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Title: Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman ISBN: 0-06-620979-X Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.08 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Thoughtful and insightful
Comment: Novelist Walter Snow hasn't been able to write a word in seven years when he meets a beautiful woman with a strange request. Will he put a package for her into his safety deposit box. Walter isn't sure what he is getting into and doesn't particularly care. The woman, Clyde, is beautiful, Walter is bored, and when he sees Clyde, he begins to feel faint hints of his old urge to write. The arrival of the police two weeks later doesn't especially surprise Walter. What does please him, however, is that Clyde zooms back into his life, along with her larger than life friend Fox. The two sweep Walter into their world of scams, Quixotic gestures, and ultimately a battle for the soul of New York (against the souless Starbucks and Donald Trump).
Author Kinky Friedman uses the narative device of a story within a story--Walter tells his story, occasionally slipping in the (rather bad) text of the semi-autobiographical and semi-wish-fulfilment novel that Walter is presumably writing. Friedman's thoughts on writing are occasionally brutal, frequently true, and sometimes hysterical to the point where I considered listing this review in my writing reviews rather than in the mystery section. But it is the characters and the quest that drive this book and that ultimately make it worth reading.
Unlike Walter, Clyde and Fox are a little too good for this world and Friedman lets us know that their endings will not be happy. Yet their goals are partly noble. The way that the quest ultimately backfires hits with an emotional impact, yet could have been predicted from the start. After all, Fox and Clyde only take on lost causes.
If you're looking for knee-slapping humor, this may not be the right Friedman story for you. But if you're looking for Friedman's attempt to really say something about our world, then KILL TWO BIRDS & GET STONED is a great place to start.
Rating: 2
Summary: "Of all the novels in the world, she walked into mine..."
Comment: Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a Kinky Friedman fan. Or maybe I just haven't found the right novel of his to introduce me to his work at its best. This farrago of composition shoptalk, writers block blues, by the numbers poo-pooing of the corporate world, reality inversions, and way, way too few good one-liners is little more than "Harold and Maude" set in the big city.
A couple of flim-flam artists resuscitate an author's dessicated humanity by the sheer force of their vitality. We know because he keeps telling us so every third paragraph. He tags along on several adventures, fretting over when it will all end, and then it does. Did I mention the dearth of good zingers? Friedman even reproduces a somewhat obscure Raymond Chandler line, unattributed. What would have been inspired is if Kinky Friedman the private detective had made a cameo appearance somewhere in this book. _That_ would have been a reality loop!
...
Rating: 2
Summary: Advice to Kinky
Comment: My advice to Kinky Friedman about trying to write a semi-serious novel...FORGET ABOUT IT!!
Fans of Kinky or readers wanting to get acquainted would be better advised to try "Spanking Watson" if they haven't already read it. It may have little redeeming social value but tons of laughs.
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Title: Kinky Friedman's Guide to Texas Etiquette : Or How to Get to Heaven or Hell Without Going Through Dallas-Fort Worth by Kinky Friedman ISBN: 0060935359 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola by Kinky Friedman ISBN: 0553568914 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Roadkill by Kinky Friedman ISBN: 0345416325 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 25 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title:Kinky Friedman - Proud to Be an A**Hole from El Paso ASIN: B00008AORB Publisher: Kultur Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $17.96 |
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Title: Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover by Kinky Friedman ISBN: 0345415094 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 26 August, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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