The Grievers [Hardcover]

Marc Schuster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2012

The Grievers is a darkly comic coming of age novel for a generation that's still struggling to come of age.

When Charley Schwartz learns that an old high school pal has killed himself, he agrees to help his alma mater organize a memorial service to honor his fallen comrade. Soon, however, devestation turns to disgust as Charley discovers that his friend's passing means less to the school than the bottom line. As the memorial service quickly degenerates into a fundraising fiasco, Charley must also deal with a host of other quandaries including a dead-end job as an anthropomorphic dollar sign, his best firned's imminent move to Maryland, an intervention with a drug-addled megalomaniac, and his own ongoing crusade to enforce the proper use of apostrophes among the proprietors of local dining establishments.

Desperate to set the world right and keep his own life from spiraling out of control, Charley rages through his days and nights, plotting all the while the ultimate eulogy for his deceased friend and a scathing indictment of a world gone wrong.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In his second novel (after The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl, 2011), Schuster homes in on the travails of an unhappy grad student. Charley Schwartz can’t seem to finish his dissertation and has taken a ludicrous job at a bank that requires him to dress up as a dollar sign. When he learns that his friend Billy Chin has committed suicide, he determines that a memorial fund should be set up at their prep school in Billy’s honor. What he has trouble admitting to himself is that he is feeling incredibly guilty, aware that he had not been a good friend to Billy, and is now anxious to make amends. But the preparations only seem to fuel his bitterness, as he watches in despair while an old nemesis turns the tribute into a fund-raiser. Yet with the support of his loving wife and long-suffering best friend, Charley somehow manages to do the right thing without launching into one of his signature rants. What starts out as a broadly humorous satire of dysfunction evolves into a surprisingly tender look at loss and grief. --Joanne Wilkinson

Review

Schuster s off-kilter portrait of a guy unsatisfied like the old Replacements song adds pivotal bite to the pre-programmed humor of his ensemble. --Kirkus

What starts out as a broadly humorous satire of dysfunction evolves into a surprisingly tender look at loss and grief. --Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist

Like the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, Marc Schuster s The Grievers blends the post-juvenile humor of adults refusing to grow up with aching pathos and biting touches of genius. Comedy travels hand in hand with tragedy in this novel, neither any further away than the next page, but both singing in tune. --Cafe Libri

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: The Permanent Press (May 15, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579622631
• ISBN-13: 978-1579622633
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,397,449 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marc Schuster is the author of The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl (The Permanent Press 2011) and The Grievers (The Permanent Press 2012). He is also the editor of Small Press Reviews. When Marc isn't writing, he's teaching English at Montgomery County Community College.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a pure joy to read!!! May 25, 2012

By gina henning

Format:Kindle Edition

nothing makes happier than when i find myself laughing out loud at a book, and the charactors in this story did!! from charley in that dollar suit to greg and all his antics and all the crazy stuff that boys do from being childerrn to grown men. a great read

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Comedic Train Wreck May 17, 2012

By F. P. Dorchak

Format:Hardcover

He had me at the cover.

The Grievers is about the loss of a sometime friend and how it affects one Charley Schwartz, a conflicted, angst-ridden human dollar sign for an unnamed bank of somewhat regional repute, champion of correct-and-proper apostrophe use, who's actually a sarcastically quick-of-wit doctoral student (not) working on his thesis, and who's married to a wife in a constant state of quiet Freudian interior design demolition. To grow up or not grow up. Quit the job or not quit the job. Move forward...or continue allowing oneself to be inexorably run over by life's daily and unrelenting--even dark--minutiae.

Suicide--in and of itself--is no laughing matter, but it's how the world responds to such Human Drama that can be the stuff of comedy--black or otherwise. Charley knew the deceased, Billy Chin. Well Kind of. Charley felt shame and remorse in not having been a better friend after having graduated from prep school and life getting in the way...but more so in not identifying nor taking action regarding his friend's ultimate demise.

The Grievers was like watching a comedic train wreck. A miniature Theater of the Absurd. Mr. Schuster wove together the interestingly obtuse into a coherent and redemptive storyline that was a pure joy to read (and I don't use the word "joy" much!). I enjoyed his words, their combination, their execution. The Grievers is controlled dysfunction. Keeping life safe and at arm's length. Everything is a joke to Charley Schwartz until he embarks on his own form of revisionist history with the deceased. Yet, the book is not so much about all the individual events, not even anthropomorphic dollar signs...it's about what it is to be human.

To err is human, to forgive is human, to GROW is human.

And if Charley's anything...he's definitely human.

5.0 out of 5 stars Five stars April 18, 2013

By Maria Diaz

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I loved this book. It was entertaining, kept me engaged, and made me ponder deeply. A story that takes you by surprise delivering much more than you expected, with humor, insight, and playful imagination. The characters are very real, and despite the bittersweet element, they become a part of you throughout the reading, almost mirroring the reader in certain aspects and surprising him/her when least expected.