Customer Reviews

The Pathology of Lies

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

 

 

I found this book superficially funny and superfically insightful, but nothing more. The lead character is the most un-woman woman in thought and deed that I have read in recent years. It's as if she is a man with a wig on. Nothing in her motives and her "funny" relationship with her Daddy (they're in love) rings true. I couldnt make it through this one and don't recommend it. I hoped to enjoy it being from the bay area, but no dice.

Gloria Greene is smart -- or so she keeps insisting. In view of this, her capacity for banal friends, conduct, and conversation is truly amazing. Her displays of high I.Q. veer between telling us that she is Very Beautiful and reminding us (again) that she is Very Intelligent. She also spends a lot of time assuring us that it's a burden to be both Very Beautiful and Very Intelligent. If only her intelligence were allowed to animate any of her actions, thoughts, or dialogue, this might have been workable satire. As it is, the reader figures out the plot long before those plodders at the F.B.I., and is left wondering how a character as vapid as Gloria could have captured the author's imagination for more than five minutes.

Several years ago, while in college, Keats published a column arguing that paperback books impugned the dignity of the written word. If you can't afford to buy a hardcover, Keats stated, you probably are better off not reading. Now, with the release of his direct-to-paperback novel, Keats appears to have changed his mind. Insight into the human condition, indeed.

A twisted novel about a female psychopath (or is she?) with great, snarky insights into the magazine world and popular culture. More of a satire than a true noir or mysery book, but funny and well worth a read.

I found this book to be intriguing, despite several other non-favorable reviews. Keats' descriptions of dissection of the human body and his main characters' self-absorbed agenda created the atmosphere for his story. The selfishness described in the main character is not unlike that of many people in today's world. This is a woman whose path I would definitely avoid.

This is funny at certain points, but what's the point of writing this? And reading it? A satirical look at ambition, and superficiality is the point, so you can't hold it responsible for being flat? It's a waste of time and reading energy. I'm bored with writers who write books with the "I'm too smart for any moral conviction except that of my own intellectual superiority" position. Doing nothing, saying nothing, is boring. What's the point?

Whatever Gloria Greene wants, Gloria insures she gets it. No one can remember anybody who rises faster in the piranha world of journalism than Gloria. She starts as an intern who models her approach to promotion off the headline news by sleeping with PJ Bullock, the editor of Portfolio magazine. This quickly makes her a food editor.

Gloria extracts a promise from PJ that when he leaves for his new job, she will replace him as editor of Portfolio. The only hitch in the plan is that PJ fails to attain the new assignment. However, PJ disappears and Gloria becomes the temporary editor. When body parts of PJ begin to surface in UPS parcels, everyone turns to Gloria as the most likely culprit. Instead of denial, she flourishes in the limelight of the media. The FBI continues to investigate Gloria who thinks she can turn her own story into a Pulitzer and become editor of a more classy magazine than the rag she inherited from PJ.

THE PATHOLOGY OF LIES is a strange satire that focuses on an ambitious person who apparently will do anything to attain her goals. The story line is humorous in an off-kilter way. Gloria will receive no reader empathy and the motives of her friends make little sense nor do they add much to the tale. Jonathon Keats scribes a biting tale on the excesses and wars of modern day journalism that readers who relish a ghastly satirical romp will fully enjoy.

Harriet Klausner

One step beyond the damned and empty world of post adolescent Los Angeles and "LA noir", Keats manages to avoid moralistic satire while delivering the literary goods in the genre murder/ mystery mode. The greatest accomplishment of the novel is its poise in the face of pathological "true crimes". The Age of Serial Killers which Keats is, here, referring to, emerges transposed to the realm of wit and reverie. A new, and ventursome, attempt to define the world in which we live, fin de siecle.

-richard kim (uc-berkeley)

Its amazing how Jonathan Keats writes about women so well. The chick who sleeps with her dad, kills and mutilates her editor and likes the publicity...its written in the firt person so you atually get an insight on whats going on through this psycho chicks mind...very cool book. definitely worth the money and check out line for.

I read maybe one work of fiction a year, but after reading this one I may have to start reading a lot more. The novel was unique, fresh and made me feel things I'm not sure I should be feeling. Gloria is a man of the times, and that ought to give us all pause. Definitely recommend.