Why Did I Ever

Rating:
Summary: Perfect
Review: Do you remember, back in the mid-eighties, when the world seemed to be overflowing with short fiction, and you read your first Raymond Carver short story? And you thought "Oh my God, this is wonderful, perfect, classic. His work will stand the test of time and then some."?
Well, that is exactly how I felt when I read "Why Did I Ever." Each sentence, each empty space between sentences resonates with depth and meaning. Each word is exactly right, and placed perfectly. The entire novel is like a poem in its precision -- you feel like you can taste the words, they sit just perfectly on your tongue.
And then, if all of that isn't enough, the book is hysterical. Laugh-out-loud, follow-people-around-quoting-it, unbelievably funny. In the humor category it reminded me of Carrie Fisher, but it is more like if Carrie Fisher wrote like T.S. Eliot, Fisher with something to say, Fisher with the ability to write like an angel, albeit a dark angel. This book was by far the best book I've read this year, if not in the last several years. If I could give it 10 stars, I would.
Mary Robison is an author that will withstand the test of time and I can't wait, really cannot wait to see what she does next.

Rating:
Summary: Why did I ever read this book?
Review: I don't remember how I first heard of this book, but I was suckered in by the other reviews appearing on Amazon. I don't have a clue as to what the others reviewers are talking about--the emperor is not wearing any clothes!!!
There are a few funny lines so I don't mind giving it the one star.

Rating:
Summary: One of the worst books I've ever read!
Review: I had a hard time with the writing style. It was so jumpy, so terse, so "left unsaid" that I felt like the author was trying too hard to make me think. (She would probably be a very good poet!) The storyline involving her son Paulie was the most compelling part of the book, in my opinion, but I thought there was not enough written about this subplot. The writing was clearly well-thought, and there were some very funny and witty passages, but I guess the book seemed too disjointed for me to rate it higher.

Rating:
Summary: A Post-Postmodern Masterpiece
Review: I haven't read a book with a structure this unique since "The Sound and the Fury" by Faulkner. Robison has created a style that is at first confounding and then utterly engrossing. The short and short-short chapters mimic the narrator's Attention Deficit Disorder without self-pity, without melodrama, and for the reader, without annoyance. One may be tempted to think before reading this novel that the style is a hat-trick disguising a mediocre talent. Not at all. This "trick" would wear thin after a few dozen pages if not for the wit, irony, and humor that only a master craftsman can achieve. One can tell that much effort went into making this novel seem effortless, which is a gift for the reader and a mighty task for the author. The narrator's short-hand thoughts are like the picture that conveys a thousand words. Robison has accomplished a bold, stirring achievement.

Rating:
Summary: Buy yourself a copy - don't just check it out at the library
Review: I read a review in Newsweek when this book first came out that was unlike any other book review I've read. It was full of so much praise and comparing Robison to our country's most famous and respected writers. When I went to skim through it at a bookstore, I was instantly sucked in and ended up reading the whole book there.

Mary Robison is arguably our most talented living writer. Her prose is simple and clean, which is actually a much harder style to write in than the writers who use similes and metaphors as crutches. Robison does not need to say something is like something because she is able to describe it clearly without using a comparison. She is also a very smart, funny writer. I laughed and laughed, but she was also able to make me care about her characters and their veiled pain. Nothing in this book is old or cliched. It is all fresh and orginal.

If you are skeptical, read the first chapter on the internet and see if you get sucked in like I did.

Rating:
Summary: Robison conducts a great clinic...
Review: It seems the overwhelming satisfaction this reader had, others also had with Ms. Robison's excellent novel. This is pretty much up there in terms of best books ever read. No exaggeration, because what Why Did I Ever accomplishes is a clearing in the field of american fiction. Ms. Robison very quickly, very adeptly, ushers in the proper "argument" for the novel, namely that it is tyrannized by the american news/hollywood industry. The greatest writing is that which flows from the shear freedom a writer posseses, regardless of so-called talent or word-smithery. Very anxious to set my hands on her next endeavor.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, Touching, Very, Very Funny
Review: Mary Robison's Why Did I Ever is far greater than the sum of its parts which is quite a feat as the parts are amazing on their own. The novel consists of very short, often hilarious, sections consisting of one woman's demented, off-kilter thoughts as she copes, or doesn't, with what flows around her. As wonderful as these ideas and often vague notions are, the novel also subtley grows and packs an emotional wallop by the time the last page is turned. The writing may be beautifully minimal but the impact is not. It is one of the richer novels I have read lately and I never thought I would say that I was laughing my way through the first few pages.

Rating:
Summary: The literary Steven Wright
Review: No one can accuse Mary Robison of being long-winded. In this edgy, take-no-prisoners novel, Robison pares the language down to its barest essentials to communicate her vision. With turns of phrase and butcher's block editing, she hurtles a train of one-two punches at the reader, and if you don't get it, well, she's already moved on to the next station (sometimes of The Cross). There are enough jump cuts here to make Godard proud.

Though seeded in the same soil as R. Carver and mid-80's R. Ford, it would be a disservice to tag Robison's writing as "minimalist". If Dick sees Jane run, then you can bet Jane's run will be described from several angles with the frenzy of an expressionist painter and in the length of time it takes for a bionic sprint. Ostensibly about a "script doctor" and her nuanced, sometimes exasperating relationships with her daughter, neighbor, a couple of ex's, and victimized son, the plot takes a backseat to the beauty and careful parsing of the language. There are the de rigueur swipes at Hollywood and the phonies who populate their boardrooms (and bedrooms) filtered through the screenwriter's speed habit, which also informs the book's splintered, elliptical style. Ironically, you want to read this book slowly to savor the bons mots - it's an obsessive wolf in A.D.D. sheep's clothing.

If you take away nothing else from this book, you will remember that, on the soul destroying path to Hollywood, even Bigfoot gets demystified. When a writer can recast Bigfoot (in long johns) as just another guy with problems, you know she's tapped into something.

Rating:
Summary: "why does everything i love burn" -- Homer
Review: Seems obvious that reader from BerkelEy CA doesn't usually write reviews

Rating:
Summary: Get This Book
Review: This is the best book I have read in a long time. You'll laugh; you'll cry. The format is a little different, but you should find yourself hooked almost immediately.
The characters: a neurotic Hollywood script doctor; her methadone addicted daughter and hospitalized son; some truly wacky neighbors; a couple of la-la land soulless bozos, and an exasperating cat.
Money Breton is a character you will remember and this is a book you will want to keep.