From Publishers Weekly
Transforming that most pedestrian of documents-the business report-Newman has fashioned a first novel that is anything but by-the-numbers. Chrysalis Moffat, a South American orphan, has grown into a psychologically unstable young woman living alone in the California mansion of her adopted parents, both dead. Her brother, Eddie, "five foot seven inches of sheer depravity," returns from a slacker trip around the world towing a fake Buddhist guru named Ralph, and together they open the Tibetan School of Miracles in the run-down mansion, selling enlightenment to spiritually destitute Californians. But this is just the first in a series of clever false fronts presented by this sprawling, globe-trotting novel, which hops from California to Colorado, Cairo to Kathmandu, exploring Chrysalis's and Eddie's messy lives and the source of their rampant dysfunctionality. Was their father in the CIA? What, exactly, was he doing in South America when he adopted Chrysalis? And what does all this have to do with the world of professional blackjack players? The novel is full of false turns, fake names and jaw-dropping coincidences, all slotted neatly together in Newman's blunt, wry prose. The periodic forays into report format give the narrative a stripped-down authority ("1. My mother died of complications following liposuction surgery. 1.1 A mild heart attack; pneumonia; septicemia. 1.2 Long-term alcoholism was the root cause") and giddy chapter headings ("Dave Something Scottish," "A Battle Between the Forces of Good and Evil"). This is a virtuoso performance, and if it sometimes reads like parody-wallowing in cancer, suicide, incest, mental illness-it more than proves Newman a writer worth watching.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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From School Library Journal
Adult/High School--A paralyzing case of writer's block, plus a serious depression following her mother's death, means that Chrysalis Moffat, California girl by way of Central America, won't be completing her doctoral dissertation on Dr. Faustus any time soon. Instead, she is first distracted then entranced by her own private deal with the devil, aka her depraved brother Eddie, inheritor of the family's rundown mansion. Together the siblings open a phony spiritual retreat, the Tibetan School of Miracles, led by Eddie's crony Ralph, an equally phony, if charismatic, guru. As the school's success soars, unintended consequences complicate the trio's con game, to put it mildly. Style is the chief hook here, as Chrysalis's dry tone and seemingly straightforward narration (often organized into the numbered paragraphs of a formal report) provide comic counterpoint to numerous over-the-top, out-of-sequence subplots involving--among other things--biological weapons, alien abduction, divine visitations, professional gamblers, guerilla war, unrequited love, and suicide. This deft and edgy first novel, reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's early fiction, will appeal to older teens who like the notion of adding a regular dash of outrageousness to the mix of everyday reality.--Starr E. Smith, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
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--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
