Starred review from February 3, 2014
Frank Shaw wakes in a hospital bed with amnesia, unable to remember his family, his job, or the car accident that landed him there, in Glancy’s debut novel, a clever office send-up that depicts one man questioning (quite literally) who he is, and who he wants to be. Frank’s memory does slowly return: he’s a lawyer in a London-based family-owned firm, living with his corporate-career-climbing wife, Alice. But as the story progresses, Frank begins to doubt whether everything is as it seems. There’s a secret new group within his firm that resides behind a door no one else seems to see. Alice made her name by writing a bestselling business book, but the mere sight of it makes Frank furious. And why does he have such a fondness for the children’s figurine with detachable organs that he found in the closet at home? Replete with obsessive footnoting, wry observation, and e-mails from Frank’s globe-trotting brother, the book follows Frank’s struggle to become the person he wants to be (whomever that is) and is a remarkably fun read.
February 1, 2014
A contract lawyer with a traumatic brain injury tries to decide whether to piece together the shattered fragments of his old life or simply start a new one from scratch. It's a lot funnier than it sounds. New Zealand-based public-relations director Glancy pulls off a terrific bit of comic timing in this debut novel about a lawyer who teaches all the scoundrels in his life to read the fine print. Franklyn Shaw is a lawyer who has recently suffered a horrific car accident that has led to traumatic synesthesia and selective amnesia. "The accident had smashed my separately labelled jars--Sad, Happy, Mad--into a sloshing chaos of wild fluids," he tells us. "I wanted to laugh, cry and scream all at once, all the time." To maintain control over his mixed-up life, Shaw meticulously footnotes his observations throughout the book, and they're hilarious, relating which incidents were merely fantasies and not real or making admissions about bitter criticisms he claims not to mean. We meet Franklyn's wife, Alice, a once soft-bodied writer who has become a supersevere careerist. Franklyn saves much of his scorn for his older brother, Oscar, who holds the reins at the family law firm and makes a sport out of scorning Franklyn. His little brother, Malc, retains Franklyn's affections, but we only know him from email missives relating his backpacking adventures overseas. Franklyn's only real supporter is Doug, a Zen-minded statistician who may be the only person willing to tell him the real truth about how happy Old Frank really was in the first place. As Franklyn starts remembering things and connecting the dots about his lonely life, he begins assembling an act of rebellion that will find readers rooting for this unusual protagonist to make a clean getaway. An original office comedy that dots all the I's and crosses all the T's: Think a dash of Office Space, a pinch of Palahniuk and a glance at Regarding Henry.
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Starred review from March 1, 2014
Glossing over the fine print can cost you, as Frank, a lawyer specializing in just such fine print, reminds us in this very funny debut novel. Written in the form of a contract, each brief section covering some part of Frank's memories as he tries to put his life back in order after an accident (why does he hate his wife's book so much?; what is with the cute barista?; and what is with that finger floating in the mustard jar?), the work wittily explores the little moments that add up to disappointment and regret. The plot is fairly easy to piece together, but it is the getting there, going through the fine print of Frank's brain, as it were, that is all the fun. The footnotes throughout the work are a highlight and should not be skimmed over. VERDICT Highly recommended for fans of bleak humor.--Julie Elliott, Indiana Univ. Lib., South Bend
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
January 23, 2014
Frank is a contracts lawyer who lives his life according to an explicit set of rules. But after a serious car crash, Frank has forgotten all that he once knew about his life, his work and his partner. He has to piece his world back together, but finds that after you’ve had a ‘funny spell’ your peers are less likely to tell you the truth about who you once were. How can this jargon-abusing ‘situational diffuser’ be the woman he married? How can his arms-dealer-supporting, ethically devoid brother be the head of his law firm? This is an immensely enjoyable debut from New Zealand-based author Robert Glancy. It’s funny, quirky and littered with footnotes, which remind the reader that it always pays to read the (often incredibly) fine print. This is a great book for those who liked the quirkiness of Bridget Jones or Nick Hornby’s dry English wit. However, it comes with a language warning. If your customer can’t handle repeated f-words and c-bombs, it’s best to suggest something else.