You Have My Attention
Maybe everyone else has heard of this author and this book. Unfortunately I must admit that this would not be the first time I lagged behind on a writing/book issue.
The author: Lucy Ellmann
The book: Doctors & Nurses
The blurb in Entertainment Weekly that caught my attention:
In this filthy, hilarious, and absolutely furious little novel, Ellmann introduces Jen, an obese nurse with a letch for her new hunky boss, a doctor who tends to kill his patients. The mad plot - affair, betrayal, murder - is just a vehicle for Ellmann’s stunning rifts on everything from the language of handbags (”Tiny shiny hand-held PODS for flighty ice maidens; galumphing CARPET-BAGS for the jilted and the jaded…”) to drainage: “People are always draining things! Not just WOUNDS, or PASTA, but innocent things like MARSHLAND.”
Kirkus says this:
In Ellmann’s cruel world, the medical profession is a dangerous sham; fat women are openly despised; and the only love that’s worthwhile is love of self. Sharp, offbeat and occasionally off-putting; Ellmann delivers a rarity in the world of fiction-a comic novel of ideas.
Publishers Weekly said the book “is not for the squeamish” but called it hilarious. Library Journal, well, hated it. My favorite part of that review was:
By the end, numerous people have been overdosed, sodomized, or hacked with knives. One gets the sense the author feels incredibly clever and liberated by all these expressions of rage. Not recommended.
On top of all those reviews, be forewarned: apparently Ellmann has this habit of randomly capitalizing letters (see direct quotes above for an example). I gotta say that I think that’s odd. But, come on, a story that somehow combines the concepts of hacked with knives and hilarious - how could I say no?
