Customer Reviews

Martin Misunderstood

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Not even the excellent vocal characterizations and considerable talent of Wayne Knight can save this mediocre audio novella from crashing and burning.

Being accused of double murder is the most exciting event to ever occur in the life of Martin, a 36 year old loser whose abysmal world is populated by obnoxious and unsavoury co-workers, and a harpy of a mother who appears to have a galloping case of Munchehausen by proxy. Investigating the murders of two of Martins co-workers is Detective Ana Albada, object of Martins cerebral love affair and herself a prime candidate for Dr. Freud's couch.

In MARTIN MISUNDERSTOOD, author Karen Slaughter was obviously going for sardonic humor and to be fair there are a couple of laughs to be had. Unfortunately they are few and far between and ultimately, Slaughter only manages to achieve a tale filled with pathetic, silly and completely unsympathetic characters caught in situations that are ill conceived, tasteless, and at some points downright lewd.

This listener can understand why Martin is misunderstood.

This is the first time ever that I listened to an audio version of a book and found it quite delightful and amusing. Wayne Knight did an outstanding job in performing a variety of voices for the different characters (both men and women) in this book. This is my first exposure to the writing of Karin Slaughter and I am positively impressed. The author displays a great sense of humor which is brought to life by Wayne Knight's amazing nuanced voices. First, Martin Reed is a geek-like character who lives a rather dull and uncomplicated life in a small town in Georgia. His most notable facial feature is a hawk-like nose, which made him self-conscious. His nickname was "Beak" and even after he had a rhinoplasty (commonly called a "nose job" which fixes and remodels the nose through plastic surgery). His friends continued to call him "Beak" despite the improvement in his looks (which they never acknowledged). He went to school with essentially the same people who work with him, at Southern Toilet Supply. It was a family owned business when he started there but it was bought by a German company who put on the pressure to sell their prodcuts. They did a down-size of about 50% of the employees after taking over.

Martin is an account executive who has a rather sassy black secretary named "Unique". She likes her first name pronounced in a French manner with an "a" sound at the end. Martin lives at home with his mother, Evelyn, called "Evie". She is a bossy woman who continually harps on some aspect of Martin's character or behavior and she peppers her pronouncements with the word "luck" but subsitute the letter "F" for the "L". She has a strong southern accent created by Wayne Knight which is very characteristic for the region and quite funny.

When Martin arrives at work at the Southern Toilet Supply company he learns one of the employees was murdered. Martin is a prime suspect because Sandee had pulled a practical joke on him using a most embarrassing item which could've been viewed as the 'motive'. Martin is jailed, interrogated and let go. However he develops a mental love affair with the female detective. At home, Martin ponders how his uneventful life has suddenly gotten so exciting but as the reader will discover for the wrong reasons! He remains the prime suspect solely because Martin does not want to reveal his whereabouts on the night of the murder. The listener/reader learns Martin was involved in some X-rated activity which would make him look ridiculous if revealed. He simply would not open up about the matter. When, a second dead body is discovered at Southern Toilet Company, this time it is his secretary Uniqué, all suspicion is cast on Martin again. People at the company *know* Uniqué suddenly found Martin irresistable and their spontaneous very physical encounter was heard by all ... I was stunned, I did not see it coming (pun intended).

Obviously because Martin was so directly involved with the deceased, circumstantial evidence points to him and he is not released from jail. Amusingly, the book provides some amazing twists and turns in the developing mental love affair between Martin and the female detective. The fact is Martin seems to like all the attention he is getting for being the prime suspect. It seems for once in his dull and boring life, he is finally in the spotlight, he relishes the attention he is receiving. Martin *finally* achieved notoriety and he is enjoying all the media attention. While I actually did figure out who committed the murderer and likely other listeners/readers will too, it does not take away from the enjoyment of this book. I am very impressed with the author's creativity and superior wit. She provides unexpected twists and highly amusing descriptions of each character, all with true to life attributes that are exaggerated. Her choice of Martin's employment is very funny. She makes the most of it by describing various products the company produces which makes for great comedy. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

Though I love books this was my first experience listening to an audio book and I enjoyed it more than I expected. Listening to this short (two hour and thirty minutes) novella on CD by bestselling author Karin Slaughter as I cleaned my kitchen made my housekeeping tasks go quickly. The story is read perfectly by character actor Wayne Knight who is best known as Newman on Seinfeld. Knight does an amazing job of creating separate mostly Southern accented voices for each of the story's characters. The plot, of course, is total nonsense and the characters' simply caricatures but the story is amusing and entertaining enough for those who like their comedy dark. One caution is much of the language and many of the situations are definitely "adult" so one should be aware and not play this in earshot of children or anyone easily embarrassed.

One of the assignments in my 9th or 10th grade English class (mid 1960's) was a classic short story by humorist James Thurber: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Walter Mitty was a milquetoast little man with a domineering wife, but in his rich fantasy life he was always the beloved and adored hero who saved the day.

Bring Walter into the 21st century, substitute domineering mother for domineering wife, let him live a fantasy life through legal thrillers and true crime stories rather than heroic deeds, and you have Martin Reed of Martin Misunderstood.

It's obvious from the beginning that Martin has a dark cloud hanging over his head, from the insults heaped on him by the domineering mother with whom he still lives, to his vandalized (again) car, to the lack of respect from his co-workers at Southern Toilet Supply. The dark cloud blackens when one of Martin's most disrespectful co-workers is found dead and Martin becomes the prime suspect. Then another body is found with every clue again pointing toward Martin. But after a lifetime of neglect and disrespect, Martin begins to enjoy all the attention he receives from the police, especially a certain female detective, and he may say anything to keep that attention.

I'm giving the audiobook three stars simply because my husband was so highly entertained by it during a short car trip. (The two CDs total 2 hours, 30 minutes.) We both were laughing out loud in the beginning, and my husband continued to laugh throughout, but my sense of humor faded as I got more and more disgusted with the potty-mouth language.

The language and lack of character development are why I call Martin a dumbing-down of Walter Mitty. I realize Martin Misunderstood was probably never meant to be great literature, and I didn't expect it to be, but I couldn't help but think "Hey, I've heard this story before." James Thurber managed to tell his very similar story without the use of a single gratuitous expletive, and he told it better. Also, Walter was a sympathetic character, and so highly developed that he has stuck with me for 40 plus years. I have no sympathy for Martin and I hope to quickly forget him.

In fact, I was so disgusted with Martin by the end that I would have liked to see him hang for his fantasy crimes, not to mention his very real crime of stealing my time. But I'm going to have to pardon him because I did get some good laughs before disgust set in and because my husband found him so entertaining.

Think of The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel crossed with A Confederacy of DunceA Confederacy of Duncess and you have the dark comedy of Martin Misunderstood.

Told from the first person viewpoint, narrator Wayne Knight captures the vocal insanity. The story is a man, walter mitty-ish who ends up in media frenzy of a murder investigation.

The satire humor of the book pokes fun at cop shows and movies, the media shows like TMZ, and crazy family relationship. This audio production is not for children, but adults will be laughing long and hard at the novel's strongest victims..the celebrity media and their stalker type camera person

It is worth a great listen for those who want a bit of fun

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

Karin Slaughter keeps her stories in Georgia with this short (2 1/2 hours) audiobook about a loser named Martin, his awful mother, his cruel co-workers and his miserable life. Martin is framed for murder and his extensive readings of James Patterson, John Grisham and Patricia Cornwell are all he has to help himself.

Positives:

Wayne Knight did a great job of creating the voices, especially those of Martin's mother and Unique (You-nee-quay). Knight's comic timing was a big help with some weak material.

Negatives:

Karin Slaughter.

This is my second Karin Slaughter book (both this summer) and I am not going to read her anymore.

Slaughter spends nearly half of the book just setting up the characters and then she just wraps it all up like she was on a deadline and she jsut had to get some sort of ending on the story. This book just clunks to an end - sort of Twilight Zone-esque but not like one of the good episodes. More like one of those bad ones where you look at the person next you and say, "That's it?"

Wayne Knight's performance turns a one-star review into two stars. I hope he does more, just not Karin Slaughter.

This was my first introduction to Slaughter's work, and I have to say it was enough to make me want to check out another. Wayne Knight does an excellent job narrating this, making each character come alive. I was a little apprehensive about hearing him read because I was expecting "Newman" the whole time, but he really has a broad range. The only problem is that he makes Martin's voice sound very similar to the lead female cop's, so it's a little hard to keep them apart when they start conversing. The story moves along quickly (at 2 cds it can't afford to take its time) and you can see things slowly setting up for Martin to have a really bad few days as it appears he's murdering his co-workers even though he's just an innocent bystander in an accident-filled life. You'll probably guess who the killer is long before the story ends, but it's still a fun distraction for an afternoon. I really enjoyed this little "comedy thriller".

This is horrible. I am not sure if this story of a pathetic loser, Martin, is supposed to be funny or depressing. I have seen people almost this disgusting and doormat-like before, but I think most of them would go postal if treated like Martin is. Even his own mother hates him! If you are depressed, this could push you over the edge. Don't bother with this one.

I enjoyed the different and distinct voices on this audiobook, and I appreciated the over-the top humor and situations. This was a generally fun listen and the time flew by fast while listening.

But this isn't one of those audiobooks that really stays with you - for one, I found it hard to like Martin, and also, a couple of the voices were a bit grating - not awful, but it didn't help the book really take off in my imagination.

This was an entertaining few hours, but not the best audiobook I have ever spent my time with. For that, Try McCall Smith's Number One Ladies Detective Agency, or Fforde's The Eyre Affair.

Martin Reed, the protagonist of Slaughter's MARTIN MISUNDERSTOOD, is one of those hopeless, graceless, spineless, worthless clods who is usually portrayed in the movies by people like Ben Stiller. With bumbling, unappealing characters of this sort, you can often see, miles ahead, the galvanizing catastrophe that will take place, altering the "-less" of the man and showing how it hides a bunch of "more"s.

Not so here.

Martin works at Southern Toilet Supply, his desk situated, of course, directly next to the bathrooms. His coworkers (even his subordinates) are unabashedly disrespectful of him, his foul-mouthed mother spends most of the book verbally emasculating him, and when a body turns up in his neighborhood, he unwittingly becomes suspect number one. As the equally downtrodden Charlie Brown might say, "Good grief."

No, Charlie. Not good. The story is peppered with little conveniences and coincidences that fuel the misunderstanding of the title, leading Martin straight into the spotlight as a possible murderer, but none of them are all that interesting. I was trying to figure out, halfway through the story, why I found the plot so unsatisfying. I decided to do a little background research, checked out the press releases, and discovered something that shocked me.

This is supposed to be a comedy.

Are you kidding me? The best word I can think of to describe the writing is "efficacious." It gets you through the basics, but doesn't provide much more, which is normally fitting for murder mysteries. But, alas, this is not a murder mystery. Great Caeser's Ghost, this is supposed to be funny! Once that realization came to me -- that Martin's job, his horribly caricatured coworker "Eunique," the pranks pulled on him, and his momma's leering, sneering grotesqueries are meant to be humorous -- suddenly the flaws of the book came into stark focus.

Slaughter, apparantly, put all of her energy into attempting comedy instead of, oh, I don't know, interesting characters, interesting situations, interesting complications, twists, or descriptions. Instead of these things, Slaughter spends all of her time trying to come up with humorous bathroom products and more barely-racist characterizations for Eunique to utter. Stick with what you know, Ms. Slaughter. Don't you remember that old axiom? "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." Not that I can say for certain that Slaughter's normal genre -- the crime thriller -- is benefited by her contributions to it, either.

Knight's reading of the book is fine, and in spite of the uninspired dialogue, he certainly gives life to a few of the characters (Martin's mom first among them). Other than Eunique, though, the women all sound the same -- like barely effeminate, moo-ish versions of Martin. He reads fluidly, and it's easy, in some ways, to let that draw the book along. But that's all that does it. I won't blame Knight, who chose this text for his first foray into the world of audiobooks. After all, I can't imagine enjoying this, even if Morgan Freeman were reading it.