More Than They Could Chew: A Novel [Paperback]

Rob Roberge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2005

Nick Ray lives in a world where everything is for sale. University Ph.D.s, pig fetuses, bomb shelters, and vending-machine-dispensed live bait, to name just a few. But for the first time in a long time, Nick Ray finally has something to sell.

Determined to be covert about an affair he's having with a woman already spoken for (by another woman), Nick buys the cheapest computer he can find at a local pawn shop, only to discover that the hard drive contains the names and addresses of dozens of members of the Witness Protection Program.

Partnering with a hulking Russian gangster with the world's worst fashion sense and a disbarred lawyer who drinks rocket fuel, Nick decides to take advantage of his unique discovery. Yet despite the impressive credentials of this entrepreneurial dream team, Nick soon learns that having something to sell can end up simply making you a valuable commodity to someone else wanting to make a big score ...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nick Ray, the divorced, alcoholic narrator of screenwriter/rocker Roberge's zany, intermittently amusing suspense novel, works the night-shift at the historic Lincoln Hotel, a sewage-challenged Long Beach, California, commercial property that survived the 1933 earthquake. "No one with anyone they could count on ended up here," Nick explains, "there were no mom or dads knocking on the doors of the Lincoln." Aching to get out of the place, Nick is thrilled when he buys a fossilized computer and discovers that it's loaded with the current locations of whistle-blowers who were hidden by the government's witness-protection program-priceless information to thugs looking for revenge and a payoff for Nick to start a new life with his kinky, bisexual lover Tara. With the help of a flashy, gold-toothed Russian criminal and a lawyer-turned-recovering junkie, Nick test-blackmails relocated Frank Carr with surprising success. But greed soon intervenes and the troika gets in over their heads with dangerous felon and Titanic fanatic Harry Fudge, an aging crook Cole's firm once rescued from a hefty jail sentence. Though the narrative eventually downshifts into an easy, uninspired resolution, this drug-hazed Christmastime romp will please many readers with its dark humor and quick plot twists.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Ever wonder what dark schemes and dreams occupy the dead time of overnight desk jockeys at fleabag hotels? Alcoholic sad sack Nick Ray can provide some insights. He's sleepwalking through life at a flop in Long Beach, drinking rocket fuel with his junkie friends, and pretending to be a few moves away from finding love and happiness. Fat chance. As he says at the outset of this atmospheric shaggy-dog story, "Nick Ray will let you down." But he'll do it in an entertaining fashion. When he's not fulfilling his lesbian girlfriend's freaky sexual fantasies, Nick is buying up government-surplus computers full of names from the federal-witness relocation program. He figures selling the info back to the witnesses will be plenty lucrative. But a Russian gangster acquaintance and Nick's addict-attorney friend (who, naturally, is undergoing maggot therapy for an arm infection) want to sell to the bad guys instead. Much chaos could ensue, but it mostly doesn't. Like a Kevin Smith film, this novel's seedy charms come simply from spying on colorful losers figuring out new ways to lose. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (February 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060742801
• ISBN-13: 978-0060742805
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,048,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rob Roberge is the author of the upcoming book of stories, WORKING BACKWARDS FROM THE WORST MOMENT OF MY LIFE (Red Hen, Fall, 2010) and the novels More Than They Could Chew (Perennial, Dark Alley/Harper Collins, February 2005) and Drive (Hollyridge Press, 2006). He teaches writing at the Antioch University Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing, UC-Riverside's Palm Desert MFA program and the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, where he received the Outstanding Instructor Award in Creative Writing in 2003. His stories have been featured in ZYZZYVA, Chelsea, Other Voices, Alaska Quarterly Review, and the Ten Writers Worth Knowing Issue of The Literary Review. His work has also been anthologized in Another City (City Lights, 2001), It's All Good (Manic D Press, 2004) and SANTI: Lives of the Modern Saints (Black Arrow Press, 2007). Newer work is scheduled to appear, or has appeared, in PENTHOUSE, BLACK CLOCK and OC Noir, part of the series that includes San Francisco Noir, LA Noir and Las Vegas Noir. He plays guitar and sings with several LA bands, including, among others, the punk pioneers, The Urinals. In his spare time, he restores and rebuilds vintage amplifiers and quack medical devices. For news and more info, visit & or email at either www.myspace.com/robroberge or www.robroberge.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sex, crime, and rock-n-roll!, February 28, 2005

By 

K. Cain (Traverse City, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: More Than They Could Chew: A Novel (Paperback)

Sex, crime, and rock-n-roll! It's all here in this brilliant novel by Rob Roberge. We are gladly taken on a fast-paced, twisted ride down into the depths of societies' seedier side where everyone has a story they don't want told and allegiances depends on the quickest buck possible. Roberge captures this world with fearless honesty and addictive prose. And it's really damn funny to boot. Extremely highly recommended!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best in class, February 10, 2005

By 

K. Barrett "neednreadn" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: More Than They Could Chew: A Novel (Paperback)

I loved this book. I've read it twice and am looking forward to reading it again. The characters are wonderful; erratic, irrational and completely human. The storytelling is top shelf. I was hooked after the first chapter and couldn't sleep until I'd finished it. He's as funny as Chandler and as edgy as Thompson. Highly recommended.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping Read!, February 20, 2005

By 

Russell Kremer "Example: book maven" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: More Than They Could Chew: A Novel (Paperback)

More Than They Could Chew starts off fast and then quickens, immersing the reader into those parts of life we tend to wish didn't exist. It's the lot of losers and the world they inhabit, the one filled with the homeless and seedy we turn away from, not realizing they're looking back at us.

Roberge captures this life honestly, brutally, and without flinching, using language that's a treat to savor. The characters are all real, too real, and the plot twists like pubic hair held over a burning match.

This book is good. It moves quickly, it delights on every page, and even contains a musical background you can follow if you're lucky enough to have a great CD collection!