CPR for Dummies [Paperback]

Mickey Z. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 2008

Open to any page in CPR for Dummies and you just may read a line like this:

He's a priest; of course he hesitated when he realized he was about to hit someone with a crucifix.

OR

I needed to believe someone higher than the government was in charge of things so I went to church.

OR

"We are here to, like, honor your loins and everything," said Ruth.

The world is creeping towards destruction--no, not theoretically--it's really happening. In these last hours will humanity come together to correct their collective wrongs? Or will there be rampant beatings and kinky sex?

A group of strangers are brought together by synchronicity to answer the age-old question: you lookin' at me, punk? The answer entails the comeuppance of the rich, police brutality, aerobic instruction by the Messiah, sexual slavery, and mutating genes.

(Is this sounding good? I hope so. It's not easy writing these. I'm just a corporate monkey trying to snag your hard-earned dollars but don't let that get in the way of buying this book. Did I mention SEX yet?)

Author Mickey Z's experimental tour-de-force is a funny, challenging deconstruction of the concept of the "novel" as well as life in the United States of America.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"Mickey Z. has thought a lot about politics and a lot about sex. He's thought about politics while having sex, and about sex while having politics. As a result, Mr. Z. has written an orgasmic Left revolt-book! I am surprised that I liked the novel, actually. I didn't know that I enjoyed anything written after 1931." -- Sparrow, poet and presidential candidate --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover

"Mickey Z.'s CPR for Dummies is a ribald collage of styles, points of view, and blasphemies. Written loosely in the style of a play, the novel includes the author as a character, a sex-crazed priest and a confession-booth orgy to rival the best of Rabelais. Both satiric and insightful, the book manages to invoke both Armageddon and optimism. With politics sure to rile even the most self-righteous liberal, Mickey pulls off a tour de force -- a textbook within a play within a parody within an urban memoir. It is a book that is as tongue in cheek as Vonnegut and Bukowski -- funny, sexy, surprising and entirely iconoclastic." -- Christine Hamm, author of The Transparent Dinner, poetry --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Raw Dog Screaming Press (June 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933293586
• ISBN-13: 978-1933293585
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,662,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spastic and Fantastic, September 18, 2008

By 

Ned P. Vizzini - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: CPR for Dummies (Hardcover)

I don't think there'll be a more bizarre book released in 2008, that's for sure. CPR for Dummies combines a screenplay, a day-long gritty Lower East Side (that's NYC for people who don't know) sex narrative, a corrupt priest and his group of idiosyncratic followers, and the end of the world into something delightfully weird.

Briefly, on the last day on earth (think "Armageddon"), a sexually voracious woman and her boyfriend get trapped in a church with a priest and his small congregation, who divulge their stories as the world outside them gets crazier and the meteor gets closer. Climax of the book is a three-way orgasm in a confessional.

And that climax is previewed by Mickey himself. At the beginning of the book he tells you, in italics and parentheses, that it's going to happen. This is CPR for Dummies' central conceit -- no-nonsense meta comments from the author. (He even puts them in the back-of-the-book copy.)

They're the best thing about the book. They come at the end of every chapter (and the chapters are short an readable) -- for example, I'm almost done writing this paragraph.

(it wasn't very good, was it? You're probably bored already and clicking off to another site.)


Mickey Z's meta strategy becomes addictive; after a while you're waiting for his out-of-the-box comments, which often reveal which of the book's many entertaining anecdotes actually happened to him. When I (tried to) read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, I got caught up in the preface. The first sentence: "It is not necessary to read the preface." Well, I thought, that's annoying -- it's probably not necessary to read the whole book. And I put it town.

Mickey Z's meta strategies are MUCH more palatable. When you finish this book, you feel like you know him, and you also feel like you've been through a long, strange trip to obliteration.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sex and Nukes, October 12, 2008

By 

Ashton M. Heyd - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: CPR for Dummies (Hardcover)

a.k.a. Ash Lomen


I liked this book... I'm just sure if everyone else will. Giving it a five star rating is something I'm almost hesitant to do... but after all... I am judging the book on how much I enjoyed reading it... and that was one whole hell of a lot.

CPR for Dummies isn't really a novel... it's not really even fiction... it's a story wrapped in a psychic storm of fact, fiction, opinions, and intercourse. It's a stream-of-consciousness designed for you to choke on. And swallow.

It's also (whatever it is) very funny...

Mickey Z's viewpoint is not always a popular one (or one I always agree with) but what can I say... I like a guy who asks questions. Consider the possibility that you may be (on occasion) wrong... and you might learn something.

Maybe even how to win a fight...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wild, brilliant, innovative novel, October 10, 2008

By 

Eliot Katz (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: CPR for Dummies (Paperback)

CPR for Dummies is a brilliant, inventive, and thoroughly enjoyable novel. It's filled with wild, engaging characters and an interesting mix of sex and politics--part Henry Miller and part Howard Zinn. While it has a storyline that moves compellingly forward, it also uses a postmodern collage structure that carves out plenty of free space for author playfulness, surprising anecdotes about history and science, and urgent political commentary. I read it in two sittings and found it to be both a real page-turner and an educational treat. And watch out for the ending.