Customer Reviews

Let Nothing You Dismay

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

 

 

Mark O'Donnell is kind of a hit-or-miss proposition. He can be--and often is--brilliantly hilarious, but he can also make your skin crawl. Fortunately, in 'Let Nothing You Dismay', there's more of the former than the latter. His puns and tropes keep coming, but there's less of the soppy emotionalism that ruined 'Homer' for me. This one kept me interested and entertained from beginning to end.

Also highly recommended are O'Donnell's earlier works, including 'Vertigo Park' and 'Elementary Education', as an introduction to this awesomely clever writer.

Christmas is less than a week away, but for Tad Leary there is little to celebrate. He has just lost his job as the storyteller at a Manhattan elementary school. He is about to be tossed out of the apartment he is subletting. His thesis on folklore is past due and going nowhere. Worse yet, even though he is over thirty, all his friend, family, and associates treat him as if he is a child due to his short frame and boyish appearance.

In spite of his trouble's Tad has vowed to make this Christmas different. He plans to make the rounds by going to the seven parties he has been to attend. He hopes to land a job and a room for his marathon efforts and enjoy the season.

LET NOTH-ING YOU DIS-MAY is a wonderfully wacky seasonal tale that will bring joy to anyone who reads the novel. Tad is a great character, struggling with his recent set-backs, his sexual preference, and his treatment by one and all. Mark O'Donnell is a gifted humorist, who brings the likes of Thurber into the late nineties as Tad is the urban, poor man's Walter Mitty (without the dreams of grandeur). Like his previous novel, GETTING OVER HOMER, Mr. O'Donnell gifts his audience with a non-stop jocular story that demonstrates even when it is too dark for Green Lantern's ring, there remains the light of comedy to pull one through the night.

Harriet Klausner

Even though some reviewers did not like this book, I thought it was a lovely little novel. It is a week before Christmas in Manhattan and Tad, our protagonist, has just been fired from his job at an elementary school (as a story-teller) because an affectionate child has told his mother that Tad was his favorite hugger or some such nonsense (the mother is, of course, on the board or somehow related to those who worry about this). Tad has also realized that the apartment he has occupied for some time will no longer be available to him as the rightful owner is coming home. It is a Sunday and Tad has been invited to seven different events (functions) which he decides that morning he will attend in spite of the feelings of doom and gloom and utter loneliness he is feeling about his life. The reason I so liked this little book is because, while droll in its humor, it was at a very basic level, uplifting. We have brunch with Tad's family who are bizarre yet strangely accommodating, especially a brother he was never close to but who provides him with some food for thought. We meet old friends of Tad's who offer him a place to stay for a while if he needs, we meet the sister of an old boyfriend (who Tad treated poorly) who is actually rather forgiving, we meet some other friends who are artists and so self-consumed and weird that Tad seems perfectly fine by comparison, we attend a high end party where Tad drinks too much, says the wrong things to the wrong people, yet manages to stir compassion in the (potential new boyfriend) heart of someone who returns his wallet. And we visit the basement in the elementary school Tad has just been fired from, some of his better co-workers who have snuck away from the holiday party and commiserate with him. I liked this book because Tad has every reason to be depressed and wallow in self pity and yet he ventures out in his very vulnerable state and manages to let people take care of him in a very off-hand sweet sort of way. He allows himself to see that life is not over and that things are going to turn up. I liked the whole premise.

I loved Mark O'Donnell's last book, Getting Over Homer, so I immediately bought this one.

This one is not as great, but it's still worth reading. I think O'Donnell's fresh metaphors and descriptions are a little forced in this book. A lot of times, they just sound stiff and awkward.

But as always, there are great, vivid characters. O'Donnell is a great creator of people--particularly families. Each character is unique and interesting.

The story is a fun concept, and keeps you reading. The ending was the cherry on top--I loved it--Tad has a dream that he and his brother are little boys again, but they're on a boat and as they reach the equator they will age and go through puberty, adulthood . . . "it's Indian summer, and our brains are delighted by knowledge; our hearts are unaware of their own existence; since the big bang, the universe has been a fire--slowly dying out--but fires are beautiful to watch . . ."

Beautiful, Mark.

There is a character in this book who most readers will recognise. Simon is an acquaintance (rarely a friend) who must "win" conversations. He is smug and asserts 5 words where one would suffice.

While Mr. O'Donnell may identify with Tad, the sterotypically sweet main character, he really seems to me to be so much more a Simon. His writing is laboured and his sense of sentimentality, while earnest, is always overcome by a need to be clever. I like writers to be clever but more than that, I like them to write characters, not to prove to me that they know a whole lot of really big words. Mr. O'Donnell's writing lacks depth and humanity. I understand that Finding Homer is his better work but this piece of tripe will prevent me from experiencing that book.

Mark O'Donnell is one of the funniest writers that I have read. I am buying his gift for a Christmas gift, but it is really a book for all seasons.

AND THE STORY LINE IS A RIOT.

I am going to bang out a novel this weekend. Why? Because after reading this novel, which lacks style, substance or the humor that its cover had promised, I know I, too, can publish. I will simply dash off a story of my fagulous Manhattan life and send it to the publisher of "Let Nothing You Dismay." Apparently, the publisher is not too demanding. The only thing good I have to say about this book is that it has a nice cover, very drole. But as they say: One cannot judge a book by its cover. My Amazon.com confreres, do NOT waste your money or time on this novel. It is boring and humorless.