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Better Together
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
When UCLA professor Ted Street sits up in his coffin at his own funeral, mayhem ensues in this smart, satirical and engrossing novel by prolific Everett (Glyph; Erasure; etc.). Ted had been planning suicide, but a car accident conveniently sliced off his head. With reattached noggin, no pulse and a few strangely sharpened senses, Ted rejoins his stunned family, feeling "like a monster, a re-animated ghoul." But his wife, Gloria, takes him to bed for newly gratifying sex, and he has other heightened powers-of understanding and even telepathy. TV vans besiege their house, and preteen daughter Emily is briefly taken by Protective Services. Venturing out for groceries with his family, Ted is kidnapped by a religious cult led by menacing Big Daddy, who's convinced Ted's the anti-Christ. After being shot numerous times, Ted escapes into the desert, only to be caught by the Feds, who whisk him away to a reanimation laboratory outside Roswell, N.Mex., to study him (they remove his organs while he's awake and put them back "much as one might stuff a turkey"). These varied confinements give Ted time to reflect on his frustrating, untenured status at the university, the birth of his beloved children, his philandering ways and his troubled marriage. Escaping yet again, this time with help from a man who makes Jesus clones, Ted rescues a group of children held hostage by Big Daddy before returning home to a family that has been forever changed. Thoughtful, darkly comic and full of heart, the novel offers a wonderfully unusual story about retrospection and forgiveness.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
While on his way to commit suicide, Ted Street, an untenured English professor and philandering husband, is beheaded in a car accident. Worse, he wakes up at his own funeral, his head clumsily stitched on his neck and his mouth sewn closed. From there, Ted embarks on a wide-ranging cruise through the American landscape, as he is kidnapped by a cult convinced that he is a devil; picked up by the military to be experimented on as a prototype of the perfect soldier; and sheltered by another cult, which worships him as a messiah. While the outlandish premise imparts a good deal of comic energy, Everett's customary sarcastic and intelligent wit is oddly lacking. Much of his satire of fanaticism—the charismatic cult leader with a stockpile of weapons, secret government plots—feels worn, and, despite all the talk of resurrection, the stiff prose never perks up.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
See all Editorial Reviews
When UCLA professor Ted Street sits up in his coffin at his own funeral, mayhem ensues in this smart, satirical and engrossing novel by prolific Everett (Glyph; Erasure; etc.). Ted had been planning suicide, but a car accident conveniently sliced off his head. With reattached noggin, no pulse and a few strangely sharpened senses, Ted rejoins his stunned family, feeling "like a monster, a re-animated ghoul." But his wife, Gloria, takes him to bed for newly gratifying sex, and he has other heightened powers-of understanding and even telepathy. TV vans besiege their house, and preteen daughter Emily is briefly taken by Protective Services. Venturing out for groceries with his family, Ted is kidnapped by a religious cult led by menacing Big Daddy, who's convinced Ted's the anti-Christ. After being shot numerous times, Ted escapes into the desert, only to be caught by the Feds, who whisk him away to a reanimation laboratory outside Roswell, N.Mex., to study him (they remove his organs while he's awake and put them back "much as one might stuff a turkey"). These varied confinements give Ted time to reflect on his frustrating, untenured status at the university, the birth of his beloved children, his philandering ways and his troubled marriage. Escaping yet again, this time with help from a man who makes Jesus clones, Ted rescues a group of children held hostage by Big Daddy before returning home to a family that has been forever changed. Thoughtful, darkly comic and full of heart, the novel offers a wonderfully unusual story about retrospection and forgiveness.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
While on his way to commit suicide, Ted Street, an untenured English professor and philandering husband, is beheaded in a car accident. Worse, he wakes up at his own funeral, his head clumsily stitched on his neck and his mouth sewn closed. From there, Ted embarks on a wide-ranging cruise through the American landscape, as he is kidnapped by a cult convinced that he is a devil; picked up by the military to be experimented on as a prototype of the perfect soldier; and sheltered by another cult, which worships him as a messiah. While the outlandish premise imparts a good deal of comic energy, Everett's customary sarcastic and intelligent wit is oddly lacking. Much of his satire of fanaticism—the charismatic cult leader with a stockpile of weapons, secret government plots—feels worn, and, despite all the talk of resurrection, the stiff prose never perks up.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
See all Editorial Reviews
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