Customer Reviews

The Anomalies

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A few comments about the author:
In my opinion, university English, Psychology and Sociology departments should begin implementing new curricula as soon as possible that offer entire courses on Joey Goebel and his writing. His insights, philosophies and means of expressing them are disturbingly profound, poignant and authentic. I liken him to a 21st century Shakespeare - a prophet with an astute command of so many facets of the language and what seems like a direct feed into the minds of the masses as well as the anomalous minority. As a long-standing devotee to J.D. Salinger, it comes heavy with the weight of praise that I say this young genius has written, in my opinion, the greatest novel since The Catcher in the Rye. But to simply list him along side Salinger is not nearly praise enough. Goebel has the spirit of Tom Robbins, only spicier and even more unsettling, wrapped in the puff pastry of Hunter S. Thompson's ingenious inventiveness all basted together with a better understanding of the human condition than John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Toni Morrison or Alice Walker, and the uncanny ability to make it all so spoon-feedably delicious for the Coca-Cola canaille. In 22 years, he seems to have gleaned a knowledge of life that is centuries old.

A few comments about The Anomalies:
In simply naming the characters, Goebel writes more of a novel than many I have read. I pray the symbolism does not go unnoticed by his audience. Five distinctly separate voices tell the story of the simmering `power-pop new wave heavy metal punk rock band that rocks to the fifth power impossibly.' Aurora: the dawn, the light at daybreak and also the unfathomably beautiful Northern Lights - a multitude of electrically charged particles emanating form the sun, colliding with various particles in the air, creating the ever lovely, ever changing, ever elusive Aurora. Ember: a tiny glowing chunk of beauty, until you get too close, then you can feel the burn (or Ember venom), capable of and prone to starting new fires. Opal: the stone that shimmers with rainbow colors, never set in one specific pattern - amorphous, incandescent and translucent. Ray: emitted from a beacon far away, the light of the American dream -Ray, a red-blooded American name for an Iraqi ex-soldier more in love with Americans and the Red, White and Blue than any of us who were born here; allegiant to a country for letting him indulge in Frappuccinos and halter tops. And finally, Luster: the fifth sparkling symbol in the pentaband, representing the lustrous glow of all things shiny as well as an insatiable lust for a better life, a better way, a better venue for his music.

Aptly naming the characters was merely the flaky piecrust covering to the deeply cherry filling of The Anomalies. Goebel, being an anomaly in his own right has `just enough love to devote a damn to the stereotypical commoners collectively representing the antagonists' and, if the reader is paying attention, takes each of his audience members' hands and walks them down a `pig-tailed path' which he has beautifully lined on both sides with allegories, metaphors, wit, irony and personality. Bravo!

One final thought. Joey Goebel's ability to weave words and thoughts and ideas into and over and under and around one another is spectacular. From the first sentence to the last notion he manages to create an interconnectedness of every expression with every word with every locution with every phrase that ties the plot so completely in proper knots, there are no holes there to find. This weaving of words might mistakenly be perceived as foreshadowing by some, but I personally feel to call it that is like calling tuberculoses a little cough. I simply do not know what I would call it except prodigious or some other exclamatory adjective. Never in my years and years of voracious reading have I been privy to language so pregnant with color and cognizance, so crowded with the gorgeousness of anomalous behavior and so simply and utterly delicious. If there were ten stars to give, I'd find an eleventh.

There is something to learn from Joey Goebel in The Anomalies for everyone who lives and breathes. Read it. Really read it.

The Anomalies by Joey Goebel is a catchy novel about five odd nonconformists who come together to make rock music in a humdrum, conformity-driven nook of the Midwest. A ghetto dweller with dreams of stardom, a sex-crazed eighty-year-old, an eight-year-old who hates the entire world, an Iraqi who loves Americans even though he fought them in the Gulf War, and a high-minded Satan-worshiping young woman, form a bizarre yet tensile bond that takes them on a quest to tour the world, sharing both their dreams and their music. The Anomalies is recommended as an original, involving, wonderfully written and somewhat quirky tale.

Joey Goebel's first novel, "The Anomalies", has an energy and intelligence that is rarely seen in debut fiction. Each unique character created by Goebel has their own interesting traits and are just plain fun to read about, while a social critique also winds its way through the pages. It is no easy task to create memorable and fun characters while tackling social issues, but Goebel pulls it off almost seamlessly.
I am looking forward to his next novel, "Torture the Artist", where I am certain he has honed his craft even more.

I mention Carver and O'Connor because they are the only writers I can draw any kind of parallel to when I read the way Joey Goebel crafts characters and their thoughts so masterfully, so completely -- and yet allows his dramatis personae to serve, in some capacity, as allegorical entities. Like O'Connor, this young writer also has the knack for being humorous and tragic at the same time, and he puts words together with the same deft skill.

However, it is unfair to compare Joey Goebel to any writer, because he brings something new and different to the table. I've heard punk rock, but I don't know that, before The Anomoalies, I had ever read punk rock. Punk Rock with literary gravitas. Joey is railing against the closed minded, rural western Kentucky environment, against pre-judgement in general, and against the clicques and cretins who laugh at people for being different.

Sometimes that difference is a sword that can cut the ties that bind an individual to the mundane existence we all muddle through. I think Joey Goebel has done that. I believe he soars with this novel, in which the overriding message is to chase the dream.

I think readers will agree -- it is good that Mr. Goebel chased his, and that wise publisher gave him a chance.

This book is fantastic. Joey Goebel may have just created a new type of literary genre-Punk Rock Literary. The characters in this novel are so bizarre you might pass on the novel at the description, but I beg you to go forth and read!

The story involves the most insane group of rock band members one could ever conceive (a party maniac who happens to be a senior citizen and a nymphomiac? A Middle Eastern fem? An eight year old nihilist?). C'mon - just the characters alone are worth the read.

I found the novel easy to read and enjoyed every moment. This is great writing from an up and coming author. For those of you who thought Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club was a book that couldn't be matched, read The Anomalies! Buy this baby!

The Anomalies, Goebel's debut novel, is one of the most creative, constantly inventive novels to grace the bookshelves in years. As a debut novel, it is equivalent only to Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music. Though there are no surrealistic boundaries broken in Goebel's work, the high level of inventiveness is comparable.

The characters are vivid and uniquely oddball. And they are drawn so beautifully and convincingly that they read less like fiction characters and more like people plucked from the pages of a memoir by a computer-nerd-cum-sideshow-geek.

The story, about a ragtag group of outcasts looking to make sweet music, borders on the absurd without feeling contrived or unrealistic. The true absurdity is the world's response to these characters, who, it seems, cherish Cocteau's observation, "That with which the public reproaches you, cultivate it, it is you."

The Anomalies is so well paced, so beautifully well written, that it flies by in one sitting. But, and not to give away the ending here, the characters' fates will haunt you and sit with you and, eventually, inspire you to re-read this book. If not for the characters, then the circumstances, if not the circumstances, then the wonderful, wonderful prose and dialogue.

This is not only one of the best debut novels I've ever read, but one of the best, funniest, cleverest novels I've had the pleasure of reading. If your perception of reality tends to be skewed, I highly recommend The Anomalies. And if your perception tends to lean to the mainstream, I recommend it even more. Heck, you might even learn something about the way you perceive people.

Goebel takes five somewhat interesting characters and the rarely-used stream of consciousness device (although I get the feeling he started this book after reading As I Lay Dying) and promises us, in true punk form, earth-shattering orginality and an overturning of the status quo. He fails to deliver.
Really, this book can be used as a crash course in the entire punk movement. it starts off strong, it picks up hard and fast, it holds your attention and leaves you unsure of the direction it's heading in. after the first 50 pages, the main characters cease to develop and become more and more trite, while the secondary monologues become so similarly cliched as to seem identical (which after a time ceases to be social commentary and just becomes poor writing). On top of the characters stagnating, he tries to prove to us that everyone except his band of rebels is an unoriginal "humanoid", selling out to The Man. How original, But could he have done it with less monotony? Sorry, but that's Punk for you. Right up to the point where their music magically changes all who listen--really listen, mind you--to it.

This is not to say the novel is without positive qualities. As I said, it showed extreme promise and had a strong beginning. Goebel manages to achieve aforementioned social commentary in 'Nightmare Day', the passages involving Luster and the joke about putting the beer in the truck. He had acheived his goals at that point, but then he severely overemphasised his point. Hopefully in his next work, he'll learn when to stop preaching, and when to keep writing.

This book is for all ages, but I doubt that the author intended it that way. Although I am middle-aged, I try to read at least twice each year to keep myself youthful "thinking." The previous one I read this year was Twelve, and now I have just completed The Anomalies.

The Anomalies' main characters range from eight to eighty. Each is so well depicted that you feel you have actually known that person in real life. You find yourself rooting for each and every one of the five people to find the happiness they are seeking.

There are numerous situations that are extremely funny and you will find yourself smiling as you think of them days after completing the book.

At times the humor borders on tragedy, but it is woven intelligently. You will find it amazing that such a young author can explore the minds of characters aged eight to eighty and be so on target with all of them. I have not experienced age eighty, but this book sure inspires me to want to reach it.

This young man has a knack for weaving a weird tale about human nature and holding one's interest totally to the end. I read it in two sittings because I could wait no longer to read how these five lives would terminate in the novel. Although intelligently written, it flows rapidly for easy comprehension.

Excellent! We will hear more from Goebel for sure as he is a gifted storyteller.

Joey Goebel is a unique human being in a world too full of [dung] eaters. His book is different from the other novels cramed on the shelves at the bookstore. It is this difference that restores my faith in the American book buisness. God bless Joey, the fine state of Kentucky, and all the beautiful female groupies who follow young Joey everywhere he goes.

Take the 1980's away from Bret Easton Ellis, add a bit of Joey Goebel, a smooth layer of punk rock, and you get the rather delicious, Anomalies.
I do not know much about the midwest. I was born and raised in Philadelphia, but what I gather from Mr. Goebel's insight is that it is nothing like I had imagined. This book completely changed my sterotypes (cornfields and hillbillies). Goebel makes the characters so interesting I hope to find the time and money to travel to the state of Kentucky.
If ever there is a chance to talk cops with Luster, be a pyro with Ember, go through "phases" with Aurora, be old and young with Opal, or observe men in their bathing trunks with Ray...you can count me in. These characters are written in just that fashion, you can't help but to want to meet and be intrigued by all of them. They do not pass through your mind, instead they continue their earsplitting band practice inside your head even after you put the book down...and this is not a bad thing.

The author was a former member of the punk band The Mullets. Somehow, by word of mouth I suppose, I had heard of this band. I wonder if they ever made it this far north? If so, I can only slap myself in the nostrils over and over and over again for not going to hear the fine words of this author. This fresh, loud, memorable author, Joey Goebel.