The Whole

Rating:
Summary: Funny Book Tackles Burning Question
Review: Is there an ethical paradigm in cataclysmic geologic disaster?John Reed's newscaster protagonist Thing(das Ding?) spins out the querie as she broadcasts television coverage of the Whole in a story that comes at you like a frizbee.Language dances in every direction spewing hilarious puns and deliberate misnomers to boost an uncanny satirical plot.





Rating:
Summary: satirizes media coverage
Review: Thing was selected for certain symmetrical assets that caught the bulging lusty eyes of MTV executives at a beach party. Surprisingly she hits it off with the viewing public and becomes a correspondent though she has the intelligence of a burned out light bulb. She is promoted as blond bimbo candy based on her garb unable to contain her twin peaks. However, seemingly even faster than Thing becomes a superstar, she becomes yesterday's fad.

As Thing plays chutes and ladders with fame, a Midwestern boy Bobby Peterson digs a hole that expands until his and his family and their house fall through the chasm. Thing begins to research the phenomena which she feels will bring her salvation. However, clues take on a strange journey through a land of mysticism highlighted in remote sign posts like Vegas and Roswell.

This is a strange tale that satirizes media coverage (to include a parody of John Reed) as being filled with sound and fury but signifying nothing more than an MTV video. Readers will feel for Thing, who is treated with disdain for having a boob size bigger than her IQ and enjoy the irony of the weird, but fun story line. Obviously most readers will not give Mr. Reed's tale a SNOWBALL'S CHANCE, but fans who enjoy a trip into a modern day looking glass led by a Black Rabbit and a Thing, though lacking in the wits and puns of Alice's holey escapade, will want to escape into the WHOLE tale.

Harriet Klausner