Mike Nelson's Death Rat! [Paperback]

Michael J. Nelson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2003

What if an aging, unsuccessful Minnesota author of history books with names like Old von Steuben Had a Farm: The German-American Settlement of the Midwest decided he could write a book every bit as vapid and ridiculous as the books that sold four hundred times more copies than his own? Well, he would write Death Rat, of course, the thrilling tale of a man who battles prejudice, his inner demons, and a cunning six-foot-long rat.

And what if he was told by publishers that, at sixty years of age, though his book was a thrilling read, he just didn’t look the part of a virile writer of gripping adventure books featuring cunning six-foot-long rats? Well, he would cook up a scheme so outrageous, it would incur the wrath of Gus Bromstad, the beloved author of the homespun Dogwood Downs series of books. And it would stir up the bizarre religious fervor of King Leo, the libidinous funk superstar whose CD “LoveDeathTomorrowJelly” was one of the biggest sellers of the decade. And it would throw him into a strange symbiotic relationship with the entire town of Holey, Minnesota, population 38.

Such is the fate of one Pontius Feeb, the hapless author of Death Rat. . . and perhaps the fate of all who attempt to write gripping novels featuring cunning six-foot-long rats.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

If the title of Nelson's book makes it sound more like tabloid "fact" than fiction, it's no accident. This first novel by the author of two previous collections of humorous essays (Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese and Mike Nelson's Mind over Matters) is indebted to more than one genre. After being called an anachronism, Pontius Feeb, the aptly named 60-year-old author of archly titled but otherwise dull books about his native Minnesota, is abruptly fired from his day job at a trade journal. In desperation, he concocts a wild yarn about gold hunters in the northern reaches of the state being terrorized a century ago by a six-foot-long rat. Since book agents refuse to consider an aging author, Feeb enlists a strapping, none-too-bright sometime actor to impersonate him. The book sells almost at once, and for big money. Unfortunately, the actor assumes the tale is sensationalist nonfiction, and so do the publishers, sending poor Feeb into a panic. Nelson, the former writer and host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, ratchets up the comedy as Feeb is pursued by a host of irate Minnesotans and by King Leo, a popular funk music star who has plans of his own for Feeb's book. The narrative rattles along at a hectic pace, but the point is really Nelson's parody of the publishing and pop music industries, which is best taken in small doses. Even fans may decide they prefer Nelson straight up, unencumbered by the trappings of fiction.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Michael J. Nelson is an actor, writer, director, and musician who served as head writer for ten seasons, and on-air host for five seasons, of the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000. He was also the composer of most of MST3K's original music, and is coauthor of The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide (1996). Nelson lives in Minneapolis with his wife, writer-performer Bridget Jones, and their two children.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper Entertainment; 1 edition (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060934727
• ISBN-13: 978-0060934729
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #747,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What do you expect from a book named "Death Rat"?, November 16, 2003

By 

Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mike Nelson's Death Rat! (Paperback)

MIKE NELSON'S DEATH RAT is the story of an aging history writer who decides to write a thriller after being inspired by the assembly line of Tom Clancy hardware-stories. But in order to appeal to today's discriminating book-reader who bases their purchases on what the author's bio picture looks like, author Pontius Feeb decides to hire a young, rugged-looking young man to claim authorship of the work. Naturally, hilarity ensues when the publishers accidentally market the book as a non-fiction tome, which is complicated by the fact that Feeb has a written a story about a supernatural giant rat. This short summary should give you at least a glimpse into the madness that lies within this book.

I was a fan of Mike Nelson's first two collections of essays (MIKE NELSON'S MOVIE MEGACHEESE and MIKE NELSON'S MIND OVER MATTERS) as well as his work on the late, great "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Nelson's distinctive style is all over this book, which is most welcome. His narrative voice is unmistakable; I could imagine some of the paragraphs coming straight from an unused skit or riff on MST3k.

Remember during the MST3k host segments how every secondary character was played by the same handful of actors? There's something similar going on here, but it's more concentrated than that. All the characters act like aspects of Mike Nelson. There's Mike Nelson as the confused old man; Mike Nelson as the young college boys; Mike Nelson as a country yokel; Mike Nelson doing a Jesse Ventura impersonation; etc. This, of course, isn't a bad thing, just a little confusing at times. Mike Nelson is a funny, funny man, so anything that brings more of him into the novel can only be considered a good thing.

Nelson's prose style is highly amusing. He has a wonderful knack of taking small ordinary pieces of human interaction, blowing them up to cosmic proportions, and then deflating them with a clever turn of phrase. He's so effective at this, that I actually found it a bit distracting at first. It seemed to me that the humorous plot was being tripped up and slowed down by the language quirks and the diversions. After a few chapters though, I settled in and was able to adjust to Nelson's writing style.

The plot is entertaining, the prose is grin-inducing, the characters are hilarious and the satire is wonderful. I get the impression that because I don't live in or near Minnesota, I may have missed a few of the celebrity skewerings. However, there's more than enough funny material here to keep me happy. I laughed out loud many times while reading this, which is the best judge of whether a comedy book has succeeded.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow start, but worth the ride, October 25, 2003

By 

Trevor Seigler (South Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mike Nelson's Death Rat! (Paperback)

Michal J. Nelson's latest foray into literary humor, "Mike Nelson's Death Rat!", is one of those books that starts slow, but begins to pick up steam once the scheme of having another man stand in for the aging Pontius Feeb (and accidentially selling the story of a six-foot-rat as NON-Fiction) is hatched, and the attendant efforts of a Garrison Keillor-type (actually, the mental image I had of him was more Patrick F. McManus or that guy with the hat on "The Red Green Show") to unveil the truth.

I picked up this one because, as a huge MST3K and Mike Nelson fan, I looked forward to his attempt at fiction. I immensely enjoyed "Mind Over Matters" and "Movie Megacheese", so this was a bit of a no-brainer...when I finally got around to buying it, months after publication. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the novel's absurdities and thinly-veiled caricatures of various Minnesotans (Keillor, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Prince), and the story flowed along well.

Now as to why I didn't give it 5 stars: There's an element of clumsiness to the book overall, as if Nelson is trying to cram too many knick-knacks about Minnesota or the Midwest mindset to bother with any hint that readers might just not care. There were whole paragraphs which could have been excised, but what little distraction these provided was negligable overall. I think my view might be tempered by the fact that the first few chapters seemed overwrought in absurdity, and I really didn't feel comfortable with the book until about the first hundred pages or so. I have to dock it a star for that, but the book as a whole is worth it for any MST3K fans.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great and Wonderfully Humorous -- Gentle Book, April 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Mike Nelson's Death Rat! (Paperback)

Mike Nelson became moderately well-known through his stint as Head writer and then Host of the cult-classic, and personally beloved, television show Mystery Science Theatre 3000. This background gives him a natural leg-up on many beginning authors. It helps that he also had two prior books of some success, Movie MegaCheese, which played to his strength -- reviewing bad movies; and Mind over Matters, which took on everyday life.

Now, Nelson writes his first fiction novel. The result is a very funny, and cockeyed look at Minnesota and Minnesota popular culture. The major character "Ponty" Feeb is a likeable character, despite the fact that he has lacked any great success in life, though he has done some impressive things. Feeb is at an all-time low when the book begins. In his desperation, Ponty ends up doing a desperate thing and conspires with another somewhat less desperate, but handsome, actor to craft a petty conspiracy that quickly goes both quite well yet also dangerously off their plan. When their effort becomes a roaring success it brings in three major figures all clearly but loosely-based on major Minnesota icons, Garrison Keillor, Prince, and Jesse Ventura.

Both urban and rural Minnesota is portrayed in the book, but unlike many other books when portraying "rustic" people, the small-towners in "Death Rat" are no one's fools and are quite able to take advantage of the situation provided them.

Despite its purpose as a humorous-work (and make no mistake its very very funny) the book has a gentle nature about it, while being a parody,. Nelson obvious likes the people he is writing about, rather than having contempt for them, which one might have expected based on the nature of his prior non-fiction work. Among the best aspects of the novel are the delightful density of the paragraphs where one notices both obvious and then much more subtle jokes.

A great first effort and hopefully the first of many from Mike Nelson.