Customer Reviews

My Old Man

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

 

 

I picked this book up because of the charming John Currin painting on the cover, but was very disappointed. Ms. Sohn is a sex columnist for the New York Press and New York Magazine, and I guess that makes her feel that she is the 2000's version of Erica Jong. "My Old Man" is supposed to be a picaresque, sexy romp but it comes across as cheap and the sex is both graphic and unerotic at the same time.

Main character Rachel Block is unconvincing depicted as a drop-out rabbinical student, whose lack of compassion has actually caused dying man to keel over dead (because she has failed to console him in anything approaching an appropriate manner). Unsure of what to do at this point in her career, she turns to bartending in the Brooklyn neighborhood she grew up in. Having a chance to meet the famous indie filmmaker, Hank Powell, she throws herself at him and they begin a coarse, entirely sexual affair devoid of any tenderness or romance.

Ms. Sohn name drops so much throughout the book (famous filmmakers, painters, actors), that I am certain Power is supposed to be a particular individual (or composite) but I couldn't tell who. His background of indie films sounds very like Woody Allen's, but the character is much younger. Unfortunately, Ms. Sohn chooses to write his dialogue IN DIALECT, which is one of the most irritating things in the entire book -- why Powell and not the other New Yawkers? -- but I guess it's to underscore his crudeness. If so, it works but only on that level -- Powell is so repugnant (ugly, fat, bald, rude, abusive) that no normal woman would ever be remotely attracted to him.

The character of Rachel is so poorly drawn that we have no idea at all why she ever wanted to be a rabbi, nor does she tell us about her feelings about giving up a career in the clergy -- she doesn't even seem to feel particularly bad about the patient she practically "depressed to death". In fact, she has no spiritual leaning at all, which seems odd in someone who went to all the time and expense to attend rabbinical school. This feels like a detail added to the story just to raise the titillation level -- she's not just a typical Brooklyn Jewess but a FORMER RABBINICAL STUDENT, so her descent into meaningless sex will seem all that more "shocking".

Well...it's not. The sex feels really gratuitous and designed to shock or gross out. I can tell the general theme of the book is to be breezy and funny, but it the desperation in it makes it depressing. None of the characters undergo any self knowledge or transformation...it's just crudely linked chapters that veer from one sexual encounter to another.

I don't think that erotic novels need to cover all the basics of safe sex, but I can honestly state I have never read a book, in this age of AIDS and STDs, that apparently comes out in favor of the "withdrawal method" (coitus interruptus) and non-use of condoms! This seems unbelievably irresponsible -- it's one thing if characters are depicted doing something self-destructive, but the author herself seems to be blandly endorsing this. [...]

I could say more, but am demurring due to space considerations. This was one of the more depressing and discouraging books I have read recently -- the kind that makes you want to take a bath afterwards and wash your hands with santizer. And never have sex again.

As another reviewer put it, this book was a chore to read. I don't know why I stuck with it, but I hate to not finish a book. The characters are so poorly drawn that it's impossible to care about any of them. They're also unlikeable for the most part. Others have commented on how Rachel continues to be drawn to Hank in spite of the fact that he's so mean and misogynistic. That's true, but I also can't see what Hank sees in Rachel -- I can't see the appeal. The dialog was completely unbelievable, and the story dragged. In all, a waste of time. In the end I dropped it in the trash, which I never do because I love books. I just wanted to protect other innocents from this drivel.

And stop there. Because it's all downhill after that.

While the premise of this book, Rachel Block's decision to drop out of rabbinical school and pursue a relationship with an older man, is an interesting one, the book never lives up to its promise. I found the writing to be so-so, the storylines to be a little hard to believe, and most of all, the characters to be extremely underdeveloped and one-dimensional. The story is neither character-driven nor plot-driven and so the book can be a bit of a chore to read. I must say I was also disappointed with Rachel's relationship with Hank, one of the main parts of the novel. What kind of a woman would stay with a man who treats her so horribly? Since there is so little set-up on the Rachel character, it's impossible to fully know. Hank is arrogant, utterly disrespectful, and downright mean, but Rachel simply accepts his rotten behavior and continues to pursue Hank despite his obvious lack of interest in her throughout much of the book. If we are supposed to believe that this is how women in their 20s approach love and romance, that's a pretty sad state of affairs - has Rachel, have women, no sense of self-respect? I was disappointed by this book, but for someone looking for a short, snappy, easy read with dialogue that is occasionally interesting and very graphic sex talk, this might be just the thing.

This book was so bad that it was strangely compelling to read, sort of like channel surfing and briefly watching (those people I hope will be visited first by the Taliban if they ever invade the U.S.) the Kardashian family. The characters were totally implausable, from the main character, Rachel, to her insipid parents and obnoxious lover. The author could barely let a page pass without some bawdy and crude reference to Judaism or some trashy sexual slang. Not cute and certainly not literature.

I finished this book last night and was left speechless by how awful it was. While I try to spend my free time reading more literary books, I love a good piece of tawdry chick lit, especially one with an arty old man and a twenty-something hipster. I guess I expected to be reading something similar to Banks's "Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing", but no. Sohn's book is a painful attempt to create a Jewish, Brooklyn-based Carrie Bradshaw. This book can't go four sentences without throwing in a Yiddish word, usually for no good reason. It's enough to make a girl meshugeneh! See what I did there? Perhaps Simon & Schuster will give ME a book deal.

Seriously, though, this book is poorly written, and none of the characters are in the least bit likeable (except Jasper). The book revolves heavily around Rachel's relationship with the aging screenwriter Powell, who seems to have no appeal at all except for his once-demonstrated ability to order a decent bottle of wine. He isn't funny, or interesting, or caring, or any other quality that might make him remotely appealing. He also has a very weird accent that phases in and out, which I think was supposed to create a more 'interesting' character, but mostly I found it distracting. Powell's shortcomings as a human being and a love interest are okay, however, because Rachel is almost as unlikeable, and therefore I didn't care if she met a nice guy or not. I also didn't care about her shoes, hairstyle, outfit, neighbor, career, or feelings.

I finished this book and felt angry. I don't usually get irrationally upset at my fiction, but this book got to me. I hated it for its name dropping, and its unsexy sex scenes, and its totally overwhelming portrayal of upper class New York Jews. Please do not waste your time with this book. Or, at least, don't spend money on it.

I read this one first and liked the somewhat immature but biting writing, as well as various insights into May-December affairs. But here, too, Sohn cuts to the sex so fast so often that it becomes difficult to fathom how these folks can be so mindless in their sexual romps.

I don't have alot to say about this except that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, right from its double-entendre title (which I presume was intentional) to the very end. As to comments by others about how well (or how poorly) her characters were "drawn", and how likable they may or may not have been, I can only say that I found the entire journey enjoyable and I love her writing style. Finally, while this is not really a criticism, but just an observation, I found that the book was affected the old conflict which is sometimes inherent in first-person narrative novels which relates to the dichotomy between the narrator and the writer, especially where the narrator is a deeply flawed character (such as in this case). In other words, on one hand, the author herself obviously wants to tell a great story and to do so, she must (and in this case does) employ great storytelling skills, as well as lots of humor and insightful observations--by no means an easy thing to do. On the other hand, the narrator through whom the author speaks, Rachael, is in many ways a total mess of a person with many "issues" to deal with. If Rachael really had all of Sohn's gifts, one suspects that she would not have had at least some of the problems she does.

"My Old Man" is a far better sophomore literary effort from fellow Brunonian Amy Sohn, perhaps best known for her sex advice columns in The New York Press and now, more recently, New York Magazine, and her literary debut "Run, Catch, Kiss". Although it covers some of the same terrain with respect to characters and situations as her earlier novel, "My Old Man" shows that Amy Sohn is becoming a more sophisticated, yet still witty, observer of sexual relationships between men and women; and though it is set in an upper middle class Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, her observations may have a universal quality to them. I found this almost impossible to put down, and read this short novel in the short span of two nights (I am also delighted that the work of one of my favorite contemporary painters, John Currin, is depicted on the novel's book jacket.).

Rabbinical school dropout Rachel Block finds herself tending bar and falling head over heels for distinguished screenwriter Hank Powell, who is nearly her father's age. And her father, "The Old Man" of the novel's title, is secretly cheating his wife - Rachel's mother - by having an affair with Liz, Rachel's upstairs sex-crazed neighbor. This is a moving, often intriguing, examination of dysfunctional sexual relationships, wrapped in a sexy literary valentine of affection to Brooklyn's Cobble Hill neighborhood. I can't help but wonder whether Amy's vicarious exploration of the foibles of sexual relationships may yet yield poignant literary observations as memorable as Edith Wharton's of her Gilded Age Protestant Waspish Manhattan society; indeed Amy may yet become a 21st Century Wharton chronicling the loves and lives of upper middle class Jewish New Yorkers, yet working in themes which will resonate as well with Gentiles such as yours truly. In her descriptions of the people and neighborhood of Cobble Hill, Amy reminds me mostly of Jonathan Lethem's own memorable depictions of this neighborhood in his novels "Motherless Brooklyn" and "Fortress of Solitude". Without question, Amy Sohn is certainly a writer to watch, whom I believe is truly destined for greatness.

Miss Sohn has written a very funny and inciteful novel. It is most certainly a third cousin, once removed of "Portnoy's Complaint". Sex and it's complications are present along with religion, divorce, the geography of Cobble Hill and bartender jargon, and, oh yes, love. I laughed out loud. What more do you need to know?