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Love Bomb: A Novel [Hardcover]

Lisa Zeidner
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 4, 2012
An inventive, mordantly funny novel about love, marriage, stalkers, and the indignities of parenthood.


In quaint Haddonfield, New Jersey, Tess is about to marry Gabe in her childhood home. Her mother, Helen, is in a panic about the guests, who include warring exes, crying babies, jealous girlfriends, and too many psychiatrists. But the most difficult guest was never on the list at all: a woman in a wedding dress and a gas mask, armed with a rifle, a bomb trigger strapped to her arm.

Lisa Zeidner's audacious novel Love Bomb begins as a hostage drama and blossoms into a far-reaching tale about the infinite varieties of passion and heartbreak.

Who has offended this nutcase, and how? Does she seek revenge against the twice-divorced philanderer? Or is her agenda political--against the army general? Or the polygamous Muslim from Mali? While the warm, wise Helen attempts to bond with the masked woman and control the hysteria, the hostages begin to untangle what connects them to one another, and to their captor. But not until the SWAT team arrives does "the terrorist of love" unveil her real motives . . .

Critics have praised Lisa Zeidner's prose for its "unforced edginess and power"; her fiction "shines with humor, wisdom, and poignancy." In her most masterful novel yet, Zeidner gives us a tough yet tender social comedy, a romance with guts, a serious frolic written out of deep affection for all that it skewers.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"With the pleasing intensity of an action film and none of the boring car chases, Love Bomb is a witty, smart and densely packed novel."—Sylvia Brownrigg, The New York Times Book Review

"It’s been a while since I’ve read a satire as deft and ambitious as Lisa Zeidner’s Love Bomb. It’s a wildly entertaining read." —Richard Russo, author of That Old Cape Magic and Empire Falls

"Cry at weddings? No? You probably would once Lisa Zeidner’s badass avenging feminist showed up in her gas mask and took you hostage—at least once you got done clutching your gut from the hilarity. Reading Love Bomb is like viewing the world through special glasses that make your perception off-kilter, keener, more attuned to the tragicomedy that surrounds us, to the gonzo miracle of love’s outrageous resilience." —Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!

"If Jane Austen had lived to witness 9-11, Lisa Zeidner’s witty and terrifying comedy of romantic manners is what she would have written. It’s brilliant, funny and scary." —Rafael Yglesias, author of A Happy Marriage

"Smart, funny, irreverent...Zeidner has done her research carefully and writes with authority...A perfect summer novel." —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

"The book is buoyed by Zeidner's sympathetic sense of humor...Even the grumpiest reader will warm to Zeidner's sweeter ideas about love and loyalty, marriage, motherhood, and romance." —Katie Haegele, The Philadelphia Inquirer

"It's her insight into--and keen sympathy for--human foibles that supplies Love Bomb's biggest impact." —Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

"An aggressively funny, dynamic novel...Zeidner's skilled prose, her knack for storytelling, her way with heartbreaking details, transform this domestic suburban romp into a moving, insightful work about the joys and perils of marriage from a witty, distinctly feminist perspective." —Heather Havrilesky, Salon Magazine

"Witty and compassionate...a pleasing comedy of manners by a writer firmly in control of her material."  –Harvey Freedenberg, Book Page

"Explosively funny."  –Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

"Acid—and very funny…Ms. Zeidner manages to deftly play out the ultimate chick-lit revenge fantasy while seeming to make fun of the whole thing." –Susanna Meadows, The New York Times

"Love Bomb takes this story of a spurned lover looking for revenge and creates a wild, addictive tale of sheer brilliance."  –Natalie Papaliou, Shelf Awareness

About the Author

Lisa Zeidner has published four novels, including the critically acclaimed Layover, and two books of poems. Her stories, reviews, and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Slate, GQ, Tin House, and elsewhere. She directs the M.F.A. program in creative writing at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey.


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books; First Edition edition (September 4, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0374192715
  • ISBN-13: 978-0374192716
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #450,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lisa Zeidner is the author of five novels, most recently LOVE BOMB, and two books of poems. Her stories, reviews and essays have appeared in GQ, THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIN HOUSE, and many other places. She is a professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University, Camden. See http://lisazeidner.com for more detail, or her Facebook page, www.facebook.com/LisaZeidner

Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
(23)
3.9 out of 5 stars
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Humour and wry insight September 13, 2012
Format:Hardcover
When an intimate suburban wedding is interrupted by an armed woman wearing a gas mask, wedding gown and steel toed boots, the guests assume it is a joke. Only as the woman confiscates their mobile phones and explains the back door is wired with explosives does the reality of the surreal situation set in. The terrorist has a single demand, she wants a simple, heartfelt apology from 'one particular piece of shit', but no one in the crowd knows who that may be. In an effort to placate her a handful of guests confess their sins while a clutch of psychiatrists analyse her behaviour and the groom's grandfather, Colonel Delbert Billips Snr (ret.) attempts to take charge. As the hostages flounder, Helen the mother of the bride and host of the wedding, seems to be the only one the HT (Hostage Taker) is inclined to confide in, revealing the tale of pain and heartbreak that sparked the unusual siege and the woman's plans for Helen's guests.

Probably best described as tragi-comedy, Love Bomb is a satirical examination of relationships, parenthood, sex, obsession, heartbreak and loss. Zeidner explores the drama of the hostage situation with a healthy dose of humour and wry insight as the crowd deals with the absurdity of their situation.
Carefully developing empathy for her characters even as she mocks them, Zeidner reveals the complicated nuances of the cast's relationships with others and with themselves. The omniscient viewpoint invites the reader to observe the lovelorn hostage taker, the pompous thrice married father of the bride, the celebrity guest, the hysterical teenage caterer, the African Muslim polygamist and the man wounded by his divorce and custody issues amongst others whose personal histories are mined for awkward truths and well kept secrets.

I have to admit I found my interest wavering in parts of Love Bomb, a little overwhelmed by the huge cast of characters whose relayed stories have varying degrees of relevance to the situation they are in. At the every end of the novel is a guest list, something I feel would have been more appropriate and useful to provide at the beginning. There is very little dialogue and not much in the way of action through the middle of the story which I find tiring to read and the pacing suffers for it. Unusually the author provides an epilogue to the story, revealing what happened to many of the primary characters in the months after the siege which was an element I appreciated.

I find myself fairly ambivalent about Love Bomb, I didn't dislike it but neither can I find much enthusiasm for it. I think it would most strongly appeal to readers who enjoy social satire and observational comedy.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious novel about the trap that is the suburbs September 9, 2012
Format:Hardcover
I saw Ms. Zeidner read at Book Court (Brooklyn). I have no association with the writer. I read Love Bomb over the weekend, and enjoyed it very much.

After her book reading the writer explained that she writes about people who are right on the margin between being functional and stark raving mad. She wants to give an alternative view of what relationships feel like. Instead of pandering to Oprah with themes of redemption, she wants things to be messy, ironic, and absurd. She certainly succeeded in this rich and entertaining novel.

The book is about a group of wedding guests taken hostage by a suburban "terrorist." One thing I liked was the way she let the crowd's consciousness of their captivity sink in slowly for maximum comedic effect. After they finally heard the click of the padlock, it was funny to see the therapists in the group try to size up the hostage taker (HT) and utter the appropriate words to disarm her. From there the writer goes on to explore the reactions and personal histories of the bride and groom (who met in Africa while serving with Doctors Without Borders), of a diverse group of guests, and of the HT.

To give a taste of one of these personal histories, I enjoyed the chapter starting on page 71 where Simon Nathanson describes a scene from his marriage that "spelled the beginning of the end." The chapter begins, "First comes love. Then comes marriage. Simon knew what came next, and unlike his wife, he was able to foresee the consequences." Since both his and his wife's childhoods had been LONG and miserable, how could she "imagine her children's lives as catching fireflies on a summer night, all glimmer and possibility." He felt that there was too short a time before "the little spoiled fxxxxxs were benched and exhorted to buckle down." And as for the parents, "the job of the school was to punish the parents for being able to afford to live in Eden..." This all culminates with an incident where Simon is caught heaving an axe at a dead rabbit on Halloween.

The writer said that she likes ensemble-type movies, and this book has about sixty characters. It would have been helpful to tip off the reader to the fact that there is a guest list on page 254 that is helpful in following the players. I noticed the Guest List only after reading the whole book, and got confused in a few places.

I recommend this book for its humor and its insightful portrayal of suburban life. The writer did research on mental illness and police procedure, and the work also contains some interesting facts and observations on those subjects.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Great novel of change. September 12, 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Lisa Zeidner, in her new novel-of-manners, "Love Bomb", tells almost two parallel stories, which come together in the end. "The Wedding" is the longer one, but mixed into it is "Emotions", and together they form "Love Bomb". Tess and Gabe, who both belong to the "new American families" so common these days, with step-parents and step-siblings galore, are getting married. She's from a conventional mixed marriage - Christian/Jewish, while he is from a double-mixed marriage - Jewish/Christian, black/white. And they have all sorts of relatives and friends gathering at Tess's mother's house in the affluent New Jersey town of Haddonfield. There are plenty of mental health professionals - meaning mostly psychiatrists - on both sides of the wedding party. Some of the funniest moments in the book is the interaction between the shrinks during the hostage crisis.

Okay, the "hostage crises". Strange thing to pair with a suburban wedding, but Zeidner does it with great success. The wedding, being held in the mother-of-the-bride's great room on a hot summer Saturday, is invaded by a wedding dress wearing-gun toting woman. She lines everybody up in the room, old people down to babies, and precedes to hold the 60 or guests hostage. She's booby-trapped the doors and windows of the house and claims she's wearing a bomb. Who is she and what does she want? Zeidner gradually reveals all to the reader and brings "The Wedding" and "Emotions" together.

Much of "Love Bombs" is self-confession by various members of the wedding party and their guests. Secrets are confessed, and alliances and allegiances are changed as those secrets are revealed. Even the police involved in the hostage siege have connections with the wedding participants. Zeidner gives all her characters identities that are as nuanced as any I've read. It's a little difficult to keep track of the 20 or so main characters, but not too bad. And Zeidner does something at the end of her book that I don't see too often. She uses the final chapter to tie up loose ends and the reader learns what happens to the characters.

I'm giving the book four stars instead of five (though I may come back and change it to five) because the book has several printing mistakes; characters have different names in different parts of the book. Also, the story really is slightly preposterous. But charmingly so. Zeidner has brought together people from all walks of life and geographic areas to make a story of a wedding day that really changes the lives - and loves - of the participants.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Love Bomb novel
I did not particularly like the writing style and felt the story dragged on. Others I know really liked it.
Published 1 month ago by Terry
4.0 out of 5 stars Unusual Premise
it was a fun read, especially the first two-thirds. Very unusual and somewhat preposterous premise but well done and amusing.
Published 2 months ago by Sheila G Baler
5.0 out of 5 stars A bomb goes off in New Jersey
Love Bomb takes aim at polite South Jersey society: psychiatrists, weddings, novelists, and the police all come under Zeidner's darkly comic eye. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Daniel Wallace
3.0 out of 5 stars Love Bomb
Had a good story line but there were too may charaters to keep track of. We read this for a book club and almost all of the members could not get into it until about half way... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jan Klein
3.0 out of 5 stars Best first sentence of any book I have ever read. Unfortunately it...
A story with an excellent beginning that simply got mired down in details as the plot was revealed.... I was disappointed yet had to read to the end of the book,
Published 3 months ago by F. M. Mongiello
4.0 out of 5 stars Quick and pleasant with a twist or two.
This novel is bittersweet. No one is all of any one thing, both more complicated and more endearing than we might expect. I recommend it.
Published 3 months ago by susan stonich
4.0 out of 5 stars Funny -- "good read"
That I finished a work of fiction is high praise enough. I had read the NYTimes review of this book and bought it to read on my Kindle. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Carolyn Schneider
3.0 out of 5 stars Started out interesting
Then fell flat. I was very intrigued when I read the sample and the reviews. The book took an odd turn somewhere around 1/3 through. The end was anticlimactic.
Published 4 months ago by Mom of 2 ALs
3.0 out of 5 stars Love Bomb
I'm really not sure what this book was supposed to be. I felt like it was all over the place at times. It was an OK read but don't expect greatness.
Published 5 months ago by Ruffy
2.0 out of 5 stars 'Love Bomb' Bombs
Starting with a terrific, offbeat premise worthy of Christopher Moore -- the amusing interruption of a home wedding by a bridal gown-dressed, fully armed woman -- the novel... Read more
Published 6 months ago by DLB
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