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Sugar-Coated Satire
Longtime novelist Mark Leyner returns with elaborate story of an anti-hero rock star
By Michael Shashoua / Jester editor-in-chief
This novel, for those unfamiliar with Leyner’s work, reads as a
baroque satire of pop culture. “Nutsack”
inundates the reader with
boldfaced names, repetition of scenes and tropes, and a strange
almost non-sensical plot – if it can be called a plot. On a certain
level, it’s similar to Jennifer Egan’s much more focused novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” published last year, which also makes an
eccentric musician its protagonist.
Leyner’s hero, Ike Karton, is the leader of a rock band and a randy
bachelor. The author puts this hero into the context of a
“Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”-inspired world of vain,
all-too-human, sniping gods whose whims influence collisions of pop
culture personalities spilling over onto mere mortals like Karton.
There are refrains and tropes Leyner returns to repeatedly,
apparently to entertain or for effect, like the “-ack, -ack, -ack”
repetition of the words “heart attack” in Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out”
and how these sound like many different things, like Popeye’s laugh
or various utterances or occurrences in the novel. Or Mexican folk
songs known as “narcocorridos” glorifying criminals a la the song
“Heisenberg” used in the TV series “Breaking Bad.”
All of these elaborate references and writing styles contained in
Leyner’s “Nutsack” are certainly entertaining for a certain distinct
subset of readers who will marvel at the aptitude of their use. They
do detract, however, from trying to follow the plot of what’s
happening with Karton and what it may mean. Leyner requires the
reader to really work and operate on two levels – the tornado of
references, and the narrative, to get the whole purpose of
“Nutsack.” It’s a worthwhile challenge, but it’s not for everybody.
Mark L
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Feedback? Email shashouamedia@gmail.com or michael.shashoua@jesterjournal.com
© 2005-2018 Michael Shashoua