Stuart Appleton IS Rollo Hemphill

Stuart Appleton narrates the audiobook, which is available now from Amazon Audible and iTunes Store.

"The Long Lavender Look" by John D. MacDonald

Boychik Lit Book Review - No. 18

Here’s my book review of The Long Lavender Look by John D. MacDonald.

Time was, I was a big fan of MacDonald (he was still alive then). I believe I read all of his Travis McGee books, of which this is one. Each has a color in the title. The power of this mystery series is in the genre and the attitude – dirty dealings and benign cynicism.

Trav lives on a houseboat he won in a poker game in Fort Lauderdale. He’s a salvage expert – he goes after missing boats, money, or wives. He always keeps half of whatever he finds. The baddest guys try to stop him, because they covet the same things.

Trav is a very 'Sixties hero, with parallels to James Bond. Like Bond, McGee is a garbage-collector of the vile detritus left behind by the world's evil geniuses and idiotic criminals. And also like Bond, Trav treats women badly and assumes they like it. And, as in the Bond stories, the beautiful women he loves too much end up dead, usually horribly so, at the hands of the elusive monster-du-jour. Revenge then adds to his justification for giving back as bad as his girlie got, or worse.

As an education in the underside of Florida real-estate schemes and political corruption, MacDonald's books are fascinating, unexpected discoveries. You also get a strong dose of macroeconomic theory anytime McGee engages his neighbor Meyer Meyer to help him understand the intricacies of bribing politicians or laundering money.

But what strikes me as I pick up this book again is the depth of the cruelty MacDonald conjures. It's really ugly, voyeuristic, more shocking than the scummiest story in today's news. But if it thrills you to see powerful bad guys bite the dirt, Travis McGee is your man.

For Boychik Lit, I’m Gerald Everett Jones. My recent book for male audiences is Mr. Ballpoint, about an outrageous huckster and his mild mannered son, whose marketing of the first ballpoint pen triggered the wacky Pen Wars of 1945. It’s a humorous tale about the joys of entrepreneurship, and the bad guys don’t bite the dirt – they drown in their own red ink. Mr. Ballpoint, capitalism can be fun. Oh, and be sure to catch these podcasts on BoychikLit.com.

"Elizabeth the First Wife" by Lian Dolan

Boychik Lit Book Reviews - No. 9 - KRLA 870 AM Los Angeles

The genre I call boychik lit is centered on men. Chick lit – like Sex and the City – is relationship games for women. Sometimes I read chick lit to see what our better halves are thinking. Elizabeth the First Wife is about Elizabeth Lancaster, a Shakespeare scholar from Pasadena, who is recently divorced from a famous Hollywood boy-toy. He barges back into her life to ask her to coach him in a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, which he hopes will help him shake his reputation as an empty-headed hunk. As they prepare to do the show at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, real-life lovers chase each other ridiculously around the maypole of both serious and casual relationships. Men, you might read Elizabeth the First Wife to find out what they think, but if you think you’ll get a clue, think again.
For Boychik Lit, I’m Gerald Everett Jones. My new novel Christmas Karma is also set in Pasadena, and I think women as well as men will find it funny.

"Shakespeare" by Bill Bryson

Boychik Lit Book Reviews - No. 6 - KRLA 870 AM Los Angeles

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson is a nonfiction survey of what few facts are known about the famous playwright.
Shakespeare's vocabulary included about 20,000 words. You probably know about 50,000. But – get this -- when Shakespeare couldn't find an appropriate word, he just made one up.
In fact, he gave about 800 words to us. Among these are: abstemious, assassination, barefaced, excellent, zany, and countless others, including countless.
Shakespeare's familiar turns of a phrase included: one fell swoop, vanish into thin air, be in a pickle, the milk of human kindness, salad days, and foregone conclusion.
Turns out, the two biggest influences on our language have been The King James Bible, a brand-new book in Shakespeare’s day, and his plays.
Hey, read anything by Bill Bryson. He knows a thing or two.
For Boychik Lit, I’m Gerald Everett Jones. You’ll find many humorous turns of phrase in my novel Mr. Ballpoint, and you can catch these audio clips on BoychikLit.com.
Read more about Bryson's Shakespeare.

"Right Ho, Jeeves" by P. G. Wodehouse

Boychik Lit Book Reviews - No. 5 - KRLA 870 AM Los Angeles

Set in the Roaring 'Twenties, Right Ho, Jeeves by the British humorist P.G. Wodehouse is a collection of stories about a young wealthy gentleman, Bertie Wooster, and his manservant Jeeves. Bertie is well-meaning, but lazy and not particularly bright. He freely admits Jeeves is the brainy one. Bertie always makes a mess of getting a chum out of romantic or money trouble, and Jeeves always comes up with a some cockeyed scheme that saves the day.

Just after World War I, the male population of Europe had been decimated by the war. Bertie’s comic fear of his dowager aunt reflected the reality that much of England’s  private wealth was then in the hands of older women. Young men like him who had been infants during the war were so appalled by the state of the world that they coped by acting like bratty little boys who refused to grow up.

So – avoid responsibility, romantic entanglements, and financial conundrums. Fear marriage and anyone in uniform. Pursue amusement, particularly if a practical joke will end in what Bertie’s chums call a "good wheeze." Fraternize with like-minded adult males who, despite their elevated social standing, aspire to remain boys. Encourage food fights, but only with dinner rolls so as not to create a mess for which responsibility would have to be assumed. Coordinate rugby scrums in the clubroom, but only if fragile crockery has first been cleared. Solving real-world problems (such as romantic entanglements) by way of practical jokes and stratagems might not work but it's always worth a good try.

Our world – like his – is anything but silly these days. But sometimes what Bertie called a “good wheeze” is just the thing to put a chap right.
For Boychik Lit, I’m Gerald Everett Jones. You’ll find some silliness in my novel Mr. Ballpoint, and you can listen to these audio reviews on www.boychiklit.com.
Read my longer review of Right Ho, Jeeves here and on Goodreads.com.

"Sweet Tooth" by Ian McEwan

Boychik Lit Book Reviews = No. 4 - KRLA 870 AM Los Angeles

 
Sweet Tooth by Ian MacEwan is a British spy novel about and narrated by a female operative. She’s a bright, Cambridge math wiz recruited by the secret service to mislead an aspiring novelist into becoming an anti-Communist propaganda tool. It’s not about murder or mayhem so much as violence to the truth – the dirty business of government-sponsored disinformation. No big surprise, she falls in love with him and they begin an affair. Problem is, she can never bring herself to tell him that he’s her joe and she’s playing him for a fool. But it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that eventually this plot gets pulled inside out, when we learn the novelist has been spying on her all along. In the end, it’s all about betrayal – as all good spy novels are – about the lies we tell to get what we want while protecting ourselves. I think you’ll enjoy Sweet Tooth, but you might not ever look at your sweetheart quite the same way again.

For Boychik Lit, I'm Gerald Everett Jones. Pick up my new humorous novel Mr. Ballpoint, and follow my rants on BoychikLit.com.

Cross-posted to Goodreads.com

MP3: Reading from Farnsworth's Revenge: Rollo's End

Gerald Everett Jones reads from Farnsworth's Revenge: Rollo's End. Courtesy Flo Selfman, IWOSC

March 11, 2012 - Barnes & Noble - Santa Monica Promenade

7min Audio Clip MP3

The author reads from the third comic novel of the Rollo Hemphill misadventures. The life-sized replica of soap-star Monica LaMonica has mysteriously disappeared from Hugo Farnsworth's yacht off St. Tropez. Rollo has set himself the task of conducting an investigation, as a favor to the old man. His inquiries lead him to the palace of Attaboy Pasha, an eccentric art connoisseur in Istanbul who has a passion for realistic dolls. Attaboy says he doesn't have the Monica doll but dearly covets it. And he says he has something to trade.

Reading 'My Inflatable Friend' at the Grove

In this excerpt, Rollo is called to account by the vindictive hotel manager, Hugo Farnsworth.

Listen here (MP3, 6min):




Gerald reads at Barnes & Noble at the Grove, Los Angeles, Sunday, November 9, 2008 for the Publishers Association of Los Angeles.

Rollo Speaks!

We held a book-signing event for My Inflatable Friend recently at Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore in Los Angeles. Just posted an MP3 podcast of the reading from Chapter 2, which we staged as a radio play. Free download!

Rollo Hemphill is a slacker, a failed hacker with a rap sheet, who gets embroiled in a really improbable case of identity theft. My Inflatable Friend is the first book of his confessions and misadventures.