|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Playwright Joshua Corin brings a lot of theater to his first novel, NUCLEAR WINTER WONDERLAND. For some, the combined comedy-thriller will hit all the right notes, as it clearly has done for some. The book has already been optioned for movie development, and was chosen by Booklist as a "top 10 debut crime novel for 2009," where it received a starred review. On the flip side (for those of us readers with a different sense of humor, perhaps?), Publishers Weekly got it right when it called NUCLEAR WINTER WONDERLAND a "disappointing debut." How can the opinions be so far ranging about the same book? It's clear that humor and a suspension of belief figure are prominent in the deep chasm that divides the two sets of readers. Those who are able to suspend all sense of reality, laugh at everything, and don't necessarily require a linear storyline will enjoy this fresh take on the thriller genre. In the beginning, it's easy to fall into this camp. As the story progresses, however, many attitudes will shift, and end up agreeing with the Publishers Weekly crowd, who think the book is misspent talent. The story of NUCLEAR WINTER WONDERLAND centers on college frat boy Adam Weiss who is driving himself and his sister home for Christmas break, when they make an unexpected detour to use a roadside rest stop. While in the bathroom, Adam is threatened by a lunatic who plans to blow up the world with a series of nuclear bombs on Christmas Eve. He takes Adam's car (and his sister) and disappears. Adam is left to solve the mystery of where the lunatic has disappeared to. Along the way, Adam is befriended by an aging thug and a Spanish-speaking clown, who join his efforts to track down his sister and help save the world from annihilation. Clearly author Joshua Corin knows how to be funny, but his joke-after-joke style, while initially charming, loses its luster as the plot becomes more and more convoluted. With half the humor and a more serious plotline, Corin could have been the next Tom Robbins. Instead, Corin employs too many offbeat characters, too many unexplained diversions, and not enough substance to allow readers to really care just where the plot lands. Then, to make the whole thing more ridiculous, the big secret of where the nuclear madman has gone is revealed before the book even begins. It's plastered all over the back cover. Why? The result is a loss of any reason to care about the ending before the story even arrives there. Where's the fun in that?
Reviewed by Christine Zibas, July 2009
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
