Cross Dressing

Rating:
Summary: Holy Satire with Fun Results
Review: Bill Fitzhugh will make fun of anything. Whether it's the smarmy world of organ transplants, the political system, industry, technology, and even pest control, and Cross Dressing isn't any different, except this time his target is slightly higher. Fitzhugh tackles another controversial subject with his satirical spanking of organized religion. Dan Steele is a bit of a jerk. He lives the life of a highly paid and successful ad exec, except he's run out of ideas. But that's not a problem when you can just steal one. Dan's twin brother is a priest, but a priest with his own problems, and they are literally eating away at him from the inside. When Dan's brother needs medical attention and is lacking medical insurance, the ethically challenge Dan has no problems switching identities. The his brother dies, and takes Dan's identity with him. Now having to take over his brother's more saintly life, which holds it's own secrets, leads Dan into the path of hitman, disgruntled former coworkers and a very attractive nun, also with secrets. Where would good fiction be without secrets?
So once again Fitzhugh handles a touchy subject with humor and disrespect. If you are highly sensitive about the reputation of the Catholic Church, this may not be you best bet. If you could look past this little problem, this is a crazy, fun book with lots of twisty, turny fun that only this master of satire can write.

Rating:
Summary: Very funny--demerits for cheap shots
Review: I absolutely love Bill F's stuff, and this one is no exception. Plenty of laugh-out-loud action and a broad sweep satirizing all kinds of tempting targets. The cross-dressing idea (i.e. one guy dies and the survivor "loses" his life) is brilliant.

This one would easily get 5 stars from me if it weren't for two shortcomings: I would have prefered a more respectful treatment of other's beliefs (particularly the Catholic church). Satire is one things, disrespect is another (btw, I am not, nor do I desire to be, a Catholic)--cheap shots are just that. Secondly, the book's editorializing on this subject did at times descend into preaching and amateur theologizing. That I could have done without.

My misgivings aside, I got plenty of great laughs in. Stripped of ideological baggage and treated as a light read, this still earns the book a favorable rating!

Rating:
Summary: Another winner from Fitzhugh
Review: This was Fitzhugh's first book, although it came out after Pest Control and Organ Grinders. That's because it was actually written as a screenplay when Bill was taking a writer's workshop in LA, I think, and he had to go back and do some rewriting to convert it into a book.

It's not quite as funny as the other two books, but then, it's still damn good as a first effort, and it shows Fitzhugh's great nascent talent which would come to full fruition in Pest Control and Organ Grinders.

Sister Peg and Dan Steele are interesting characters, and the obvious chemistry between two people who in normal life would be unlikely friends, is a nice touch. One reviewer objected to the occasional preachy passage and some off-the-cuff theologizing, but I didn't mind it. I've read a lot of theology myself, including many of the most important western writers on religion (such as Tillich, Niebuhr, Barth, Rosenzweig, Buber, Marcel, Berdyaef, and Bultmann, to give a partial list), and, notwithstanding the respect I have for the above writers, nobody can say their theology is any better than anybody else's, since there's no way to prove any of it, as much as I would like to believe otherwise.

But to get back to the book, Fitzhugh has another winner in this novel. I only give it four stars since the other two were so exceptional and deserved more like 8 stars. But if this were any other writer than Fitzhugh, it would rate five stars.