Customer Reviews

Two Guys from Verona: A Novel of Suburbia

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Frankly, I bought Two Guys From Verona because I grew up in Cedar Grove, the New Jersey town that neighbors Verona. And when I read the jacket copy comparing Kaplan's fiction to Updike, Salinger, and Cheever, I thought I was being set up for a big disappointment. Quite to the contrary, the book swept aside my reservations from the moment I opened it. I was drawn into the lives of Kaplan's incredibly engaging characters and the wonderfully tense situations he creates for them. I found myself compelled to recount every scene to my girlfriend who also hung on every word. If the book has any fault, it is its all-to-quick wrap-up; I would have preferred the loose ends to remain unravelled. Though I am a lifelong reader, it is the rare book that "I can't put down." Two Guys From Verona is one such book.

"Two Guys From Verona" is a beautifully written book about a couple of characters so realistic you could probably lift samples of their DNA from the typeface. Like most worthwhile works of art, however, it leaves the reader pondering some troubling questions. For instance, I wasn't sure why one of the characters, who is portrayed as kind and decent, agreed to allow a rapist to adopt her newborn daughter. Also, Kaplan's odd couple -- Will Weiss and Joel Gold -- seem throughout the book to be acting out a virtual parable of the wages of materialism: Weiss is made miserable by his constant need for more money, while Gold appears to be slightly happier because he prefers simple pleasures (cruising in his Impala, writing poetry) to the obsessive quest for money and material gain. Thus the revelation in the end that Gold is actually the more materially wealthy of the two seems a bit confusing. Is Kaplan telling us that it's okay to amass large sums of money as long as you don't let its accumulation rule your life? At any rate, there is plenty of ambiguity in the book, which makes it all the more enjoyable to read. I suspect one could read this novel a dozen times and never fathom its depths entirely. James Kaplan's "Two Guys From Verona" is one of the few books about the end of this century that is likely to be around for the end of the next one as well.

i grew up in new jersey territory covered by book. found moods and characters evocative and often moving. james kaplan can clearly write--often beautifully and lyrically. he is way too in love with his own voice, however, his description of places and things and people often painfully overdrawn and convoluted. we get it: he knows language. but sometimes a sentence fewer than 10 lines long, with fewer than 6 parentheticals and dashes, isn't a tragedy. it's exhausting reading the sometimes overblown and tediously and needlessly complexly woven sentence structures around secondary and terciary characters and story elements. there were times i wanted to shout, get to the point, say it more simply and clearly. one less adjective please; use 6 adjectives in the sentence instead of 11. this isn't graduate school fiction writing in which you're trying to impress your colleagues and professor.

having said that, kaplan's observations about suburban life--its foibles and flaws and eccentricities--are often sharp and great fun. so are some of the nuances of his core characters. sometimes his references and comments dazzle.

what's not so sharp are some of the critical plot developments and resolutions. too neat and simple and quick. why, for example, wouldn't core character joel have investigated more carefully the disappearance of his beloved girl friend (cindy) years earlier? it makes no sense that he would have waited so long to visit the hospital from which she disappeared just after high school. and why, when "relatively" early in the story he learned that cindy had a local daughter, didn't he jump all over that, and confront the "supposed" very accessible father. joel's life transformation after finally finding and meeting cindy--from borderline schizophrenic and complete screw up to proprietor of a suburban coffee house--is equally implausible. it all happens way too fast and without necessary development.

the ending, and the weaving together of various plot lines, reads too much like a hollow hollywood movie. kaplan clearly can do better than that.

he's created the edges of something very special here. i was hooked; i read much of the book eagerly. i just wish he filled in more of the content with a little less attention to style and a little more to reality--the real shapes and patterns of real human interactions and dynamics.

"Two Guys from Verona," (a title which, in addition to being a play on Shakespeare, is also a play on the name of a long-defunct New Jersey discount chain, Two Guys from Harrison) is a rueful, seriocomic take on what life does to suburban guys who, truth to tell, are just as clueless as adults as they were as teens. I, too, grew up in Cedar Grove, and Kaplan has the whole North Jersey thing down -- the local mobsters (and how one behaves around them), the views of the far-off city, the lust for polished floors and bigger houses, the local sub shop. I savored this book.

Several months ago, I finally got around to reading Two Guys from Verona by James Kaplan. The book is set in Verona, N.J. (I believe that's near where James grew up), and follows two friends in their early 40s, friends since high school. One, destined for greatness, lives with his nutty mother and has difficulties with mental illness. The other did all the things he was supposed to do, including joining his father's business, marrying, having children, buying a house... Besides capturing upscale suburbia and the way many of us live now uncannily well, this book also explores how much of life is beyond our control--especially for those who just follow it rather than trying to take control."

I loved this this book, it was a refreshing break from all the nihlistic stuff ive been reading lately (Palahniuk). It was very funny, dramatic, suspenseful, and above all; entertaining.

As a "Fourty Something" type living in Northern New Jersey, I found Two Guys to be right on the mark. Kaplan has really captured something here. I finished the book a few weeks ago, but can't stop thinking about it. I have to read it again.

One of the most disturbingly accurate books on life in our I'm-owed civilization I've ever read. Kaplan shows that middle age starts young and that you never stop thinking about your youth even after you've supposedly grown up. The longing never dies. If you grew up in suburban Jersey, you'll know these people and remember why you loved and hated the ones you loved and hated.

A wonderful book and a frighteningly accurate picture of life in the suburban shadows. This is the story of what happens AFTER the 'coming of age' stories...and it ain't "The Wonder Years". The voices are uncannily real; the story-telling is engaging; the read is terrific.

Engaging contrast between "well to do" guy who seems to have it all, and his loser best friend. Will the tables get turned by the end of the story - what do you think? I anticipated most of the plot lines well ahead of time, but all in all, it wasn't an unpleasant read. The one thing that truly touched me about the story was how neglected the children were. The parents were totally absorbed with their own lives and so the children always ended up parked in front of the TV day and night - an all too accurate (and sad) commentary about life in our times I'm afraid.