Customer Reviews

Strange Skies: A Novel (P.S.)

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

best novel by someone not dead, that is. I like to read contemporary novels, but most just suck! this one doesn't. The character, Paul, is smart and hilarious, the action is dark, fast and funny without being overwrought or symbolically laden. I like that the novel doesn't try to teach us a "lesson," and I LOVE that it's not about 9/11. If Marinovich's characters were having a chat with the couple in "On Chesil Beach," they would say, "just ----, Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you? You're taking up too many pages with your ersatz fifties dialogue!" then they would steal their wallets. Right from the get go this novel is about deception, human nature, soul-searching, lust and adventure. Marinovich must be a slippery pony to have dreamed up and written this elegant novel. But he's probably smart, too.

Hats off to Marinovich for this gutsy debut novel. It has been a long time since I have read something this fresh. Marinovich's effortless ability to weave his character Paul through a series of wickedly hilarious and truly tender moments is unpretentious and skillful. His use of language is brilliant; "some man in a tan trenchcoat is standing over his squatting golden retriever, balanced on all four legs like some canine lunar module." This novel is talent, stripped down and confident.

Paul Mauro is the kind of character, and person, if you're unlikely to meet someone like him, it's easy to hate. Fun, almost. He starts off garnering a bit of sympathy for possibly having cancer, and we can even understand his impulse to pretend that he does. But his blatant selfishness knows no bounds as he has an affair with a woman he meets at the doctor's office, allowng her to buy him expensive clothes while mostly ignoring his wife, Lee. He winds up leaving her and traipsing off on an adventure that can only be described as adolescent. Cancer is omnipresent, both the fake kind and the real thing, as Paul encounters other people, like the child Jack, who he should empathize with, but doesn't. He puts up so many walls between himself and everyone else that at the point we should feel sympathy for him, we really don't, yet still want to see how he'll pull off his next trick.

The sequence with football star Demetrius Davenport is like a hallucination, and while he's also easy to hate, somehow I could just smirk him off. Paul, on the other hand, wants our sympathy, wants everyone's sympathy, even long past the point where he deserves it. Barb and Jack wind up giving him second chances, as does his brother, but one gets the sense that he's been so intent on living out his fantasy life that he can't readjust to the reality he must ultimately face.

Marinovich's writing is maudlin and funny, outrageous yet endearing, with death lurking in the background even as Paul attempts to truly get the most out of life, making up for any moment he's played it safe until now. Friends and lovers come and go, floating in and out of his life with hardly a blink of his eye until he meets the mother and child team of Barb and Jack. Paul's despisal of children (his baby nephew "glares at me greedily with his glittering blue eyes, his damp brown hair swept to one side, Hitler-style.") marks him as perhaps not ready for the grownup life he's signed up for by marrying Lee. Hitler also gets a shout-out later in the novel, when Paul needs "someone truly evil to distract me," and reaches for one of his books in the vicinity of a Hasidic woman in Park Slope. Marinovich makes his reversal one we can all relate to on some level; who, after all, hasn't wanted to chuck their old life in favor for a new, devil-may-care nonstop round of hedonism? Paul's recklessness is contrasted with his father's promiscuity and his brother's by-the-numbers life. "Sure, in the old days, I used to save room. I saved room for sex, for food, for relaxation. I became a mansion of saved rooms Now, I gorge on everything." is how he puts it. Marinovich excels at painting Paul's juvenilia as well as the way his cancer diagnosis affects those around him, garnering him instant sympathy and carte blanche to be as big of an a--hole as he wants to be.

To Paul's credit, and Marinovich's, he doesn't try to lie to the reader about his motives. While we may not trust him, even when he's actually changed, we can understand him. "I want the world to fall apart before I do," he states at one point, the thought not so much bleak as desperate. His loneliness comes to haunt him, to show him that it's not just cancer that is eroding his soul. "I'm the guy who has it worse than me," he tells Barb, whose son is stricken with cancer, not realizing, still, that there will always be someone worse off than him. Paul's lessons, from first-time novelist and cancer survivor himself, Marinovich, painted with humor and just a touch of brazen cruelty. One has to wonder at what point Paul would have come to some of the realizations he does without cancer. Paul is definitely a character you won't soon forget, who you just may think about during your next doctor's visit. A fast, twisted, memorable read.

I read it in less than a day and did not want to put it down. It has been a long time since I find an author that can grab my attention that quickly!! Thank you.

I bought this for a dollar, and was glad I hadn't spent more on it - the humour was almost totally limited to turn of phrase, and made very little inroad into the plot of the novel. There were a few points where I was drawn in to the story only to realise that it was yet another unrelated, yet uninteresting, turn of events. The premise seemed interesting at first, but the condescending way that the protagonist addresses the reader is annoying, the 'twists' in the tale were either predictable or completely unbelievable and the ending left me wishing I hadn't wasted my time reading the whole thing.

How many different ways are there to say that you completely and utterly adored a book? I sat down last night to start this book, and didn't get up until I finished it. I connected with the main character from the first page, and can honestly say that he's one of the most pessimistic yet endearing characters I've encountered in a story in a long time.

"Strange Skies" is the story of a man named Paul, who is married to a woman he loves with all his heart. However, his wife is eager to change the life Paul loves...she wants to start a family. Not something Paul is too thrilled with. After finding a lump in his arm, the doctors send it way for biopsy, to find out if Paul is indeed inflicted with cancer. When the day of the big news arrives, Paul finds he is sadly disappointed to learn he is healthy as can be. Then, without even really thinking about what he is doing, he tells his wife, his friends and pretty much everyone he meets that he DOES have cancer. He's a dying man, and he uses this idea as an excuse to live life the way he's always wanted to.

I laughed out loud several times as I read this book. I also found myself despising and respecting Paul all within the time it took to read a single page. Some of the things he does are immoral and wrong, yet he's funny as hell, which almost excuses his behavior.

If you need a quick read that will make you smile, and even take a step back and examine your own life, this is a book for you. I loved it. Two thumbs way up.

The excellent premise of Strange Skies is what initially drew me to the book. But unfortunately, I never fully bought into it. The characters, specifically the protagonist, Paul, seem too light. We don't get deep enough into him to really believe why he is doing what he is doing. Further, when Paul "grows" as a character, I found that even less believable. I was willing to go along with the main premise, and take the story as a little far-fetched but a good allegory and good yarn. And the book does work from that standpoint initially. But when Paul has a change of heart, there isn't enough meat in the book to explain WHY he falls for Barb. As if it happened solely because it's convenient for the plot arc, Paul suddenly has strong feelings for someone and isn't a jerk anymore. What saves the book, to some degree, is that Marinovich is a wonderful stylist. There are many sharp turns-of-phrase and to this reader's delight, numerous laugh-out-loud scenes. The story is also very fast paced which makes it a quick read obviously. All in all, the book had a lot of potential to be more, but Marinovich's skill as a writer and humorist saved it and still made it, just barely, a worthwhile read.

I loved Paul Mauro, the main character in this book. I thought the premise was so dark (a guy who fakes having cancer to avoid having kids), but I ended up laughing against my will. This is one of those rare books that tackles the most uncomfortable subjects (cancer, infidelity) and somehow manages to be incredibly entertaining at the same time. It's a hard act to pull off, but Marinovich succeeds.

Well-behaved characters are boring. Fortunately, Paul, the hero of Strange Skies, the exquisite novel by Matt Marinovich, is not a well-behaved characters. He's complex and dark, and like the most fascinating characters in literature, he allows us to face our own darkness and complexity. A fabulous debut! I highly recommend it.

because i was diagnosed with ms in 2001, and my wife died of cancer this past spring, i was drawn to the premise of the novel while reading the first chapter in the bookstore. and though i read quickly through the book after bringing it home, i was very disappointed. the protagonist, paul, not only was a prick (intended), but was utterly lonely (perhaps intended). his 'redemption' with barb towards the end, and eventual demise, were not just beyond credibility, they were almost devoid of any meaningful emotion.

matt, if you are reading this, sorry. perhaps the trials of my past six years have made me far too critical of any other attempts to grapple with life and death questions.