 |
Comic novel is about being an aspiring writer
Times are tough for aspiring novelist David Henry, the narrator of David Eddie's debut novel Chump Change. Instead of becoming the toast of New York, Henry has become toast of a more crispy variety. New York has gobbled up Henry's dreams of literary celebrity, and spit them all the way back to his hometown of Toronto, where he idles away his days drinking and contemplating his failure on the couches of accommodating friends. Of course, David Henry might be a more successful novelist if he actually wrote novels, but unfortunately he is a writer in every respect ... except that he doesn't actually write much of anything at all.
Apart from drinking, he mostly eats a lot and tries with mixed results to find someone who will sleep with him. And this is generally what the novel is about. Written in the style of a memoir, Chump Change offers a kind of boozy, boy's eye view of women, sex, failure and what people other than writers call the "real world."
An extraordinarily tedious character, Henry is also a thoroughly familiar and amusing one. Henry might, in fact, have a talent for writing, but he is so terribly lazy, it's unlikely he will ever put it to use. In large part, the novel's comedy lies in Henry's determination to stand behind his aesthetic principles, even though he doesn't have the literary goods to back them up. Henry is comically concerned with selling out: When he miraculously lands a high-paying job writing TV new, he feels he has made a Faustian pact.
His anxiety over compromising his integrity is in keeping with the novel's perverse, if rather subtle, Christian message: Work is the devil's business; being a drunken, pretentious aesthete is next to godliness. Henry is more than willing to suffer a hangover for his art, but his suffering is always passive. His pain is never the pain of creation. ©
E-mail Brad Quinn
 Printer-friendly version
Previously in Books
Smoke Screen Campion sisters fail to draw line between cults and religion, love and obsession
By Lisa J. Mauch
(June 24, 1999)
Oh, What a 'Relief' It Is Englander's short stories move from Jewishness to the human condition
Review By Rebecca Lomax
(June 17, 1999)
He's Got a Love Jones Local poet defies one stereotype and redefines another
Interview By Kathy Y. Wilson
(June 3, 1999)
more...
Other articles by Brad Quinn
Pulp Fiction Upcoming literary releases offer the guiltiest of pleasures in a variety of genres (July 8, 1999)
Consumed by Cinema Famed director's biography is straightforward (May 13, 1999)
Feeling Down Harrowing true war story could be a bit more analytical (May 6, 1999)
more...
personals |
cover |
news |
columns |
music |
movies |
arts |
dining |
listings |
classifieds |
mediakit |
promotions |
home
|
|
Big Things in Small Places
Clifton restaurant shows art that's food for thought
Gershwin Crazy
Showboat classic is long on enthusiasm, short on chemistry
Curtain Call
Oh, Brother
Hot Summer Nights serves up sibling rivalries and dysfunctional families Š and it's fun!
Channel Surfing
Ad Nauseam
Writer's Block
An Open Welcome
Groove Tube
Flight of Fancy
Rawley's last novel grows trite and tiresome
Calendar Listings
|
