Customer Reviews

Mr. Peanut (Borzoi Books)

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(28)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

It can be a nuisance when you get something, a book, a movie, a game, expecting one thing and receiving something completely different. Take Mr. Peanut, for example. If you were to read the synopsis, you'd think it was a murder mystery with a tinge of familial drama, concerning David and Alice Pepin. Alice, deathly allergic to peanuts, is found dead, having eaten said peanuts. The police think David's to blame. Okay, then take the back of the advanced readers' copy that reads, "...when Adam Ross asked me to read what he'd been working on far longer than the eight years we'd known each other, I was in for an extraordinary surprise...And I was soon thrilled (again) to see it take Knopf by storm, reader by reader, department by department--an occurrence that signals a truly exceptional book." Okay, so we have an interesting premise and a very highly praised congratulatory note by no less than the Vice President, Editor-at-Large of Random House.

What I got out of Mr. Peanut, instead, was something completely different...and nowhere near as exciting. True, David and Alice Pepin are characters and true Alice does die from a peanut...this happens in the first few pages. But the story doesn't really center around the Pepins so much. I'd almost call their story a MacGuffin except that they do get circled back to, because the plot quickly spirals away from them and toward the two detectives who are working his case. You see, all of the men in this book have problems with their wives. And all of the women in this book have problems with the men. Neither side are exactly shining examples of their genders. The women all seem to be depressed that married life and their husbands aren't what they're cracked up to be.

Meanwhile, the men all seem destined to do things (sometimes eye-rollingly preposterous things) to screw up their relationships. Take Ward Hastroll, one of the detective working the Pepin case. His wife decides not to leave the bed for months and Hastroll does everything (wrong) in his power to get her out of it, including refusing to feed her, trying to sell away everything. It's very soapy and borders on the ridiculous at times. Then there's Sam Sheppard, the other detective, whose wife was murdered years ago and he was/is the prime suspect. I'd like to focus on what I thought was the point of this book--David Pepin--but the truth is that his life only gets a very cursory look. His wife has been yo-yoing through weight loss and it, apparently, makes her bitchy. Meanwhile, he reacts as an ass and...well that's about it. She dies.

The brunt of the book is about Hastroll and Sheppard and how they screwed up their marriages. In fact, more ink is spent in a quasi-Silence of the Lambs ("quid pro quo" is actually mentioned) interrogation with someone who is apparently well-versed in Sheppard's familial history and the murder of his wife. And so for a good chunk of the book, we're going back and forth between the present and Sheppard's past, piecing together who killed his wife. Never mind that the book is named Mr. Peanut and all signs point to a story about the Pepins. In an attempt to be inspired, author Adam Ross attempts his hand at writing a meta-story to try and be, I assume, post modern, by adding Sheppard's story to the mix. I didn't know it when I read the book, but it turns out that Sam Sheppard is a real person, who inspired the story of The Fugitive. I had to wiki him, because his story was a bit before me, but it seems to be a pretty sensational story, the way the Michael Jackson/OJ Simpson trials were. By adding this story, Ross tries his hand at offering a solution to the mysterious case and somehow tie it back to the David/Alice Pepin storyline. But, in truth, it doesn't add anything to the story and in fact ends up detracting. Too much time is spent rehashing the story and the problem is that the people who know the story will want to keep flipping through it because it'd be well-known to them; meanwhile, to those, like me, who had no idea it's based on a real person, it feels like filler. I wanted to give up on this book for awhile and turn my attentions to more promising works (like The Passage), but I stuck with it in hopes that things would improve. They don't, really.

I was mildly intrigued with how the murder mystery unravelled. It pulled some of the parts together into an interesting package, but it wasn't enough. Instead of focusing on the central story, Ross allows his prose to get ahead of him and goes to far in his ambitions. It just doesn't support what he wanted to do, I don't think. What we're left with are characters who react in soap opera ways and two murder mysteries that aren't mysterious or interesting. Not impressed.

Adam Ross challenges expectations and traditional literary narrative in his bold, yet sadly disjointed, novel "Mr. Peanut." I had fully anticipated enjoying this dark journey through the psyche of twisted relationships and possible murder--but ultimately what seeks to be complex comes across as strangely convoluted. The novel does have some powerful passages, and full sections of the book can be captivating in and of themselves. But put together as a whole, there's just too much going on to bring any story line through to a satisfying conclusion. This lack of focus has made me ambivalent toward the final product, and it is unfortunate because I think there are several good novels competing within the framework of "Mr. Peanut."

Ostensibly a murder mystery, at least in theory, Ross's story begins with the unusual demise of Alice Pepin whose death is by an allergic reaction to, you guessed it, everyone's favorite legume. Her husband is the prime suspect and their tumultuous past, including his infidelity and her obesity and subsequent weight loss, is fodder for the investigators who take the case. The murder investigation is soon overshadowed, however, by Ross's exploration of love, dysfunction and co-dependence within the conventions of marriage itself. We branch off from the main narrative to explore the lives of the detectives--one of whom is also haunted by a relationship in psychological torment and the other having been the subject of a murder investigation himself. Add references to Alfred Hitchcock, pop-psychology, M.C. Escher, and the process of writing--and "Mr. Peanut" becomes as overstuffed as my favorite sandwich. But what's good for my belly isn't good for my mind. Ultimately, Ross's goal may have been to challenge the nature of reality itself, but by the end it was hard to care about the final revelations having picked through everything in the kitchen sink prior to that point.

Ross is a talented writer, but that is what disappointed me most about "Mr. Peanut." I see the potential. But too much is too much. And even though, as I said earlier, there was much I admired about individual components of "Mr. Peanut"--overall I just didn't think it worked.

First of all, do you know what a Mobius strip is? Thought not. You will need a dictionary and access to Wikipedia before you start Adam Ross' debut novel, Mr. Peanut, and even then you may scratch your head a number of times before you get to the last page. But please do persevere, for this is one cracker jack of a novel that is oh so entertaining. Filled with puzzles, dreams that cry for interpretation, quirky characters (one named, cleverly enough, Mr. Mobius) it's a psychological mystery that reaches into the past and thrusts you forward into the future before dropping you, gasping for air, on the doorstep of the conclusion. Solve the puzzle and you will breathe a sigh of complete satisfaction. Not for the faint- hearted or the easily offended, the book includes a novel within a novel, passages filled with sex-fueled antics, an exploration of the hidden meanings in Alfred Hitchcock films, a case for the plight of the obese, an investigation of a murder that took place over sixty years ago and, most importantly, asks the question that faces many married couples, "Can marriage save your life, or is it just the beginning of a long double homicide?" (Page 309)

Within the first ten pages of the novel, Alice Pepin's obesity, insecurity and depression have culminated with her death from anaphylactic shock from the ingestion of a peanut at her kitchen table. Her husband, David, is the prime suspect in her murder. From here on, this brainteaser on steroids drags you through the maze of possibilities, moving forward, then backtracking, then looking behind door number two, then trying to twist the Rubric's cube another way, well, you get the idea. But as the book progresses, you realize that the novel is a book about three marriages and the predominant theme is, `Can a married couple change?' The struggles that the three married couples confront force you to compare, contrast and define what your personal picture of marriage is. But it's all done with smoke and mirrors, and with abundant metaphors and symbolism and dark, dark humor.

This book will not be for everyone, but if you choose to climb aboard the rollercoaster, you're in for quite a ride. Rated R. Highly recommended.

Adam Ross has got some fierce writing skills. The man can write, no two ways about it. There's a point fairly early on in Mr Peanut where he hits his stride, and for about the next 100 pages, he delivers some of the best material I've read in quite some time. I was fully prepared to polish up that fifth star. And then, for no apparent reason, quite bafflingly, Mr Peanut started to slide, eventually skidding out of control completely, leaving me very disappointed. With a sense of frustration that an author with such obvious talent should spiral out of control so abysmally. It prompts the same question as so many other overtly 'literary' first novels -- what in God's name do editors do these days? Isn't a major part of their job supposed to be to save gifted authors from themselves?

Ross can write vividly, and with great insight. It appears, however, that he has difficulty in knowing when to stop. This book is reminiscent of a different product spokesperson - it just keeps going and going and going, looping back on itself like one of the main protagonist's beloved Escher drawings. By the time it's all over the reader is left feeling like the unfortunate Marilyn Sheppard, that is, with the sense of having been bludgeoned repeatedly around the head with a blunt instrument until any possible whimper of protest has been silenced.

OK. I'm exaggerating slightly. But it depresses me that a writer as obviously smart as Adam Ross would choose to screw up what could have been a brilliant first novel by dragging in one lame postmodern gimmick after another. As the story opens, David and Alice Pepin's marriage is coming to a dramatic end, brought about by Alice's fatal anaphylactic reaction to ingesting the peanut mentioned in the title. Did she succumb to a bout of suicidal depression, or was it ... MURDER.... at the hands of the strangely detached David? Police detectives Ward Hastroll and Sam Sheppard are very interested in speaking with the grieving widower. As the author starts in on the series of flashbacks exploring the couple's marriage and how they reached that opening tableau, things seem to be proceeding along entirely conventional lines.

So naturally it must be time to dip in to our bag of grubby used postmodern gimmicks .... drumroll, please ..... ah, yes - it's the trusty "story within a story" device. See, it turns out that the circumstances of Alice's death correspond in every detail to the plot of the book that David's been working on for lo these many months. The fog of doubt enters the reader's brain (on its little cat feet) - OMG! Is what we are reading the true account of what actually happens? Or are we reading the story within the story? I'm sooooo konfused.

Fine. So the author seems to feel it necessary to jazz up his story with this entirely superfluous narrative gimmick. He wouldn't be the first. Auster, Borges, Flann O'Brien ... this trick goes all the way back to Cervantes. It doesn't add a whole lot, but it's relatively harmless. A minor annoyance. But, unfortunately, the shenanigans don't stop there. Apparently not just one, but both, detectives investigating the case have marital problems of their own. So the exploration of the Pepins' marriage is repeatedly interrupted by digressions whose inclusion is simply bewildering. The slow foundering of the relationship between Alice and David is mirrored by a (frankly implausible) impasse between Detective Hastroll and his wife, who just pulls a Bartleby one fine morning and refuses to get out of bed. For the next eight weeks. Subsequent developments are not good, and Ross wastes a good 30 or 40 pages in serving up this ridiculous subplot.

As you roll your eyes and try to ignore the sheer irrelevant vapidity of this digression, things suddenly get infinitely worse. Does the name of the second detective, Sam Sheppard, ring a bell? Why, yes. Detective Sheppard is none other than the infamous Doctor Sam Sheppard, Cleveland's 1950s version of O.J. Simpson, found guilty of brutally bludgeoning his beautiful pregnant wife, Marilyn, to death in 1954. After 10 years in jail, his conviction was overturned on appeal, but he never really recovered, and died in 1970.

Sam Sheppard was a real person (widely believed to have been the inspiration for "The Fugitive"). By the time Alice meets her anaphylactic end, he has been dead for about 40 years. So his resurrection as Detective Sheppard in Mr Peanut is an obvious artifice, introduced for the sole purpose of allowing Adam Ross to indulge in a further digression, specifically a lengthy, highly detailed reimagination of the circumstances surrounding the murder of Marilyn Sheppard. This indulgence goes on for approximately 100 pages (hard to judge exactly on the Kindle). Nobody at Knopf seems to have questioned the reasoning behind dragging in this huge chunk of fundamentally extraneous material, on a topic that's already received more than its fair share of attention.

Assorted other tropes are deployed, not always to good effect. There's the sinister Mr Mobius, who (you'll never guess) keeps reappearing at various stages throughout the narrative, exuding a kind of Hannibal Lecter-ish menace, as he bargains with "Detective" Sheppard to see portions of David's manuscript. Then there's David's fascination with Mobius strips and Escher prints, loaded with symbolic import. It's a bit sophomoric, but in the scheme of things these are minor annoyances.

What pulls this whole mess back from the brink is this: Ross's examination of the marital difficulties of his fictional couple, Alice and David, is astoundingly good. So is his reimagination of the inner life of the Sheppards; it's intuitive and astute to the point of being a very convincing interpretation of the available data. (The interlude involving Hastroll's marriage is just an embarrassment, from start to finish).

The real problem may be that Ross doesn't have much confidence in his own ability. His account of the foundering marriage of Alice and David is extraordinary. The book he should have written would be about half as long as Mr Peanut and remain focused on this central relationship. It could have been brilliant. Instead he has given us this inferior bloated mess, in which he tries much too hard and sabotages himself at every step.

Nevertheless, I strongly recommend that you read Mr Peanut, despite its multiple flaws. Because when he isn't shooting himself in the foot, Adam Ross writes astonishingly well. You will never again think about marriage in the same way.

I was intrigued by all the buzz -- especially because some raved about it and others didn't seem to get it -- and I'm definitely with those who love it. In fact, I think it's a book some people just won't get because it's so rich and complex. Is it a thriller, or a meditation on love and marriage, or a brilliantly structured literary work? It's all those things. Wow, it left my head spinning and wanting to go back and read it all over again, which is what the best books do. Highest recommendation!!

Though Stephen King isn't churning out the classics as he once was, I'm still pretty loyal to the guy. I've encountered many fantastic reads from his recommendations in Entertainment Weekly and from the back of his book On Writing, so naturally when the King celebrated this debut novel from Mr. Adam Ross I was more than interested. Unfortunately, on this rare occasion, I couldn't agree less with King's praise. In fact, I'd say Mr. Peanut is one of the worst novels I've ever read.

King compared the novel to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which, while an unfair comparison in merit, does share some basic themes and plot. Essentially the story (though I should say stories, because there are 3 unconnected plots) is about marriage, men, women, love, and hate. It started out strong, I must admit David Pepin and his wife Alice were very intriguing characters. I was particularly drawn to the element of hate in their relationship, and how in many ways the hate is what caused love. Ross does a pretty good job at revealing the carnal sexual hunger of men as well as their dependency on women. His female characters are much less realistic. In fact, they are down right psycho. I may not be a woman, but I know many and consider myself pretty in tuned to my feminine side, and the women Ross creates are so ridiculous it doesn't even fly in fiction.

My biggest complaint about the novel, however, is simply the writing. Now, I do think Ross is a pretty good wordslinger, but great prose without great editing might as well be trash. Also, I should mention I read a reviewer's copy, and I know we're not supposed to talk about grammar and stuff on those, but let me assure you it wasn't grammar issues that tormented me. It was the simple unflowing, random, scattergory of timelines and characters that made many sections a strenuous chore to get through. The 3 sets of different characters had no significant connection between each other, and yet the story bounced back and forth between them - jumping decades and locations with no warning. Other than David and Alice I felt no connection whatsoever to any of the characters, and even they lost me when Ross went on 40 page tangents about vacation details that should have never even made it to the second draft.

Overall, if you are looking for a book of mystery or scares, or even just some decent prose - Mr. Peanut couldn't be any further from what you're after. It's messy, unconvincing, and essentially work. Reading should be fun and engaging, don't waste six hours of your life on a hodgepodge of incoherent ideas.

I would not have gravitated to this book had I not heard a fairly glowing review on NPR.

Initially, I thought this would be an entertaining, absorbing, and well-written diversion, but the abrupt switch from the first story line to the second dispelled that notion. The whole section on Dr. Sheppard was entirely too long and boring. As for his disquisition on Hitchcock, I think there were some errors, at least, according to what I remember from an old university film course, but that's a minor quibble.

This is a misogynist rant. The women are two-dimensional, at best; and, the men are creepy. There were times I actually dreaded reading more, but persevered because I kept thinking the ending would redeem the prior 350 plus pages. Not so. Rather than a grand finale, the ending was unsatisfying and weak.

Mr. Ross is a deft writer. Unfortunately, I had no interest in what he had to say. Even worse, I couldn't have cared less about any of his characters. Each of the men was more odious than the next, and the women were ciphers.

Mr Peanut is an outstanding novel; dark, deep, thoughtful, tricky, insightful, and an exploration of the personality, the makeup of marriage and partnership and love and dysfunction and of course of murder. Don't say you were not warned.

Mr Peanut is really in three parts, each one excellent in its own way. David Pepin's wife Alice, adored and loved but also the murder-obsession of her husband's never-ending novel, turns out actually to die by seemingly the most bizarre means; and detectives Hastroll and Shepard are called in to solve the case. Murder? Suicide? A bizarre accident? We go back and forth along the length (and breadth - Alice struggles mightily with serious weight issues, among other things) of David's & Alice's life together, uncovering a marriage of deep love, resentment, tragedy and pathos - but murder? Along the way, we also get in the middle of the Hastrolls' relationship, again a seemingly loving marriage that somehow devolves into a bizarre and resentful game of dependence and fantasies of death/murder and the resulting freedom. And we also go into the interesting backstory of Detective (and Doctor) Sam Shepard and his doomed trophy wife Marilyn.

Most readers today may not understand right of the bat where we are with Sam Shepard's part of the story, at least not until we are given the broadest of broad hints at the end of the book; look it up. 1954, same date as Rear Window came out. The timelines obviously don't line up for the author here (Shepard died in real life in 1970 of acute alcoholism, aged only I think 46, but in this book he is still vital and around.) Shepard is a standin, a real-life example of the conflict at the heart of the otherwise fictional work, a fatal and once-universally-known sickening and inexplicable - indeed, to this day never completely explained - case of the conflicts inherent in modern marriage.

Anyhow, Mr Peanut explores the seriously dark side of marriage with empathy, brilliance, and through the most profound and insightful writing. The reader will delight in the red herrings tossed in along the way, the dead ends and fresh starts, the detours into the unreal or the could-have-been, even the ending, itself a difficult but ultimately satisfying and thoughtful bit of work.

It would be one novel deep enough, smart enough, and rewarding enough to read again, once more with feeling.

This book is a real page turner that folds in and around itself, presenting the history of three troubled marriages that have many points of similarity. Did David Pepin kill his wife? Did Sam Sheppard? Will Ward Hastroll? Told mostly from the husbands' points of view, the richest of the three is the rumination on the famous 1954 murder of Marilyn Sheppard which has never been solved. Ross employs a flight of fancy by turning Sam Sheppard into a modern day detective who tells his story to another character, but the novel's structure renders this encounter as enigmatic. David Pepin is a successful designer of video games based on Escher prints, obsessed with the work of Alfred Hitchcock. His wife is presented as a difficult woman with seemingly insurmountable demons, but then we are only seeing his point of view. Unlike Marilyn Sheppard, she is given no inner life and thus remains a shadowy figure. David himself, primary and unreliable narrator, admits at one point that the "person in your head is not the person in the world." He is unfailingly human even while dealing with the complexities of his love for his wife. There is a lot of controversy over the overall result of this clever debut novel, but I for one found it fascinating and compelling.

The other one star reviews have said most of the assessment of this book except for one thing. 140 pages of the 323 pages is straight from the various courtroom testimonies and proposals already out there regarding the real Sam Sheppard trial from 1954. Ripoff. The few details this author tried to fuse in, to make it a narrative under the guise of a "novel" a suspect is allowed to read, are not accurate. For example, open heart surgery as described in this book was not performed until the early 60's. The video game the adulteress number one proposes is a combination of games already out there. So the writer can't come up with much in the creativity or research department. The porn stuff is exactly that but only makes one despise the male characters. Skip this one please.