[e-mail]: A Medicated Memoir

Rating:
Summary: The Most Intoxicatingly Funny Novel since Catch-22
Review:
If you love to laugh, then -- boy -- do I have a book for you! [e-mail] is quite simply one of the most hilarious novels (er, excuse me, "memoirs") I've read in a long time. The back cover mentions Candide and Dr. Stangelove, but the Marx Brothers and Monty Python's Flying Circus also come to mind. This is top-flight satire that's freewheeling and wild -- not to mention, incredibly smart. [e-mail] is written in the form of website entries (like an online diary); the website is of course the book's title (which, if you do a web search on [e-mail] is also an actual website). The "epic" adventures of the perennial screw-up/protagonist "Will" -- an "over-medicated" college freshman -- involves a hallucinatory "quest" to slay an evil scientist responsible for the creation of a deadly virus called IS ("Information Sickness"), a virus that kills anyone it comes in contact with via a kind of information overload...kind of like what one experiences on the "misinformation superhighway" of the internet (50 million websites and not a single straight answer to anything). Like a junior Don Quixote (perhaps no less self-deluded), hapless Will sets off with a sidekick, his self-aware, chatterbox laptop named "Spunk," who serves a guide and mentor one moment and foil and comic relief the next. Problem is: does the virus IS -- and the evil scientist -- even exist? Or is all this -- these extraordinary misadventures -- simply a side effect of the massive Prozac dosage our hero has been prescribed? Chapters open within chapters, like trapdoors, and the hero proceeds on his adventure often with the self-consciousness of a dreamer who is fully aware he is in a dream: nothing is real, while all seeming somehow hyper real. This self-awareness parodies post-post modern fiction or what's often called "meta-fiction:" but for me it's just unpredictably hilarious and zany. Truly this is one of best-informed, most witty novels I've read in a very long time. And the glowing praise for this book by authors like Tim O'Brien, Dennis Johnson, and Thom Jones -- as well as its underground reputation -- doesn't surprise me at all. A comic tour de force! Don't miss out!



Rating:
Summary: "Beauty, not information, would save the world."
Review:
This is the online journal of Will, medicated undergraduate virologist and born-again hero, and his quest to conquer the post-post-post modern plague - Information Sickness - with the aid of his neurotic laptop, Spunky.

As Will ponders the vacuity of life, he becomes less able to cope with his tutors, or his fellow students. Information sickness is eating away at the soul of humanity. It is spoonfeeding willing victims easily consumed bytes of useless information. It is copied, carried and transmitted by everyone who comes into contact with it, and it is fatal.

In a sudden flash of inspiration, Will realizes that the source of the deteriorating culture's problems is not, as he'd first thought, a government conspiracy, but consumer apathy:

"There is no capitalist conspiracy. We are the conspiracy. We buy the software and the soft drinks. We don't care if a megalomaniac dunderhead like me gets elected. We are the truest f the true democracies. We have got the leaders and the shabby culture that we deserve."

"Being psychotic, I quickly realized that Information Sickness and the death of metaphysics were linked, like a sitcom spin-off. My heroic duty was clear, despite the tremors and blurred vision from Thorazine and Lithium. Destiny had charged me not only with rescuing mankind from Information Sickness, I also had to resuscitate the corpse of the Western philosophical tradition..."

Tom Grimes has created a punchy satire that mocks the age of information overload and spiritual decline. He is a talented satirist who takes language in many different directions simultaneously. Through Will, he portrays an unsympathetic and critical examination of techno-culture. As Will concludes in the novel's closing chapter, "I learned that beauty, not information, would save the world."

Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Corinna Underwood, 2005



Rating:
Summary: Epic@qwest tale
Review: "Quirky" and "edgy" are hard things to write. And in Tom Grimes's funny, smart novel "[e-mail]," the edgy and smart are very much present. Only here, they're mixed with chemically-augmented satire -- an intoxicating mix.

Will is the 21st-century lost-long twin of Holden Caulfield: a depressed loser college student with a weird family, who also has enough medication in his body to open his own pharmacy. He's wrapped up in his own bizarre thoughts and lets schoolwork go to the wayside. Oh yes -- he has a quest to go on (get it? epicqwest.com?).

I.S. (Information Sickness) is "a virus that makes people think, and occasionally laugh, too much," and kills them when it overloads their minds. Our anti-hero is out to stop the malevolent Dr. Bones and his sexy henchwoman, and save everyone from overload and imminent death. To save humankind (or something like that, Will joins forces with his talkative computer Spunk to stop Dr. Bones before it's too late.

"Wacky" is not usually a good word to associate with a satirical novel. But "[e-mail]" has a certain sense of wackiness that keeps it from being heavy-handed. Grimes takes pokes at postmodern civilization: at sex, philosophy, computers, love, parents, capitalism, learning and drugs to keep us happy -- and it's all through the jaded eyes of a heavily medicated college student. It's either hysterically funny, or insanely scary.

Most cool genre-bending authors trip over their own efforts to be edgy and cool. Grimes doesn't. While peppering the story with pop culture references, he excels in his writing -- at some times it seems like a straighforward first-person story. At other times, all those drugs in Will's system twist his viewpoint a little bit. The dialogue is amazing, especially during scenes where the characters are having major "moments" ("I loved you even before I saw you airbrushed onto a haystack"). Even the chapter titles are called things like "Part Two, Chapter Two: In Which I Sate the Reader's Need for Narrative Drive, or Suffer the Wrath of the Marketplace."

Anti-hero Will is a witty, strange protagonist with unusual priorities. It's hard to summarize a guy whose brain takes up an entire book, and seems to spill over the edges. He's weird, and it works. And Spunk, the Pancho to Will's Don Quixote, is what makes the quest a winner, with his constant opinions and input. (Think C3-PO, but much less subserviant)

Sardonic and edgy, this is a must-read (especially for cynical students). Tom Grimes' wry fourth novel "[e-mail]" is a hyperactive satire with a manic edge. Better than Prozac.

Rating:
Summary: Epic@qwest tale
Review: "Quirky" and "edgy" are hard things to write. And in Tom Grimes's funny, smart novel "[e-mail]," the edgy and smart are very much present. Only here, they're mixed with chemically-augmented satire -- an intoxicating mix.

Will is the 21st-century lost-long twin of Holden Caulfield: a depressed loser college student with a weird family, who also has enough medication in his body to open his own pharmacy. He's wrapped up in his own bizarre thoughts and lets schoolwork go to the wayside. Oh yes -- he has a quest to go on (get it? epicqwest.com?).

I.S. (Information Sickness) is "a virus that makes people think, and occasionally laugh, too much," and kills them when it overloads their minds. Our anti-hero is out to stop the malevolent Dr. Bones and his sexy henchwoman, and save everyone from overload and imminent death. To save humankind (or something like that, Will joins forces with his talkative computer Spunk to stop Dr. Bones before it's too late.

"Wacky" is not usually a good word to associate with a satirical novel. But "[e-mail]" has a certain sense of wackiness that keeps it from being heavy-handed. Grimes takes pokes at postmodern civilization: at sex, philosophy, computers, love, parents, capitalism, learning and drugs to keep us happy -- and it's all through the jaded eyes of a heavily medicated college student. It's either hysterically funny, or insanely scary.

Most cool genre-bending authors trip over their own efforts to be edgy and cool. Grimes doesn't. While peppering the story with pop culture references, he excels in his writing -- at some times it seems like a straighforward first-person story. At other times, all those drugs in Will's system twist his viewpoint a little bit. The dialogue is amazing, especially during scenes where the characters are having major "moments" ("I loved you even before I saw you airbrushed onto a haystack"). Even the chapter titles are called things like "Part Two, Chapter Two: In Which I Sate the Reader's Need for Narrative Drive, or Suffer the Wrath of the Marketplace."

Anti-hero Will is a witty, strange protagonist with unusual priorities. It's hard to summarize a guy whose brain takes up an entire book, and seems to spill over the edges. He's weird, and it works. And Spunk, the Pancho to Will's Don Quixote, is what makes the quest a winner, with his constant opinions and input. (Think C3-PO, but much less subserviant)

Sardonic and edgy, this is a must-read (especially for cynical students). Tom Grimes' wry fourth novel "[e-mail]" is a hyperactive satire with a manic edge. Better than Prozac.

Rating:
Summary: I didn't know such could write.
Review: (...) What a terribly clichéd and unpleasant book written in an amateurish manner. In addition to being a bad writer, the author thinks that he is very funny, which is demonstrated by his constant failed attempts at humor.

The plot takes second place to the author's attempts at social commentary that, in addition to being too wordy, are hackneyed and presented in the now trite method of having the protagonist have a monologue in which he acknowledges that he is a fictional character and proceeds to elaborate on topics that make the reader think, "If this is supposed to be a college student, why does he talk like a stupid high school student that just repeats what other stupid people have said?"

The pretentious dialog only worsens the experience, which is difficult to do to a book written by the physical manifestation of suck. The characters all talk in the same way, spewing non-funny clichéd social commentary. Also, littered throughout the text are superfluous references to various cultural figures, which is the author's blatant attempt to say, "look at me, I'm smart and can wipe my own bottom." I guess he used some paper to wipe his bottom and I just read it.
(...)

Rating:
Summary: Laugh out loud funny with slyly serious intent
Review: Although I think it is a little over the top to compare this "novel" (actually it reads more like an unformated script for the next Mike Meyers flick) to "a daring cross between Voltaire's Candide and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove" as the cover blurb does, I do think Tom Grimes is one very funny dude. What this "epic quest" really reminds me of is Don Quixote de la Mancha as updated by Saturday Night Live.

Will, the "anti-hero" of this "medicated memoir" is a freshman at a "by the side of the Interstate" college near a polluted bay whose psychopharmacologist(s) have him on Prozac, Lithium, Xanax, etc. so that he might cope with the vicissitudes of postmodern life. Peering through the haze he discovers a new viral infection set loose on the world by "the evil Dr. Bones," a disease he calls "Information Sickness." Too much meaningless information apparently kills, and so Will begins a Quixotic quest to save humanity from information overload. Along the way he has kinky and funny carnal knowledge of two babes and what might be called wet noodle knowledge of a third, respectively, Crystal Goodlay (body-beautiful assistant to the evil Dr. B.), ABD Chandra (belly dancer and Indian chef extraordinaire), and Naomi (fellow virology student and luscious centerfold spread).

So much for the plot premise, which doesn't matter. What Tom Grimes is really up to here is a mass satirical attack on all things postmodern, corporate, governmental, intellectual, collegiate, therapeutic, literary, sexual, informational, and a whole lot more. The really insidious thing about Grimes is that not only is he belly-laugh funny, he is well-read. The allusions and references to things scientific and literary actually wage war with allusions and references to the pop culture in this twisted tale of all things overloaded. Grimes is conversant with complexity theory, modern philosophy, stock market dynamics, information theory, cosmology, as well as testosterone and cyberspace. In reading something that would appeal to, say, the viewers of American Pie, one can simultaneously smirk with satisfaction at knowing the intelligentsia-droppings scattered throughout. This is no dumbed-down cartoon network pseudo-novel--well, it's a pseudo-novel, but one with Film Potential.

What Grimes should be doing with his talent for wordsmithing and laugh out loud satirical thrusts is writing teen exploitation scripts for Tristar or HBO while moonlighting for Saturday Night Live. Come to think of it, he probably is.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss This One!
Review: BOOKSTORE OWNER, DARK HORSE BOOKS, Chicago, IL.:

If I had to write a one-word review for this wacky book, it would be this: "Funny!" That's exactly what this novel was to me. The unlikely protagonist of this book is a perpetual (but lovable) screw-up who, due to an over prescription of Prozac ("plus a little Lithium") finds himself flunking right out of College and, what's worse it seems, losing touch with reality. (Or is he? We never really know.) Somewhere along the way, the main character, Will (the title of the book refers to his diary, which is also a website), develops the notion of a sinister plot: some "mad scientist" who has developed the ultimate potentially threatening Weapon of Mass Destruction: a "virus," crossing cyberspace and real-life boundaries. This virus is called "I.S." or as it's otherwise known, "Information Sickness."

I.S. -- like the Monty Python skit that seems to have inspired the idea "The Funniest Joke in the World" (check out --http://www.pion.ch/Fun/funniest.html) -- seems to kill anyone it comes in contact with, allowing the infected party to KNOW ALL --thereby knowing nothing. (Information overload that borders on anti-information overload, which thus cancels each other out? You betcha'!)

Whether this virus, or this mad doctor, or ultimately this entire adventure or "quest" exists is open to question. And this idea is what the author, Tom Grimes, plays with: an adventure in which the protagonist or hero is self-aware, or due to drugs, cognizant of the many levels of "reality" operating all at once.
This may sound very complicated, but take my word for it, it's all quite entertaining, very simply written, and hilarious. WILL@epicqw... whatever -- let's just call it "WILL" -- is a madcap frolic, truly a hilarious novel, which requires an open mind and the ability to laugh.

There's a fierce intelligence behind the book, true, but never one that overrides the aim of the book -- which in many ways is simply to entertain. In some ways, it's quite goofy, (yes, like a Mike Myers/Austin Powers flick) -- but always, always entertaining. Sorry I couldn't be more negative!

Rating:
Summary: Brave New Benevolent Corporate Totalitarianism
Review: Certain books, such as Aldous Huxley's classic "Brave New World" go beyond the scope of their particular genre (Sci-fi?) and warn the reader of future possibilities in daily life. In Brave New World, nobody is born through natural means, rather, they are all born through test tubes. The people that create you also decide how you will turn out in the future: by giving you doses of alcohol, as well as harmful electric stimulation in your infant years. This decides if you are as smart as an Alpha, or grouped with the slow Epsilons. Alphas generally get good, high paying jobs, while Epsilons are often the janitors, the elevator operators, and the garbage collectors. However, you are made to like what you are. Whether you are an Alpha, a Beta, a Delta, or an Epsilon (all groupings of your intelligence) you are happy with your placement. You are trained to like what you are, and wish never to be at a higher or lower level. Everyone around him is almost always high off of soma, a drug that is meant to keep the citizens calm. Promiscuous sex is also encouraged, although birth is not. The society they live in is a society of constant consumerism. This excellent novel provides a cautionary tale of dystopia, as well as the destruction of the individual. The only problem is, that in this world of madness, it may take a few readings to truly understand the comical satire that Huxley is preaching. Much along same lines, I'd like to recommend the fourth novel by Tom Grimes, whose other acclaimed novels include A STONE OF THE HEART, and the stunning CITY OF GOD. [e-mail] (a medicated memoir) is a savagely funny satire of a world gone mad under Brave New Benevolent Corporate Totalitarianism, where Prozac has replaced soma as the calming drug of choice and our inundation in relentless, mind-numbing corporate-controlled media (where infomercials are disguised as "news") threatens to kill us all. Like Huxley's tale, this novel extends beyond a simple "genre" classification, so that it works also as an entertaining and hilarious romp, a flat-out hilarious comic adventure story. There's an unrestrained zaniness at work here and the book is full of puns, allusions, parodies, bawdry... Compact as it is, [e-mail] packs a wallop and Grimes certainly understands the high art of low humor. The dialogue is consistently brilliant. I have to agree with Tim O'Brien who is quoted as saying about this book: "Funny, hip, sad, and very, very smart, this superbly written novel tells a story with which all of us can identify in this age of computers and information overload. This is truly an 'epic quest,' an often hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking search for peace and solace and ordinary human happiness."

Rating:
Summary: Stand-up comedy in 184 pages
Review: Had I read WILL EPICQWEST.COM in my early twenties, I would likely have said, "Right ON, Dude!" But thirty years and stacks of both good and bad fiction have had their way with me.

Will is a depressed college student on drugs. Not the recreational type, but rather lithium, Haldol, Thorazine and Depakone. He sees the psychopharmacologist more often than you or I visit the supermarket. Thus chemically supported, Will's self-appointed purpose in life, his "epic quest", is to stop the spread of Information Sickness (IS). As he explains, IS is caused by:

"A virus that makes people think, and occasionally laugh, too much. Once they realize they exist in a universe of infinite and often contradictory truths, they die. Shock, system overload."

The villain of the piece is the evil, tenured professor, Dr. Bones, who created IS in the process of developing a fat-free foodstuff. Bones is assisted by the gorgeous supermodel, Crystal Goodlay. Will's faithful Kimosabe is his laptop's advisor software, Spunky.

I won't say that WILL EPICQWEST.COM is unfunny, or unclever, or without nuggets of insight. Through his wired hero, author Tom Grimes creates snappy, smart-alecky humor about everything from capitalism, Western philosophy, absent Dad's, the democratic elective process, female self-empowerment, the male value system, women's breasts, investment strategy, automated answering systems, to medical care. It's sort of a stand-up comedy routine in 184 pages, and the epic quest to halt IS is just a vehicle to provide continuity. Unfortunately, like Chinese food, even the best stand-up routine leaves me feeling empty after thirty minutes and wondering what all the fuss was about. By page 150, I was in a hurry just to finish and move on to something more substantial, more useful, and/or more instructive. This book is perhaps best read in its entirety on a long plane ride, and you can leave it in the seat pocket in front of you when you get off.

Rating:
Summary: High Paced Mediocrity
Review: I am, by no means, an avid reader. I tend mostly toward the epic fantasy genre and dabble into other fiction works occasionally. That said, I was very disappointed in this book. While I do enjoy high-paced, satirical pokes at present and future society, I do believe that books still need a captivating plot line backed with believable characters. The plot was fairly disjointed and the stream-of-consciousness writing left the reader on a non-wavering plane of excitement level throughout the entire book - the Blah plane. There were several humorous and witty exchanges, but the overall read was tedious and felt more like work than pleasure.

Grimes uses direct targetting with the audience for the purpose of humor and/or satire, but he does so at the expense of believability, making it impossible to care for the characters or the situations.

Maybe I'm just not cut out for nihilism/fatalism, but I felt compelled to write a review because I purchased this book largely based on the other reviews, which were mostly positive.