Rating: 
Summary: interesting,very interesting
Review: Great book, fabulous book, one of the best books I have read. Interesting view on life in Los Angeles.Feels like so many of the residents. lost, lost, lost, lost, lost. The heartbreak of his loss. His weakness. The book flowed so well. Excellent writer. His other books are amazing. Would love to run across him in a chatroom, and get to the angst that fills his life.
For instance is he overpowered by broken families and overpowering brothers? Are his eyes brown? Is he tall? If you get my drift.The sadness of the main character. A must read.
His search. His tiredness.
His lover. Her husband.
I feel this book is the Koran for those moving to this land of milk and honey.
Again you must read this book.
It is the only hope for salvation in this wasteland of a city that they call the "Big Easy".
Oops sorry that would be New Orleans.
A similar town in terms that people live there.
But back to the book.
The character needs to move on and don't we all!
Read this book.
Buy it! Beg for it!
Pray for it!
Borrow it from the library if you have to .
Since you are already on Amazon it would probably be best to puchase it through them.
God be with you.
As I have stated earlier a must read.
Rating:
Summary: OUT OF PRINT?? INJUSTICE BORDERING ON INSANITY!!
Review: I cannot BELIEVE this book is out-of-print. It's a magnificent & admirable work. Maybe it was written 30 years too late. Maybe it should have come out in the era of Heller & Vonnegut & Thomas Berger. I wish there was a website for alerting hungry readers to great overlooked books. I would definitely rank this one at the top. So why isn't Michael Tolkin more widely read & praised? Because he's a screenwriter? So were Faulkner & Hammett. I'm not one who likes to give a synopsis of the plot & too many (1 is too many) have already done that with Among The Dead. The beauty of the first 2 chapters of this book is in the hilarious contrast between the protagonist's mental machinations & the reality that transpires around him. The rest is hilarious as well, though perhaps spends more time on family shtick & less on the social & philosophical satire that I was anticipating. Still one of the best books I've read in a long time. Like early Bruce Jay Friedman. IT'S TIME FOR THE READING PUBLIC TO DISCOVER MICHAEL TOLKIN.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book!
Review: I loved this book, but was so upset when I put it down. Mr. Tolkin definitely captured the weakness in all men, the reluctance to change, and to take resposibility for our lives . Micheal Tolkin is a genius and is the only writer I know of who thoroughly captures the shabbieness of the well-off and empty. Of course it was super funny along the way. An excellent book!!!
Rating: 
Summary: A funny and absorbing book by screenwriter Michael Tolkin.
Review: I think this book has never gotten its due. A classic it isn't, but it has more wit and insight than any John Grisham, in my humble opinion. A man cheats on his wife and after much soul searching, decides to confess on vacation. After going ahead, both wife and daughter die in a plane crash. The book then shifts to an assortment of different characters' reactions to this tragedy. The most interesting part of this book iS the details Tolkin goes into on airline procedure after a crash. How they kiss the buttocks of relatives so they won't sue them, and so on. It's both a sad and funny book, and best of all, memorable.
Rating:
Summary: Among the best
Review: In the character of Frank Gale, author Michael Tolkin has exquisitely captured the sense of urban angst and emptyness that pervade modern life. Frank is busy living a rather banal existance; thoroughly dissatisfied with his lot in life and compleatly unmotivated to do anything about it, we meet Frank in the final stages of the extramarital affair he is about to end. It's hard to hate Frank because while he seems shallow and self-absorbed his genuine bewilderment with life, combined with his hilarious and politically incorrect reactions to the tragedy that unfolds, makes him in an odd way, highly likeable. A witty and satirical novel with a good dose of black comedy thrown in, Among the Dead is worth seeking out.
Rating:
Summary: Relentless
Review: Maybe I'm a sicko, but I've read this book not once, not twice, but THREE times now. It's got a clever plot, a wonderful sense of foreboding and sadness that, mixed with the zany hilarity of it all, makes for a one-of-a-kind read. If you seek fun, fast, literary fiction, this is one you've got to pick up. I just wish this dude would write more novels.
Rating:
Summary: You just don't get to read books like this
Review: Maybe I'm a sicko, but I've read this book not once, not twice, but THREE times now. It's got a clever plot, a wonderful sense of foreboding and sadness that, mixed with the zany hilarity of it all, makes for a one-of-a-kind read. If you seek fun, fast, literary fiction, this is one you've got to pick up. I just wish this dude would write more novels.
Rating:
Summary: Great lost book recommendation
Review: The sense of humor displayed in this book is, as Harlan Ellison puts it, "so black it's ultraviolet." One can only assume that Tolkin is a man who has suffered many a dark night of the soul; he is one of the few writers whose characters are smart enough to realize the implications of their predicaments, and actually consider the long-term consequenses of their actions. Within this framework, he manages to explore the nature of guilt, the relentlessness of the media and how the public feeds off the tragedies of others...and often makes it laugh-out-loud funny. A throughly underappreciated novel from one of our most throughly underappreciated writers.
Rating:
Summary: A Satire So Biting,It Draws Blood.
Review: The sense of humor displayed in this book is, as Harlan Ellison puts it, "so black it's ultraviolet." One can only assume that Tolkin is a man who has suffered many a dark night of the soul; he is one of the few writers whose characters are smart enough to realize the implications of their predicaments, and actually consider the long-term consequenses of their actions. Within this framework, he manages to explore the nature of guilt, the relentlessness of the media and how the public feeds off the tragedies of others...and often makes it laugh-out-loud funny. A throughly underappreciated novel from one of our most throughly underappreciated writers.
Rating:
Summary: Camus on amphetamines
Review: This is a work of complete ferocity, simultaneously horrifying and hilarious. So astounding in places I wanted to memorize what I was reading. It's as if Dostoyevski were from Los Angeles. Don't miss it.
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