From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Playwright, screenwriter and novelist McCarten elevates a deceptively simple premise to impressive dramatic heights in his second novel (after
Spinners). The hook: a failing car dealer hopes to revive his business by sponsoring a contest in which contestants must keep their hands on a new Land Rover; the last person still in contact with the truck takes it home. Hopefuls include Tom Shrift, who is driven by a deep belief in his intellectual superiority and whose emotional detachment nears sociopathic levels, and Jess Podorowski, a mourning widow who endures daily verbal abuse as a parking warden and enters the contest to win a car big enough to fit a car seat for her handicapped daughter. Meanwhile, dealership owner Terry "Hatch" Back is going through an existential crisis and watches helplessly as his contest spins out of control. The endurance test becomes one of biblical proportions, with phases of violence, extreme weather, grief, absurdity and corruption. McCarten squeezes every bit of dramatic potential from the setup, giving readers a deeply satisfying narrative about dedication, connection and possibility.
(Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
When a desperate car dealer advertises a competition with a simple premise -- that each contestant must keep one hand on a car at all times, and the last one standing will drive away the owner of a new Land Rover -- he sets in motion a chain of events that brings together an oddball group of individuals, each with a desperate need to win.
For the contestants, this publicity gimmick represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a fresh start, a chance to break records, and to prove themselves in an unlikely test of endurance. It pits the patience of an elderly night watchman against the youthful vigor and carefully cultivated stamina of a high school track-and-field star. It sets a single mother who spends her life on her feet against a down-on-his-luck Mensa member who tells anyone who will listen that he's got the whole thing figured out. As the days and nights unavoidably carry on -- and big talk and clever strategies backfire -- the contestants' true colors come through in unexpected twists.
At once lyrical and suspenseful, and by turns poignant and hilarious, Show of Hands and its all-too-human characters are ultimately unforgettable.
