Customer Reviews

Buddy Cooper Finds a Way: A Novel

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Prepare yourself for a rocket ship of a ride, fueled by brilliance and vision, through Buddy Cooper Finds a Way. Here you'll find alien graffiti, oracular lobsters, drive-by cavemen, and asteroids that fall from the clear blue sky. Neil Connelly's characters walk the same streets as us, yet they see the subliminal and sublime, and in every detail, no matter how funny or fiercely imagined, is the secret script of the human heart. How can a book be both startlingly new and timelessly wise? You'll find out when you turn the last page of this grand debut, and suddenly feel like it's always been with you.

When I go to the library, I sort of wander around looking for
something that has "weird", "wicked", and "funny" in the blurbs. This one hit
the spot: small-time pro wrestling, soap operas, psychic hotlines,
alien abductions of homeless guys, and mass extinction due to an asteroid collision. Drags a bit towards the end, but how can you not like a book that includes lines like:

"Let's dialog constructively somewhere not in the middle of the room."

If you think you have become jaded by the "strong character triumpths over life's adversity" themes in today's fiction, you are in for an amazing ride flying past the known boundaries that have been established by the common writer. Connelly simply removes the line between the real and surreal while guiding you through a man's shattered sense of reality and self as he tries to make sense of his world around him. The cutting humor brings you back from the dark recesses of human nature that Connelly explores just when you need it the most. Few writers are bold enough and talented enough to take us between the themes of killer asteroids and exploring what loss really is. Move this one to the top of your list.

Buddy Cooper Finds a Way is an inventive, completely original novel that does not invite comparisons to anything that's being written today. In it, Connelly creates a world in which the hoopla of professional wrestling blends seemlessly with the insanity of daily life. It's a world that the reader can easily buy into, thanks to Connelly's tight, no-nonsense prose, his sharp eye for detail, and the wrestling lore that he expertly weaves throughout the narrative. The material is often hilarious, yet darker, more serious issues also permeate this many-layered work. Buddy is a fully-realized character; his situation is dire, his fate uncertain. Connelly has crafted a thoughtful, compelling, page-turner of a novel that will resonate on many levels. A must-read!

This is the closest thing you'll find to Peter Gent's North Dallas Fourty novel. Absolutely enjoyable from start to finish, if I could find just one book like this a year...oh well! Savor this one.