Customer Reviews

Addled: A Novel

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ADDLED by JoeAnn Hart
September 9, 2007

Amazon Rating: 4.5/5 stars

I loved this debut effort by JoeAnn Hart. ADDLED takes place at a posh exclusive country club that has been invaded unfortunately by a gaggle of geese. The writing is witty and humorous, and readers will chuckle as they read about the problems faced at this club.

The story opens with a group of men golfing at the club, and Charles Lambert, one of the club members, accidentally kills a goose while playing. As the club tries to find ways to deal with the unwanted geese (solutions such as cooking the geese come into play), there is also a controversial secret book that is at the heart of the social life of the club.

Madeline is Charles' wife, and she is a co-conspirator to this so-called book that details all unwanted couplings that have happened with members of the club. She and the elderly Arietta Wingate use this book to help prevent future unwanted couplings, and have in fact prevented a few embarrassing romances.

Madeline and Charles' are in a relationship that is falling apart, exacerbated by Charles' insane actions since he killed the goose in the opening chapter. His behavior to the outside world (and the club members) is clearly not normal, to Madeline's embarrassment. She sees it as an end to her marriage, and is dreading the day he will ask for a divorce.

On the other end of the club is Vita, the new chef at the club. She has an odd relationship with one of the club members, a man who loves to eat and gives Vita advice and motivation to create fantastic meals to the club members. She sees he is overweight and her goal is to create delicious meals that are also low in calories. It is she that decides to fix the geese problem by fattening them up and eventually serving them for dinner. The idea is insane, and no one can know about this. She covertly feeds the birds organic grains (inspired by Charles' and Madeline's daughter Phoebe, who also has a plot line that is as insane as the rest of the characters in this book).

I can't say enough about ADDLED, a book that is witty and smart and funny all at the same time. This is not a light read however. It is not chick lit. It is not a beach read. But for those who appreciate fine writing and the telling of a good story, this book is for you. It will definitely be on my list of top books read in 2007.

I found this book to be a little confusing. There were alot of characters to keep track of & many story lines to follow. It was interesting enough to keep me reading just to see what happens. I thought the book was predictable as far as what eventually happens. Writing style was engaging - though i was NOT inspired to pass this book onto friends.

This is a fun satiric account of a season at a posh Boston country club. Seemingly, everyone is at cross-purposes and it all begins with a iron shot that kills a goose. Then the fun starts.

A few of the cross-purposes: the goose killer's daughter is an animal rights activist who loves to demonstrate and takes to her task warmly. On the other side is the up-tight, young, super-trained Cornell graduate manager who takes on the demonstrators and the geese. At the same time he is trying to eliminate the geese his groundskeeper is raising a gosling and the chef is fattening them to get them ready for the season-ending banquet.

There is plenty of humorous conflict and even more barbs at the rich and leisurely. An old member and her protege even keep "the book" where pregnant members reveal the real fathers of their babies so inappropriate marriages can be prevented in the future.

The characters in this book are terrific. Almost all start out as stereotypes, but through Ms Hart's deft handling, they soon assume depth and surprising attributes, both good and bad. Several of them are very memorable.

This is a fun read that will keep you giggling with an occasional guffaw thrown in. Ms Hart takes particular relish in taking the characters with the most extreme positions in life and showing how they will compromise when their personal needs require it.

This book is very amusing and. at times thought-provoking, which is a very good combination. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this wicked satire about the cast of characters that inhabit a refined, old country club somewhere in the suburbs of Boston. The delicate balance of symbiosis among members, board, and staff goes haywire when the Canada geese that plague the grounds get into the mix. The killing of one goose by an errant golf ball sets into motion a believable but hilarious chain of events, including (but not limited to): the owner of the golf ball having an existential crisis; his daughter (a wannabe animal-rights activist) organizing a protest and trying to get the clubhouse to go vegan; the chef getting ideas about all those geese; a long-time member reminiscing about hunting parties; a mishap involving big goose-scaring beachballs; broken hearts engineered by keepers of a secret book in the members' library; and the poor manager just trying to hold it all together and keep his job.

The story is seen through the eyes of many characters, and the voicing of each is just right. The writing is wry, funny, and snappy. The story just skims along, and no one is safe from having his or her deeply held convictions lampooned.

There were a few inaccuracies in the thoughts of the vegan activist, but maybe they were on purpose, seeing as to how she was kind of a reluctant vegan. For example, she was thinking to herself how uncomfortable her rubber clogs were, but that leather was bad, but hm, maybe rubber is too, because it's a petroleum product. Um, no. Rubber is made, as the song says, from the rubber tree plant.

But that's just me being picky. The book is a hoot! It does wrap up maybe a little too tidily at the end, but gosh, that's part of the fun, too! Read it if you're looking for some light enjoyable reading with snappy writing.

Most of the people who live in the homes on the Eden Rock Country Club are old money, schooled in acceptable and expected behavior for all occasions. A flock of geese descend on the Club and suddenly the old ways are called into question.

Madeline Lambert didn't come from old money; she had to work to fit in with the social circle of her husband. When he kills a goose with a wild golf shot, and their daughter comes home with ideas of changing the kitchen at the Club to an all vegetarian diet, Madeline has to work extra hard to protect the family from Club gossip, and themselves.

Vita, the passionate clubhouse chef, has ideas of her own for the geese, as does the head groundskeeper who can't bring himself to kill geese after his first trip to addle eggs brings him a new pet gosling.

Geese, gossip, secrets, imaginations, and all types of passions fly during the summer of the wild geese invasion. Almost everyone feels the need to do things differently during this strange summer, a bond trader wants to sculpt metal instead of portfolios and a groundskeeper ties himself to the tree hugger. Is there something funny about those geese on the grounds?

This book is an enjoyment to read, a comedy of manners that you visualize as you turn the pages. Miss Hart has done a fun, er, I mean fine, job.

Armchair Interviews says: Ms. Hart has also had essays and short fiction published in many literary magazines.

Reviewed by 0316015008 for Reader Views (5/07)

Canadian geese have made a home on the lush green grounds of the Eden Rock Country Club of the Boston area and they are creating problems for Gerard Wilton, the manager of the club and the members of the exclusive club. That is the basic problem that Hart sets up in the book, but from that start she takes the reader on a fun, page-turning journey of the members' lives as they deal with the geese and a myriad of other problems in their lives.

Charles Lambert is the first one to develop serious problems with the geese. While golfing with his buddies, he accidentally hits and kills a goose with his 3 iron shot. This turns out to be a life-changing event for Charles and as he tries to deal with his distress over the dead goose, he becomes estranged from his wife and friends. His wife is dealing with her own traumas when she is neglected by Charles. She is also one of the keepers of the club's secrets and she begins to question the rightness of that task. And to add further to the mix, their daughter Phoebe returns home to try to convert the club and its restaurant to a vegan menu and to save the geese.

The manager Gerard has his own set of problems as he tries to deal with the demands of managing a very upscale country club with a very demanding set of members. His chef Vita is also awash in problems as she tries to create culinary masterpieces while her love life keeps falling apart. The reader will probably be drooling over some of her creations and wondering where to get the recipes. The head groundskeeper Barry adopts one of the offending geese as a pet which puts him at odds with Gerard.

All in all, the book is a fun read as Hart pokes fun at the club and its membership. I would recommend the book to anyone who is looking for a fun read that pokes gentle fun at the rich as they pursue their life and loves at the country club. I thoroughly enjoyed "Addled" and I was interested to see how the author resolved the character's problems. And at the end of the book, Hart resolves all the problems in a very pleasing way for everyone concerned - well, almost everyone!

Received book free of charge

Hooray for JoeAnn Hart and her debut novel "Addled," a fine satire about old money pretensions, new age politics, food and surprising couplings at a New England country club. Its cleverness is only exceeded by its true heart. Perfect gift for a golfer with a sense of humor.

If you've ever taken the time to think about the plight of Canadian Geese, this book offers one amusing venue -- a gaggle that has settled on the golf course of a very "proper" Eastern country club. Do enjoy. It's worth your time.