From the author of Slaves of New York and The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group, this satire in the all-too-rare genre of Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One tells a compelling story of the sex lives of people and invertebrates at the end of America's 20th century.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
"Did you know that the blood fluke lives in a state of permanent copulation, inside a chicken?" asks Maud Slivenowicz, the 19-year old daughter of Evangeline Slivenowicz, who is the central character in Tama Janowitz's novel The Shores of Gitchee Gumee. If you think that's shocking, try this one on for size: Tama Janowitz, author of The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group and Slaves of New York, has written a novel that was inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Song of Haiwatha." Maud is one of five children, who are sired by five different fathers, living in a crappy little trailer down by the Gitchee Gumee. Before it's all over, the trailer rolls into the lake, a kidnapping occurs, and the whole kit and caboodle end up in Southern California. Janowitz is in fine fettle here. But you can blame it on Longfellow.
From Publishers Weekly
Maud Slivenowicz, the smartass 19-year-old narrator of this painfully precious novel, can flirt only by expounding on the sex lives of invertebrates. She lives in Upstate New York, in a trailer home near the banks of Lake Gitchee Gumee, with her mother, Evangeline, and her four siblings, all sired by different fathers. Six-year-old Leopold cooks and worries about his figure, while the eldest, would-be Hollywood heartthrob Pierce, is too dumb to read road signs. Evangeline tends to be irresponsible, ordering a $1000 vacuum because she likes the salesman. Into this loony bin walks a fey English lord who falls for the myopic Maud. He seems ready to whisk her away from her life of white trash when a kidnapping propels the family?in two groups?toward Los Angeles. The novel then morphs into a spoofy road saga, in which Maud, Pierce and Leopold set out to prostitute their way west. Janowitz (The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group) affects a narrative voice similar to those she previously has used to mixed effect; here, though, her striving for arch wackiness achieves only shrill petulance ("I realized I hated him, and he was loathsome, due to the fact that he was pathetic"). Equally awkward are arbitrary footnotes and haphazard allusions to, and quotations from, early American poetry. The dialogue and incidents dart rapid-fire at the reader as in a screwball comedy?but the screws here are loose, and what aims to be funny comes off as merely frantic. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
very funny,
By A Customer
This review is from: By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee (Hardcover)
This is trash- great trash... extremely funny. I read it as a kid (maybe 12?) and haven't since, but enjoyed it thouroughly at that age.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
horrible,
By A Customer
This review is from: By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee (Hardcover)
i'd like to start by saying that up until this point, i have loved absolutely everything that i have read by tama janowitz. EVERYTHING!!!! that is why i was so disappointed with this book. it did not seem to have the wit and absurdity that the rest of her books have. i didn't find the characters interesting and the story line was so strange, it didn't even make sense. if you have not read anything by tama janowitz, i suggest starting with "cannibal in ny" or "the male cross-dressers support group". they are excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Confusing, sloppy writing,
By A Customer
This review is from: By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee (Hardcover)
I bought this book with a new interest in Janowitz's writing following the publication of Peyton Amberg. While on the holds list at the public library for Peyton, I decided to give her earlier works a try. This particular book was so horrible, just in the first few pages, that I don't think I'll waste time with anything else she's written. The story is non-existent, the characters are all the same and the tone is just silly. I couldn't tell if the narrator was drunk, but I definitely thought the writer was too shallow and patronizing to deal with. It didn't help that the author photo shows a prissy Janowitz standing in the middle of nowhere, rolling her eyes. Rolling her eyes at her own book, I think. I wouldn't recommend this insult to anyone!
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