A boy receives an email from his mother offering free movie tickets shortly after her death. He recognizes it for spam, but wishes she'd really sent it. He responds, and is soon barraged with offers for male enhancements drugs, home appliances, mortgages, and everything else he. Soon, he and his father are swallowing all manner of black market pharmaceuticals, somehow growing closer together as they fall apart, each in his own way.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
TeBordo offers a twisted take on adolescent suburban life at the end of the 20th century in his third novel (after The Conviction & Subsequent Life of Savior Neck; Better Ways of Being Dead). An unnamed 12-year-old narrator details the summer after his mother's death, when, ignored by his grieving father, the boy develops a crush on the little bit older neighbor Maria and begins receiving spam e-mail sent from his dead mother's e-mail address. Soon, the narrator's inbox is flooded with offers from his dead mother for herbal remedies, pornography, prescription drugs and mortgages, and the boy and his father are buying every item that comes their way. As the summer progresses, the e-mails from his mother peter out and Maria suddenly stops coming over. Alone and facing an increasingly volatile father, the boy becomes fixated on the last message sent from his mother; his quest leads him to an electric carving knife and a potentially disastrous decision for him and his father. TeBordo's wit and minimalist prose carry the slow-starting novel, and sprinklings of wry humor keep the narrative from become too macabre. TeBordo has crafted an unsettling portrait of the dark undercurrents of youth and loss. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
TeBordo's nameless 12-year-old narrator is enduring the summer after his mother's death slightly better than his father, who, with or without a drink, passes out on the couch immediately after work every day. The boy merely stays up too late and responds to Net spam because he believes his mother is sending it. The slightly older neighbor girl, a budding artist, drops by, and the boy takes up art, at first because he expects she'll ask him to pose nude for her, which is why he also orders penis-enhancing drugs with Dad's credit card. But she moves away. Then his father buys into his delusion about the spam, and soon every day's mail contains a new gadget. The climax comes with an electric knife, by which time Dad has quite gone round the bend. But since the boy has said on page 2 that his father is dead, what precisely has happened, and whodunit? Creepy to the max and very sadly amusing, like nothing else so much as Bob Balaban's devastatingly ambiguous cannibalism flick, Parents. Olson, Ray
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of My Favorite BOOKS,
By Donald Armfield (Mass.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: WE GO LIQUID (Paperback)
A boy receives an email from his mother offering free movie tickets shortly after her death. Thats only part of it a must read this is one of my Favorite books.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best book I have read in a long time,
This review is from: WE GO LIQUID (Paperback)
This is truly the best book I have read in a long time. I agree with the first review that the editing is poor, but I do not feel it took away from my overall enjoyment of the piece. I have found that authors who choose a child as their narrator often give them an adult voice, but that was not the case here and I really appreciate that. The action and characters kept me interested and I loved the ending. It was a strange and twisted path but I enjoyed taking it.
0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mostly crap,
This review is from: WE GO LIQUID (Paperback)
The only reason I will give this book 2 stars is for originality factor and that the writing style is pretty decent.
However, having said that, I will get to why this book was bad. Many reasons. Numerous typos. For example, instead of "their" being used in the proper context, "there" is used instead. Or "peak", instead of "peek. Pages 160 and 161 were also reversed in order, atleast in my copy. Probably the publisher's error, but a huge oversight that took me a few minutes to figure out. The story itself began well with enough twists to maintain the reader's interest. But it slowly went downhill around the middle of the book, and the ending left very little tied up. Would not recommend overall.
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