to the end, especially since it is such a short book, however, I got so frustrated that I through the book across the room and called it a day.
October 13, 2017
A little too weird for me. A family of Sunshine dolls that are actually cult members? Barbie and Ken as horny PIs/quasi-gangsters for hire? A mouse as a state judge with a dark secret? A short read, just not my kind of thing.
November 24, 2018
This is a bizarre little book written by a former neighbor. It has corrupt mice, promiscuous Barbie Dolls and a doomsday cult lead by Sunshine Dolls. I enjoyed reading it and it is a quick read at 100 pages
March 12, 2017
Review to come
May 5, 2020
עמוד 95 ו96 היו מוצלחים אבל
January 12, 2022
I liked the actual story itself for how it explores justice and politics and religion. I just wish I understood why the characters are mice and toys.
3.5/5
3.5/5
January 12, 2023
Okay. Was this book good? I’m not sure. I will say it was incredibly orignal, and it’s own thing. Part noir. Part 1970’s children’s toys fever dream.
January 25, 2019
I absolutely loved this book. Short and crazy. Everyone should read this.
October 25, 2013
From The Brooklyn Rail:
"I’m a fan of talking animals. Not the benign Mr. Eds of the world, but more like the monkeys and mice of Kafka, the goldfish of Etgar Keret’s dark and magical “What, of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?” and the super sunny piglet of Babe (both movies) (seriously). What I mean to say here is the animal represented in possession of a complex human consciousness is about as uncanny as it gets—as familiar, as it is alien—and when done especially well can deepen our understanding of humanity. Think of Eden’s talking serpent in Genesis, and how it happens he’s a whole lot more interesting than Adam or Eve, possibly even more human. If not for him, neither would ever come to know doubt, regret, imperfection, or death; which is to say they would not be human at all. In Elect H. Mouse State Judge, Nelly Reifler’s totally twisted and perversely wonderful debut novel, she goes one further by removing humans from the story altogether. Actually, make that two further because Reifler adds creepy talking dolls..."
Read more here: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2013/10/b...
"I’m a fan of talking animals. Not the benign Mr. Eds of the world, but more like the monkeys and mice of Kafka, the goldfish of Etgar Keret’s dark and magical “What, of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?” and the super sunny piglet of Babe (both movies) (seriously). What I mean to say here is the animal represented in possession of a complex human consciousness is about as uncanny as it gets—as familiar, as it is alien—and when done especially well can deepen our understanding of humanity. Think of Eden’s talking serpent in Genesis, and how it happens he’s a whole lot more interesting than Adam or Eve, possibly even more human. If not for him, neither would ever come to know doubt, regret, imperfection, or death; which is to say they would not be human at all. In Elect H. Mouse State Judge, Nelly Reifler’s totally twisted and perversely wonderful debut novel, she goes one further by removing humans from the story altogether. Actually, make that two further because Reifler adds creepy talking dolls..."
Read more here: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2013/10/b...
August 19, 2014
Upstanding citizen H. Mouse runs for State Judge, but on the day of the election his daughters are abducted by religious fanatics. Desperate for help but reluctant to draw attention to this family matter, H. employs two private investigators to find his girls. The twist: H. Mouse is a literal mouse, the investigators are Barbie and Ken, and all the other characters are children's toys.
This extremely short novel - pretty much a novella - hints at many aspects of the human condition, including but not limited to: the gap between our intentions and our actions, how our past catches up to us, religious extremism, human trafficking, and how children play with toys, among other themes. Skipper in particular was an entertaining character, reminding me a bit of the role Claudia plays in Interview with a Vampire.
This was a fast, weird, entertaining read, but the short length makes all of these explorations ultimately unsatisfying.
This extremely short novel - pretty much a novella - hints at many aspects of the human condition, including but not limited to: the gap between our intentions and our actions, how our past catches up to us, religious extremism, human trafficking, and how children play with toys, among other themes. Skipper in particular was an entertaining character, reminding me a bit of the role Claudia plays in Interview with a Vampire.
This was a fast, weird, entertaining read, but the short length makes all of these explorations ultimately unsatisfying.
October 19, 2013
On the eve of his impending election as state judge, H. Mouse sits on his porch sits on his porch next to the ballot box, waiting for his neighbors to cast their votes. Meanwhile, his beloved daughters are being kidnapped by a cult of religious fanatics led by the Sunshine Family. If you've never heard of the Sunshine Family, it's a crappy plastic doll/Mattell knock off. Anyway, after the abduction, things start getting weird. Funny, weird and poignant, "Elect H. Mouse State Judge" offers a fully realized world of absurdity.
February 9, 2014
Nelly Reiffler's "Elect H. Mouse State Judge" is a bizarre, funny, sad cartoon show of a novella. Its ancestry includes "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Toy Story," a dollop of "Fritz the Cat" and a smidgen of Berkeley Breathed's "Outland." Throw in soupçon of an obscure Noir film you like, one with a randy Barbie as the female lead. Stir in a child-snatching cult for a tale that wants, it seems, to be fleshed out with more villainous complexity, intrigue and Barbie/Ken sex. At 103 pages, it is a bit short but well worth the weird.
September 19, 2013
Yet another book finished in one night. But, wow, what a kooky yet awesome book. The lead is a mouse who has his offspring kidnapped by I think tinmen and then rescued by a super sexual Ken and Barbie. No, I do not say this metophore. The characters are actual mice, dolls, weevils, flytraps, foxes... All wrapped in real world scandel. Why don't more people know about this book? It is so awesome. Basically, 'dafaq did I just read? It was mind-blowing weird and fresh.'
December 15, 2013
Wow, this book was so absurdly fun and frothy. Until it got dark, and hit upon loss and regret, and a search for meaning. Oh, and it's all about toy mice, a deliciously raunchy Barbie and Ken doll couple, and a religiously fanatic Sunshine family (also dolls). Very quick read. One that I will return to.
September 14, 2013
A darkly quirky novella with good writing and great turns of phrase. The characters are consistently interesting - and lordy, you will never look at Ken and Barbie and poor eternally adolescent Skipper the same.
October 1, 2013
Good, but too short by loads. There's much beneath the surface of every character that remained covered, often to my dismay. Still, there's a wonderfully vibrant mood that fills the pages and carries the reader through the story.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews