Customer Reviews

Money, Love: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The seventies were a blurr in my memory until Mr. Barkley's phenomenal debut novel brought them vividly back to me. You'll love these characters and empathize with them as they struggle to discover themselves in the rugged and unpredictable territory that lies between money and love. This novel is a rare combination of pleasure and profundity, and I wanted it to go on forever. Brad Barkley develops characters and scenes with a wise eye, a wicked wit, and a warm understanding. I can't wait for his next novel!

This book is quick paced, funny and full of characters that leap off the page. The narrator, an acerbic sixteen year old facing his parents' separation, gives the story its focus, but the real charm is in Roman, the boy's father, a traveling salesman who is dynamic and flawed but never dull. A great first novel, not to be missed. Barkley makes a strong debut. Highly recommended!

In its review of this book, the Washington Post compared Money, Love to Huck Finn, giving the newer novel points for both its comic strengths and the rich texture of its characters. The Post got this one right. This is simply one of the best novels I have read this year, and the best first novel I've read in a number of years. I am perplexed at the one or two readers who complain of a lack of plot; so much happens over the course of the novel that it would be all but impossible to summarize here. Perhaps one of the other reviewers is right, that some readers look only for "action" and miss the deeper subtleties of a novel like Money, Love. In any case, this is the kind of book you read for the fullness and complexity of the characters, not for the hooks of plot. The characters here--Roman and Gabe, Dutch and Gladys, Sandy Goforth and Vic Comstock--take up residence in your mind and memory and remain there, long after you've finished the last page and closed the cover. And, as other reviewers have pointed out so well, the book manages to be quite funny without straining credibility, and quite moving without mawkishness. A terrific book, one that I will return to soon.

The NYT says this novel "lacks serious dramatic tension", and the NYT is right. I kept reading and kept hoping, but I'm giving up about 1/3 through. Good ideas, good writing, zero interest.

A cover blurb compares it to Malone's Handling Sin. Not. (But there aren't many books that compare with Handling Sin. Probably out of print, but get it and enjoy!)

This was one of those books I read in one night, staying up until 3 a.m. to finish it. Page by page, the book is laugh-out-loud funny, deeply moving, insightful, and witty. The reviewer here who complained that "not much happens" must be someone who enjoys a John Grisham-Tom Clancy style of writing, full of "action," but lacking in real characters and human insight. MONEY, LOVE has insight galore, and characters who come fully to life on the page, characters who make you care about what happens to them. This book is a work of art, an utter delight. Not to be missed.

not a whole lot happens over the course of this rather long novel. I don't have a problem with plotlessness, but it seemed to me that this book would have worked better if it had been far shorter. There just isn't much that happens that needs to be told. I'd have given it fewer stars, but the author knows how to write a sentence and has a good sense of humor, so I bumped it up to three.

Unlike a lot of outlandish, quirk-laden first novels, Barkley's coming-of-age story works on many levels. The characters are involving, the wise and observant narrator a pleasure to listen to, and the quixotic plot is irresistible. The hilarious circumstances and details stop just short of contrivance, and are given ballast by many touching moments and just enough pathos.

There is nothing here to find offensive, but there is nothing here to warrant the trees that were destroyed to print this bloated novel. I kept wanting to like it, wanting to feel charmed or intrigued or to care about the characters more, but nothing clicked, so then I kept wondering why no one had suggested making it shorter, making it a novella maybe, or a short story. The writer has some talent, but this book isn't the one he will be remembered for.

This debut novel by Brad Barkley has a warmth and a pulse--and a heart. A compassionate look at the impact of big dreams and imagination on every day life, it left me with a greater sympathy for and sense of admiration of my fellow humans. Daring to think outside the boundaries of the "average" life, as Roman does, carries its price, but it also brings a richness that makes for engaging fiction; it clears the eye and the heart of the reader and reminds him to stray outside the lines. Barkley has a grace in dealing with the essence of what makes us human, and I highly recommend this first effort.

Anybody who's ever been dazzled, angered, mystified, and disaappinted by a parent like Roman will recognize the depths of love and surprise in the young man Gabe. Here are Caliban and Caliban Jr, riding around, shooting for both love and money, the two big American abstractions stuffed -where else - in American cars and in the snake-oil tents of American life. I was reminded of the disturbing novel called "Lizard" by Dennis Covington, story of another young Caliban, another strong American promise. You might not love Barkley's story, but you can't dismiss it.