Customer Reviews

Mike Nelson's Death Rat! : A Novel

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Death Rat is a fun, intelligent look at a group of well-drawn characters who struggle with fame and failure. The book's main foils, Pontius Feeb, Gus Bromstad and King Leo all handle being in the public's eye differently . Ponty, a good-natured history writer, comes across to the public as "a picture of someone's crazy uncle", while Gus BromstadÑ who is inwardly a mean-spirited, selfish authorÑworks hard to maintain his loveable, homespun facade. Also in the mix is King Leo, funk superstar, who has immersed himself so deeply in his public persona that his sanity is now in question. Mike Nelson hilarously and cleverly guides these characters through a bizzare series of events as they struggle to keep up appearances and what's hidden in them struggles to come out. Mike Nelson is like an unjaded, more sympathetic Kurt Vonnegut and his first novel is more than just a great, funny read. It's a also a heart-warming look at the struggle to be a successful artist and a real person at the same time.

I was skeptical at first of Mike Nelson's plan to delve into fiction. But I am happy to announce that I was more than blown away by this book. I now hope that Mike writes another humor novel.

Death Rat reminds me a lot of the books by P.G. Wodehouse. There is a certain eccentricity to all of the different characters, but still a realization that these people could exist. My favorite chapter out of the whole book is when Jack, Ponty's front man, meets with the Prince simulacrum King Leo. I thought for sure that I was going to need an iron lung I was laughing so hard. It really is amazing how much this book can make a person laugh, snort, or just giggle idiotically; and still have a realistic twist to it (six foot giant rats aside).

Also, being a Midwesterner I especially enjoyed the part where the Governor of Minnesota yells at the weatherman on the TV. Sounds like just about any Nebraskan dealing with the constantly changing weather.

I'd just like to end by saying, get this book, get your friends to buy this book...

First off, if you're a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, nothing should prevent you from reading this book. Much of the wit and weirdness within will help soothe the pangs of that artwork's passing.

However, if you're a fan of offbeat humor, you should be aware that this book, while funny in its parts, is rather uneven. The book is about a book about a giant rat: what more do you need to know? The driving humor here is within the lampooning of famous Minnesotans and the playing-out of odd situations the books characters get into.

The uneven-ness comes into play with the tone of the book. Sometimes it's played straight, sometimes it's exploded into comic hyperbole. The overall effect is that keeping a steady course was sacrificed for searching for the comedic nuggets scattered across the upper midwestern landscape (and just why did Mike spend so much time describing the turkey hunting trip?)

Anyhoo, if you want to read a light lark or you're a fan of MST3K, pick up the Rat. If you want something a little more cohesive, I suggest Dr. Seuss' ABC. Sure, you know how it will end, but the journey is amazin.

From the cover picture, and from Mike Nelson's association with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 TV show, one might expect this book to be cheesy sci-fi. If so, one would be disappointed. This is not a book about a Death Rat, but rather a book about a book about a Death Rat. It's a realistic novel, in the sense that all the people and events in it are plausible, if wacky, and it's set in more-or-less present-day Minnesota.

This is funny fiction, kind of like the novels of Garrison Keillor or Dave Barry or Terry Pratchett or... well, maybe not all that much like any of those, but more like them than like MST3K. It's not deep or great fiction, by any means, but it is a fun read: entertaining, engaging, and funny. If you have the right kind of sense of humor, you'll be laughing, or at least smiling, through the whole book.

As head writer on "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" (tearing strips off lousy movies for ten years), and then author of two collections of reviews and essays ("Movie Megacheese" and "Mind Over Matters"), Michael J Nelson has proven beyond doubt he's a great humorist. With "Death Rat!", he makes his first attempt as a storyteller.

Our two heroes, Pontius Feeb and Jack Ryback, are a milquetoast historian and a well-meaning but thick actor who conspire to produce a best-selling, throw-away summer novel. Their scheme succeeds, but when fiction is published as fact the two are forced to cover their tracks or lose their royalties, and a farce ensues.

Pontius and Jack are nice guys, deliberately written as innocuous and somewhat inept. Unfortunately, this means they don't really cut much of a dash for the reader. Nelson clearly had a lot more fun with the various villains and comic foils, most especailly rival author Gus Bromstad (think Garrison Kiellor, but sociopathic), Minnesotta Govenor Bart Herzog (Jesse Ventura cross-bred with Schwarzenegger) and funk mogul King Leo (a thoroughly accurate portrayal of Prince).

Once these characters come into play, the pace picks up and the book becomes far more enjoyable, and often very funny. Themes occur that will be familiar to anyone who's read "Mind Over Matters". Nelson again takes the oppotunity to muse with affection on the inscrutable Danish people and the various quirks of the Minnesotans who surround him. High-school wrestling, the absurditiies of modern celebrity, the horror of male nudity, the humilitation of working in low-end jobs and the social problems faced by large, awkward men everywhere are all revisited.

Plenty to enjoy here in terms of humour, but as a yarn it's let down by over-long opening and slightly anti-climactic closing chapters. If Nelson can hone his narrative skills, five-star novels are sure to follow.

Mike Nelson proves two things with this novel: One, that he has a touch for comedic writing, and Two, that he can find life in old chestnuts of a plot. Here he takes a plot that has seen many an incarnation and turns it into something that becomes quite compelling to read. It concerns one Pontius Feeb, a sixty-year old writer of arcane historical books who suddenly finds himself unemployed when his publisher folds its book division. He suddenly finds there is absolutely no market for his kind of books, so in desperation he turns to the sort of writing of the Nelson DeMille - Tom Clancy - Clive Cussler school. But he is deemed too old to make an effective author, so he recruits a college student to pose as the author, with hilarious results. It has all the makings of Preston Sturges, except that Nelson doesn't supply us with an ingénue. Much better than the stuff he made fun of on "Mystery Science Theater 3000", this is the sort of novel you'll remember bits and pieces from long after you've read it. Highly recommended.

The question that needs to be answered before reading any book is: is it worth the effort and time? Quite simply, Death Rat! is a yes. Filled with the wit and humor of Mike Nelson, and a book that encompasses the feel and atmosphere of Minnesota, Death Rat! should be on your reading list. The story provides insight to the celebrity world that Mike Nelson never found himself fitting into, and insight into the publishing industry, that from the novel Mike Nelson has little affection for. Enjoyable and entertaining.