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Original Essays | April 29, 2013
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Mr. Peanutby Adam Ross
Staff Pick
It's one heck of a juxtaposition. You adore your wife beyond all reason, can't imagine life without her, but are forever constructing detailed fantasies in which she, often violently, meets her demise. Such is the conundrum that David Pepin faces in Mr. Peanut, Adam Ross's unflinchingly honest yet arguably brutal rendering of connubial dysfunction and harmony. Whether you personally relate to David and Alice's tumultuous affairs or simply enjoy them with the support of a clear conscience, you'll certainly be intrigued by these characters and eternally grateful for any wonderfully boring, run-of-the-mill relationships you're in. Review-A-Day"Her plight was dire; so, too, are the lives in Adam Ross's first novel, Mr. Peanut (Knopf, $25.95). "No matter what they did, David thought, no matter how hard they tried, they'd always come back to this place of disappointment," Ross writes, and this place — where one can carefully nurture inexplicable grudges; starve oneself to the point of fainting; fantasize in lurid detail about offing one's spouse; and nearly throw oneself, in a fit of spite, off a Hawaiian cliff — is marriage." Adam Ross, Harper's Magazine (Read the entire Harper's Magazine review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:David Pepin has been in love with his wife, Alice, since the moment they met in a university seminar on Alfred Hitchcock. After thirteen years of marriage, he still can't imagine a remotely happy life without her — yet he obsessively contemplates her demise. Soon she is dead, and David is both deeply distraught and the prime suspect.
The detectives investigating Alice's suspicious death have plenty of personal experience with conjugal enigmas: Ward Hastroll is happily married until his wife inexplicably becomes voluntarily and militantly bedridden; and Sam Sheppard is especially sensitive to the intricacies of marital guilt and innocence, having decades before been convicted and then exonerated of the brutal murder of his wife. Still, these men are in the business of figuring things out, even as Pepin's role in Alice's death grows ever more confounding when they link him to a highly unusual hit man called Mobius. Like the Escher drawings that inspire the computer games David designs for a living, these complex, interlocking dramas are structurally and emotionally intense, subtle, and intriguing; they brilliantly explore the warring impulses of affection and hatred, and pose a host of arresting questions. Is it possible to know anyone fully, completely? Are murder and marriage two sides of the same coin, each endlessly recycling into the other? And what, in the end, is the truth about love? Mesmerizing, exhilarating, and profoundly moving, Mr. Peanut is a police procedural of the soul, a poignant investigation of the relentlessly mysterious human heart — and a first novel of the highest order. Review:"[A] powerful first novel...Ross delivers one scorching scene after another....Ross is interested in all the soul-killing ways men and women try and fail to achieve intimacy, and...he wraps his age-old theme in a confounding yet mesmerizing format. With its noirish sensibility and eloquent prose, this dark novel depicts marriage as one long double homicide." Booklist (starred review)
Review:"The buzz has been building for a year about this debut novel by Nashville writer Ross, and it turns out it's one of those rare cases where the word-of-mouth is valid. The book that's been giving Stephen King nightmares is a Möbius strip of a novel....An intellectual noir novel that shows evidence of an original voice." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review:"The most riveting look at the dark side of marriage since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?...It induced nightmares, at least in this reader. No mean feat." Stephen King
Review:"Mr. Peanut is as ingenious as it is riveting." Richard Russo
Review:"Adam Ross has crafted a diabolically intricate novel, one that presents all the pleasures and challenges of a well-wrought Sudoku puzzle. There's a whiff of alchemy to the book. You can't quite believe that its many pieces fit together so snugly, yet they do. Once you've finished, you run your eye back and forth and up and down, and every way you look it adds up. Mr. Peanut is smart, funny, gripping, and — in its ultimate unravelling — sneakily sad." Scott Smith
Review:"The author has created an absorbing puzzle and handles the writing with skill, but the world inside this novel is fairly bleak and unsavory. Recommended for ambitious readers." Library Journal
Review:"[A] dark, dazzling and deeply flawed novel that announces the debut of an enormously talented writer." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Review:"Although perhaps a little too neatly clever at times, this compulsive thriller works as a sharp satire on loneliness and partnership, and is a beautifully crafted, gripping read." The Financial Times (UK)
Review:"This book blew me away....It's engaging and gripping like a good murder mystery, but more richly layered and intellectually engaging than a beach read....I'm likening it to a great meal at a restaurant — the appetizer gains your trust, the first course provides some revelations, the second demonstrates the chef's skills, and the dessert just blows you away. Ross is truly a great wordsmith....[It] might be the best book I've read so far in 2010. In fact, it might be one of the best books of the year." Megan Sullivan (Harvard Book Store), Bookdwarf.com
Synopsis:David Pepin has loved his wife since the moment they met and, after 13 years of marriage, he still can't imagine living without her — yet he obsessively contemplates her demise. Soon she is dead, and he's both deeply distraught and the prime suspect.
About the AuthorAdam Ross lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and their two daughters. Visit him online at www.adam-ross.com.
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