My first online book review published

Finally finished the positive write-up I have owed to a friend who wrote a wonderful novel. Bit my lip and posted it to amazon, goodreads, and linked to it on facebook. Hopefully, it's worthy. :-)

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"The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription" by William Norrett

This book provoked a particular reaction, which I have seldom experienced, in a lifetime of reading: at a critical juncture of the story, a set-up was created, tension was building, and one character either was or was not going to walk in on another character, with profound consequences for their relationship. I could feel my pulse building in my temple, my foot was tapping hectically, and suddenly, I couldn't bear it any more -- I snapped the book shut, signed heavily, and had to stare off into the distance for a minute or two, until I decided I was ready to proceed with the story, whichever way it was going to unfold. The novel had drawn me into its world; I cared about its characters deeply enough that their fictional choices mattered deeply to me.

The book takes its name from the improve comedy troupe whose performances and rehearsals provide a framework for the story, although the overall style of the novel is what I'd call a thriller comedy, if I had to put a label on it. Four young men in Los Angeles meet cute, when they discover the chemistry of their shared sense of humor, and decide on a collective whim to try doing the improve comedy they've seen performed (where "even the failures looked like they were having a blast"), but "only so long as our name is as stupid as possible" -- hence, "The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription".

I have been in the audience for some Los Angeles area sketch comedy, and it scares the hell out of me; I'm too nervous for the performers. But through this novel, I enjoyed being inside the head of one of the characters while performing live, taking his perspective of the audience from the stage, and exploring the philosophy of improvisation from different angles.

The writing is excellent, the dialogue believable; this isn't necessarily surprising since the author has also written stage plays -- which are nothing BUT dialogue -- but still, skill in one medium is never guaranteed to translate to another, so it's lovely to find that his talents work in novel form as well, since this means I can return to this story and characters again in the future, rather than only being able to remember how much I enjoyed the play in the theater.

Time shifting and flashbacks effectively deepen the story. Several times, just when I was wishing that I knew more about where a character was coming from, the story provided me with a pertinent flashback, fleshing-out the characters and their relationships in a satisfying way, while moving the story forward.

The author does not shy away from his own propensity for wordplay and clever allusions, even as the Gigolos wryly bust each others' chops over their own use of wordplay and allusions. There is a lovely story here even if you don't catch all the references, but every reference that you do catch makes it that much more fun.

This book not only keep me engrossed, it also passed the six laugh test. Highly recommended. All I'd say to the author is, what are you working on next? 

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The Vanilla Gigolo Prescription on amazon