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Wrack and Ruin
by Don Lee
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Synopses & Reviews An exhilarating comic satire with the quirky energy of The Wonder Boys and Sideways.
Lyndon Song, a renowned sculptor, has fled New York City to become a Brussels sprouts farmer in the small California town of Rosarita Bay. Lyndon has a brother, Woody, an indicted financier turned movie producer, and Woody has a plan, involving a golf-course resort on Lyndon's land and an aging kung-fu diva from Hong Kong with a mean kick and a meaner drinking problem.
A dreadlocked buddy with an artificial leg, a small plot of exceptionally lush marijuana, two field biologists studying western snowy plovers, a disgraced museum curator, and Lyndon's great love, the impulsive mayor of Rosarita Bay — these are only some of the complications in Lyndon and Woody's lives over one madcap Labor Day weekend.
Hilarious and philosophical, this many-hued novel about the landscape of contemporary "multicultural" America is critically acclaimed Don Lee's best book yet. Review: "The trick to reading Don Lee's wonderfully silly second novel (after Country of Origin and a story collection, Yellow) is to take nothing seriously, even when you should. The book concerns the eccentric sculptor-turned-brussels sprout farmer, Lyndon Song, and his estranged brother, Woody, an uptight Hollywood producer. Lyndon's refusal to sell his farmland to a golf course developer results in an unwelcome visit from his brother, who has been secretly hired by the developer. The author has corralled an array of misfits and minor characters — Lyndon's friend Juju, a philosophizing surfer with a prosthetic limb, and Yi Ling Ling, a has-been kung fu film star — to season the backdrop of the brothers' misadventures and muster up some drama and didactic spiritualism. The novel's best sections are lighthearted in their delivery, but hint at deeper substance and self-reflection. At times the author starts pulling too adamantly at readers' heartstrings, but before long he's back to slathering on the sarcasm. This novel thrives on unlikely unions, unseemly humor and happy endings while maintaining a constant examination of family and identity, in keeping with the themes of the author's previous book." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review: In his masterly "Wrack and Ruin," Don Lee gives us the lighter side of Rosarita Bay, the fictional California town that was the setting for his equally fine short-story collection, "Yellow." When his protagonist, Lyndon Song, first moved there, Lee writes, "it had been a sleepy little backwater with a population of ten thousand ... a wonderfully sad, forlorn, gone-to-seed town with gone-to-seed inhabitants, ... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) a good majority of whom, for one reason or another preferred to be forgotten." It was, in other words, pure Eden for the secretive Lyndon, who "on principle, did not like other people" and wanted to quietly reinvent himself as an underachiever, a glamourless organic Brussels sprout farmer, welder of gates and recreational pot smoker. Unfortunately, in the years since he bought an oceanside farm there, Rosarita Bay has changed. And it will change much more if the new breed of go-getter Chamber of Commerce types have their way. These new Rosaritans, with their cute ice cream parlors, cozy bookstores and coffee shops, art galleries, upscale bistros and chili and chowder festivals, have no patience for the original residents, who "weren't so much environmentalists or conservationists but isolationists — independent spirits, loners, libertarians, iconoclasts, garden-variety curmudgeons." Of the bunch, Lyndon is the most nettlesome to the town's gung-ho boosters, since he's holding up completion of a new resort. The conflict is delectable: These cocksure developers have actually begun building a golf course designed to run through his farm under the foolish assumption that he will eventually cave and sell. At the heart of this mistake in judgment is the fact that no one truly knows Lyndon. Everyone — even his sometime girlfriend/sometime stalker, the overly entrepreneurial and precariously hinged town mayor, Sheila Lemke — believes he's less a has-been than a never-was. She thinks he gave the New York starving-artist bit his best shot and succeeded only at the starving part. This, however, is far from the truth: Lyndon was once the darling of the international art world, raking in outrageous sums for his metal sculptures. His only real failure was a disappointment in self, in his artistic direction. Even his own brother, Woody, a disgraced investment banker turned low-rent film producer, is privy to very few of Lyndon's secrets, as we find out when Woody comes to stay with Lyndon and brings along his new, high-maintenance star. Pampered, short-tempered Ling Ling (she has the same name and fame as the late panda but none of that creature's peaceful nature) is an aging prima donna of kung fu imports with the troubling habit of kicking teeth out first and asking questions later. Woody, desperate to finance his new martial arts movie, agrees to aid Lyndon's real estate enemies by snooping, prying and meddling. This is a less malicious, more accident-prone Cain-and-Abel situation. The strife includes Monkey Wrench Gang-style mischief, with Lyndon and his surfer pal Juju running midnight commando raids against the bullying developer. Both brothers seem to be at war with harmony itself: In the novel's opening line, we learn that lately "things kept breaking down on Lyndon." His truck is vandalized every time he visits town, his water supply is poisoned, his crops are destroyed, he's fired from his moonlighting gig at a touristy bar, and he's kidnapped by drug dealers. The inventory of physical injuries sustained during the brothers' reunion is impressive: Lyndon even gets knocked unconscious. Brilliant farce conveys a sense of the characters' agony, and that is true here. But there are also moments of gentle joy, and the author's affection for this little corner of the world can be infectious. Despite the calamitous-sounding title, this is ultimately the story of a man coping with flux by repositioning himself rather than letting himself be ruined. As richly satisfying as his first two books were (his other novel, "Country of Origin," won both an Edgar and an American Book Award), Lee has outdone himself here. His prose moves and sparkles. He gives his characters a depth and thoroughness not commonly achieved by practitioners of the comic novel, a label that seems almost a disservice to a book as thoughtful as this one. Lee shows us, right from the outset, that these are people we're going to care about, even if we do enjoy watching them flounder. Reviewed by Steve Amick, author of 'The Lake, the River & the Other Lake' and a second novel to be published next year, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)Review: "[W]armly humorous...entertaining....An eccentric cast of secondary characters...adds to the merriment in a highly appealing novel that swerves ever so gracefully from rollicking humor to poignant moments of reflection." Booklist Review: "[A]n anarchic energy emerges....Over-the-top complications sometimes get in the way of Lee's wry commentary on contemporary life." Kirkus Reviews Review: "Lee's novel tries to be a wacky, madcap Carl Hiaasen kind of page-turner....Though sometimes fun, it's not that successful; the wackiness seems to take away from rather than complement its meditations." Library Journal Synopsis: Wrack and Ruin is an exhilarating comic satire. Hilarious and philosophical, this many-hued novel about the landscape of contemporary "multicultural" America is critically acclaimed author Lee's best book yet. About the Author Don Lee teaches creative writing at Macalester College and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. His story collection Yellow won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his novel Country of Origin won an American Book Award and the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780393062328
- Author:
- Lee, Don
- Publisher:
- W. W. Norton & Company
- Subject:
- Brothers
- Subject:
- Sculptors
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- General Fiction
- Subject:
- California
- Subject:
- Humorous fiction
- Copyright:
- 2008
- Publication Date:
- April 2008
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 333
- Dimensions:
- 8.60x5.86x1.13 in. 1.07 lbs.
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