Sock (Paperback)

by Penn Jillette (Author) "Bad monkey wammerjammer..." (more)
Key Phrases: sock monkey, little fool, bad monkey, James Bond, Irving Ding Dong, Lenny Bruce (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Jillette's the big, goggled guy with the wavy Steven Seagal do, who yaks a mile a minute while his ever-silent partner, Teller, performs illusions that make Houdini look like a duffer. He writes the way he talks, in a sort of blizzard of smart-alecky, philosophical wit, but adds a pop-song allusion to nearly every paragraph; perhaps the only thing like his style is Stephen King streaming the consciousness of one of his crazed, possessed lowlifes. Jillette's narrator in his first novel is something King could have created: a sock monkey named Dickie, the childhood doll of a now six-foot-six diver for the NYPD, who fishes stiffs out of the drink, and whom Dickie calls the Little Fool. When he dredges up the overstabbed corpse of the woman he loved, Nell, a stripper-lapdancer with an intellectual streak and bed skills for days, he determines to find her killer, who in short order reprises his act with four more women and two men. The Little Fool enlists Tommy, his and Nell's homosexual mutual friend, and the two launch an investigation, strictly illegal (the Little Fool's a diver-cop, not a detective), that culminates in a nail-biting, comical, gory, bittersweet showdown. The denouement, in which Dickie yields the floor and a moral is drawn (viz., Don't have faith! [Jillette's a nonbeliever, big-time]), rather stomps things flat, but until then, Sock is socko! Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Jillette (the speaking half of the renowned Penn & Teller magician/comedy team) opts to narrate his eccentric debut thriller from the perspective of the protagonist's sock monkey, Dickie, who constantly refers to his owner—a member of the New York City police scuba diving unit—as the Little Fool. Little Fool hauls up a woman's corpse one day during a dive; on land, he recognizes her as Nell, a stripper he once dated. She is, it seems, the most recent victim of a serial killer. Little Fool tells Nell's best friend, a rampantly gay hairdresser named Tommy; they form a platonic bond as they search the city for the murderer, whose name is Smitty and who fancies himself a writer. Toward the end of the book, Little Fool himself unexpectedly takes over the narrative duties from Dickie in order to do a fast wrapup. Jillette's voice, as expressed through the persona of a stuffed puppet, is by turn folk philosophical, ranting, rageful, insightful and—often—annoying. As narrator, the monkey cannot help overshadowing the novel's other characters, and the plot is more perfunctory than inspired. A lot more dialogue and a lot less monkey would have strengthened the book considerably; as it is, it fails to work either as a literary experiment or as a straight thriller.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. -- From Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312328052
• ISBN-13: 978-0312328054
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #197,999 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GOAT HAIR, August 27, 2004

By	Kerry Leimer (Makawao, Hawaii United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

An unblinkered sort of book, "Sock" entertains while it instructs. There's a little bit of Martin Amis here, angry and funny and dark. There's a decent refutation of Pascal as well -- if you like that sort of thing there's another good one by Stanislaw Lem you might look up. The pop culture references are sometimes a bit forced, but more often than not it's fun to think about how the individual references relate to the story itself: a nice, concise way to dimensionalize the narrative. The references have a great reach, along the lines of early Mystery Science Theatre 3000. It starts with the Rolling Stones (great re-purposing of existing material) and manages to reach as far back (out?) to Safe as Milk / Trout Mask Replica vintage Captain Beefheart. Click Clack.

As a novel, "Sock" is really somewhat basic, it transposes traditional stock elements of "mysteries" into a more abstract set of events. The technique could be interpreted as a gimmick, if it weren't for the fact that the whodunit aspects aren't the real driving force of the narrative. That said, the prose is the thing and it remains fully charged throughout (honestly: no let down in the second act). In fact, in many ways the story itself could easily be considered secondary. The real driving force is some pointed stabs at capital "F" faith, god and all that comes with it. You'll find an undressing of the notion of being agnostic and a strong call for atheism. Rats, rats lay down flat.

This orientation does manage to depart, again, from the typical novel form and end our little story with a sort of essay in unmitigated and convincing favor of sanity over faith. Sock lets you know in no uncertain terms that it's time to put god on the shelf with the rest of your toys and start living like a thinking adult. Given the current tone of life in the good old U.S., this is a brave act and I think we owe Mr. Jillette our of thanks for adding to the ever more urgent literature and ideas capable of getting us out of the dark ages and into touch with a more real world. Time to replace superstition with a more genuine sense of ourselves and the world we live in. Hey! If you still need something to believe, believe in Sock. La Rossa extends her hand.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Believers need not apply, August 1, 2004

By	J. C. Foster (Overland Park, KS United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I read an article about this book coming out, I thought Best. Idea. Ever. An Atheist sock monkey telling a murder mystery. Brilliant!

I wouldn't have read it had it not been by Penn Jillette. First things first: I used to hate Penn and Teller. Back when Penn did all the voice over work for Comedy Central, he drove me nuts. But my perspective changed dramaticly after the Showtime series "Bull****." The show was fantastic. I agreed with almost every single thing on there, and it gave me a whole new dimension to who Penn Jillette was: An Atheist, like me. He's very charasmatic, convincing, and intelligent on the show. I'd even go so far as to say I have a man-crush on him.

This book is really an Atheist manifesto thinly disguised as a murder mystery told through the POV of a Sock Monkey. There is a story there, but it gets sidetracked a LOT and goes on about social commentary, including quite a bit on religion. All the lead characters are Atheist as well. And because it comes from such a hard slant, anyone of faith may have a pretty tough time getting through this.

Most people might have a tough time anyway. The writing starts off very dense. Very stream of consciousness. The level of the density at the beginning doesn't hold up all the way through, though. And the constant song refrences get kind of old. Sometimes they really seem thrown in. If it weren't the most famouse chorus lines from each song, I might not have minded.

What I think the story really is about is a love story between a gay man and a straight man without turning into a traditional love story. I am going to assume that this being Penn's first novel, and the first persion perspective, that it is mostly his actual voice coming through in the book. If so, then I have to say that he is probably the most well adjusted human being on the face of this planet. The world needs a lot more people like him.

The one thing that turned me off (besides the scant dialogue, which doesn't even apear until 50+ pages in) would be the resolution. I thought it was a bit of a cop out. It lost a little bit of its edge for me there.

All in all Sock got me to do something I haven't done in two years: Read a book. I'm not going to say it was great, but it was good. It kept me thinking about it long after I finished it, which is what every good book should do.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent first novel, February 26, 2005

By	James J. Lippard "skeptic" (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Penn argues for atheism, subtly promotes the Libertarian Party (pp. 96-97), argues against newage (p. 101), criticizes Buddhism (pp. 139, 186), explains cold reading (pp. 184-185), puts Scientology in its place (pp. 163, 210), and tells an entertaining story of a NYPD diver and murder from the point of view of the diver's boyhood sock monkey.

I enjoyed the book very much. The ending of many paragraphs with pop culture references was at first annoying, but it became more comfortable as the book progressed, and the lines were well selected. (There's a site on the Internet that lists them all and where they came from.)

My only complaint is a very jarring change of voice that occurs in a paragraph on pp. 166-167 ("a friend of ours").