Mark Leyner Books

Well could be fancy and say its a post modernist novel with a form that counters the tyranny of the outdated narrative and naturalist tradition. Its plot: son at father's failed execution; father enrolled in the State's lotto prisoner execution programme, son writes a screenplay is merely a rack for lots of streams of conciousness/montage pieces.

I love books that break with conventions but when they engage me and not being just fun for the writer. I loved 253 or The Saddlebag for example. This is supposed to be his most novel like book but it reads like he lacks the discipline to write for the reader. Or at least not the sober drug free reader...it must be a profound read if stoned

This must be the best of Leyner's books, but it's still a difficult read. It's like drinking down a jug a Frank's Red Hot Sauce, and I don't think I'd wanna meet anyone who read it in one sitting. (Surely you've seen such people on the cop shows.) Getting through the novel was especially difficult for me, as I had placed a large C-clamp on my head while reading, and with each mention of anything morbid or lewd, I'd tighten the clamp a half turn. The purpose of such an exercise was to reshape my cranium to match the Brainiac forehead of Mr. Leyner. Only a dedicated votary of his work would do such a thing, although Caryl Chessman might've done so too had he lived to read Leyner.

"The Tehterballs of Bougainville" while far from your standard fiction novel is still Mark Leyner's most accessable book and most plot driven.

The narrative is, as usual with Leyner, taut with jackhammer style bursts of narrative. Leyner dispenses with detail and spends his time creating vivid, drug-like situations.

A execution goes wrong and the person to be executed is given a letter explaining he will be killed at a later date of the state's choosing without his knowledge, it may be while he's eating, etc.
The young protagonist gets it on with the female warden in a drug stupored sex scene.
The young protagonist is constantly interrupting procedings to take calls from his agent.

These are Mark Leyner themes. They crop up in all his work but here he manages to keep the narrative together and still deliver on the super-charged writing style that at once reads like a travel poster and a crazed rant.

Read the excerpts to see if this appeals to you. Leyner has some readers that dismiss him as fast food, faux literature. You may be one of these people, or you may appreciate the style which some newer authors have taken note of or have been influenced by.

Read Leyner and then read Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk is still a dense, fast read but seems languid compared to Leyner. Intentional or not these authors remind me of one another for their terse prose and cutural obsessions. Leyner tends to stick to seemingly lighter subjects but in fact makes the same points with the use of broader comedy and absurdism.

A fun, quick read that can be enjoyed more than once.

This is one of those books that if you get it, you love it, but if you don't get it you're in for 300 pages of extreme pain. You need some sort of touch on the pulse of pop culture for one thing and you need some sort of touch on the pulse of what it's like to be a young teenage male. With those two tools you are ready for the greatest ride in all of literature.

The jokes actually rarely fall flat, which is amazing considering there are like 25 on every page. The book is hysterical from start to finish, the ending of the book is absolutly perfect. And leyner definalty succeeded in making it seem like I was the main charector. Forget Holden Caufield, I was Mark Leyner.

I laughed so hard I almost puked--many times. I don't know how else to describe his writing, because I've never encountered anything like it anywhere. It's the best anti-depressant I can think of.

James Inman is an American Treasure.

No one else yet has been able to capture the world of Greyhound the way that James Inman has.

If you have ever ridden on a Greyhound bus, this book is for you.

I'll say it again, James Inman is an American Treasure.


Okay,
Father Luke

When I say that James Inman is very funny guy, I'm not just offering a clinical diagnosis. During my long and checkered apprenticeship as writer, I worked for several years as mental health therapist. I also wrote a humor column for The Kansas City Business Journal. So when I tell you that Inman's "Greyhound Diary" is very, very funny, I mean: it made me laugh. Explosively, unpredictably and often. As Miguel de Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE demonstrated in the 17th century, cruelty is often at the heart of humor. Knowing James as I do, I can say with confidence: he has considerable talent as a cruel and very funny observer of the human farce.

The particular beauty of "Greyhound Diary" and its author's gifts lies in James Inman's acerbity and sense of immediacy. Inman's terrain is that nether zone of paranoid malaise, conspiracy theories and sociopathic cabals littering an American landscape that has come to be increasingly "informed" by Reality TV, infomercials, videogame addiction, proliferating meth labs, squalid hype and vicious lobbying, the ubiquitous suspicions of a culture that is lost in some Cronenberg-esque, electronic wilderness on bad acid, a culture deranged and raging with denial. A civilization positively frothing at the gills. "Greyhound Diary" takes the pulse of America and is dialing 911.

Any national discussion of elitism should begin and end with one question: "At any point since you reached the age of majority, have you had the occasion to travel by Greyhound Bus Service?" If the answer is affirmative, no further discussion is required.

James Inman`s journal of one such trip is laugh aloud funny and wipe your eyes depressing often within the span of a single page. I've had this experience and due to a confluence of circumstance not all that long ago. You can't help but to smile as you recall each and every idiosyncratic person he mentions and cringe at the disparity of many others. The complete text is less than 70 pages so it's pretty likely that you will even think of a couple of other examples he was fortunate enough to have avoided during his journey.

Then it dawns on you...I was on that bus..I'm normal guy.

Thank all that is evil that James Inman got on the wrong bus. If he hadn't, then we wouldn't have his 'Greyhound Diary'. My own experiences on the bus have been quite pleasant -- in sharp contrast to Inman's -- but I also have no story to tell (and it's only a coincidence, James, that I'm writing this while traveling on the bus).

To its credit, Inman's story is a fairly quick read. If it weren't, you'd wonder how he lived to tell the tale or why you were still reading it.

Inman's lists, his rants, his smoldering, smelly details all add up to a laugh-out-loud read no matter where or when you read them, though alcohol would make a nice companion piece.

'Greyhound Diary' is 'On the Road' for the homeless, 'Oh, The Places You'll Go' for the chronically mentally ill, and 'The Grapes of Wrath' for people who would never read that book in the first place. It's a sweet, sloppy slice of America's yawning underbelly.

James Inman isn't a genius, but his work is.

Having just finished reading this book, I had to leave a positive review after having laughed myself silly for the last two nights. At a mere 79 pages, Inman's travel diary reads like a polished novella of the caliber of Paul Bowles.

James Inman touches on a subject that many people have dealt with but few people have written about - without sounding like an ad brochure or meaningless moan from Lake Wobegon. This is a great literary tour through an unlisted United States.

I gave this book four stars instead of five, because I could've read for another hundred pages or so.

I purchased this for a friend of mine for his birthday. He's a bit of a brain, and I figured this would peak his intrest. Great value.

Despite my bad experience with many sequels, I still had high expectation of this. I had not been disappointed. This is still "funny, interesting, entertaining, and "helpful"!" as the first, and in particular I like some authentic answers to some of my life long doubts as follows:-

Why do men fall asleep after sex?
How does aspirin find the pain?
Why does sucking on helium make your voice sound funny?
Why do Asians turn red after consuming alcohol?

plus over one hundred other questions I am interested in their answers. In short, it's knowledgeable and entertaining. A great resource for chat, too. Dont miss it.

I found this book to be sooo funny, I am glad I came accross it by accident. The humor is everywhere and although this type of humor is not for everybody, if you do not like the IM conversation you can skip through them and still get some of the witty humor. I loved the comment "if Dr. Phil can't do it, why couldn't the authors?" I reccommend it! If you are skeptical because the bad press got to you first, start with reading the questions that are interesting to you and you'll soon be hooked.

Some of the questions are rediculous, for example: If I swallow a watermelon seed, will a watermelon grow in my stomach?

I hate to believe that enough people were seriously that concerned about something so rediculous that they had to print it in the book.

As for half of the other questions, you got roundabout answers that weren't really answered, but fluffed to take up room.

Not worth the buy. My suggestion is to go to your boostore, find it, flip through the questions and read the answers you are honestly curious about and save your money.

This book is not only informative about many myths and queries we have all heard, but it is funny too!!! I have learned some very funny and quirky facts so far. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes interesting, funny facts.

If you're looking for a book that has a conventional structure (plot, story, etc.) you might not like this, since it's a lot of abstract humor about absolutely nothing. But it's great at what it is. It's like a very spicy food. It will burn a hole right through your brain.

Mark Leyner is a strange writer to describe, whose work crosses genres with equal abandon. Here he tries to sound a bit like William Gibson (Though maybe a more apt comparison is Neal Stephenson, since his style and sensibility is much closer to Stephenson's than Gibson's.), Kurt Vonnegut, and of course Hunter S. Thompson. Indeed, "Et Tu, Babe" is what I'd expect from someone who had been cloned to resemble the worst excesses in literary style from the likes of both Stephenson, and especially, Thompson. Leyner goes well beyond a hilarious zone of neutrality at maximum warp speed, slicing and dicing celebrity culture with ample terse literary aplomb, while tossing some funny bon mots in a clever cyberpunk twist. Here Leyner imagines himself as some famous bigshot writer who is out to change the course of human history - and maybe, he almost does in this weird, though often, hysterically funny, brief tome of a novel.

Mark Leyner is a strange, strange man. Weird and outrageously funny, this narcissistic pseudo-autobiography made me laugh so hard I thought I'd choke. You'll either love it or hate it.

It's a Mark Leyner book. That's about as much of a compliment as I can think of. Really a uniquely disturbing individual. But a brilliant, innovative writer.

Having read, My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, I had high hopes for Et Tu, Babe. However, other than a few hilarious venues(the "everything" sandwich, visceral tattoos, and the Schwarzeneggerization of America), this was a disappointment. I wound up skimming through too much tedium. I suspect Leyner had personal problems midway (the Arlene Scene) as the 2nd half of the book d r a g s. Nun thee less, Leyner when he's on is one of the funniest orgasmic writers around.

It can be funny and interesting most days, but sometimes you think, "what in the world were they thinking?" My husband thinks it's funny, too. However, the base of the item is pretty flimsly. It doesn't take much to knock it over.

I bought this for the hubby for Christmas, and he loves it...he calls me during the day to share funny bits of information from the calendar

You know...I got this book because I saw more than a few rave reviews of it on the 50 Book Challenge community...and boy am I glad that I got this from the library and didn't pay for it or use up a book credit on PBS. For the most part, I knew the answers to the questions already. For the ones I would have been interested in knowing more about, the answers were of the "no one really knows" variety and the remaining few were just not really answered, the question was avoided totally with some humor and they moved on quite quickly.

It has a few laugh out loud moments, but mostly it wasn't at all what the title promises it to be. The questions and answers, while humorously asked and answered are not REALLY answered in most cases or the answers are extremely vague to the point of being inane and useless. It wasn't an awful read...but if it had taken more than a couple of hours to read this, I'd be pissed...it's shallow, vague and utterly obvious that the editor/publisher did a pretty slick job with the title and cover, because those are about the most enticing things about Why do Men Have Nipples? I wouldn't recommend it, except maybe as a quick, slightly amusing read...it's not REALLY going to answer any of those questions that you've got wandering around in the back of your head...and the one's it does, you probably already know the answer to or there is no answer. This book is annoying in the way that those Discover Channel specials that claim to tell you the secret of the Bog People or some other such unknowable thing...when all they are really doing is presenting all the evidence and then telling you no on REALLY knows...I hate that. The title of the book (like the title of these types of programs) promise one thing, but deliver something significantly different...interesting and informative (or entertaining...and sometimes all three), but not really delivering what was promised. C-

Fluffily entertaining. Best to read waiting in line to buy a book with more meat on it.

I had high expectations for this book. They weren't met. The two authors had a great ideas but thye couldn't pull it together. It was average. They pick some question which frankly a whole bunch of us have often wondered but simply from embarrassment could never quite muster the guts to ask. But in most of the answers that they provide, they weren't filling or for the most part funny. ANd author (the tv writer/producer) is funny.

The book had a few moments where their sens of humor peeks out and in those places, I would laugh and think is that really their hostess' name and did she kreally look and say those things?

Cheers,

This book is chalked full of interesting answers to many funny questions, if you need a bathroom book or conversation peice for your coffee table, this is the book for you!

This book is interesting and entertaining. It's a good book that you can read for five minutes, let it go, then pick up over and over again. You might even want to put it on your coffee table for friends to check out. It might spark up some conversation.

This book was the most hillarious thing i have ever read. I laughed so hard i cried. Everyone needs to read this book, it is wonderfully relaxing and therapeutic.

Nah, I think I would have to say that this book IS falling down funny, in fact I've never laughed so much. Burroughs, Thompson, I hear people compare Mark Leyner to so many beat or other post-modern writers, but I guarantee you that you will NEVER read something quite like this. I ended up reading at least half the book aloud to my roommate while tears were falling down my face from my fits of laughter. It may not be for everyone, but it is surely for anyone like myself that likes their humor fast, random, and fantastically absurd.

Leyner leaves his "teeth imprints" with the 17 stories, plays, ramblings, and dedications contained within. With his Dennis Miller-ish vocabulary, Reyner remarks on the absurdity that is prevalent in modern life.

"The Mary Poppins' Kidnapping" throws a nod to the present censoring of the media. After viewing "Mary Poppins" three teenagers kidnap an English woman so that they could have a nanny. This triggers an across the board censorship for anything from "Mary Poppins" to "The Sound Of Music" stating that it's "...irresponsible to expose young people from middle- and low-income families to films depicting ostentatious affluence." which "...has the potential for provoking very explosive antisocial behavior."

"The (Illustrated) Body Politics" exposes that senators have hidden tattoos that represent their true standings on issues. In "Oh, Brother", two Melendez type brothers kill their parents with Howitzer shells, rocket-propelled grenades and 9mm Luger rounds then plead innocent using the "imperfect self-defense" concept. Stating that since their parents were understanding, supportive, and compassionate towards them, they didn't act like other parents and were covering up a plot to kill them so they struck first.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Writing like Christopher Moore with a newly acquired thesaurus, Leyner makes you laugh, cringe, and wonder. After possibly the longest dedication in written history the fun begins. Although he loves using big words don't be scared off. Bring a dictionary (optional) and an open mind (mandatory) and enjoy.

The reviewer who gave this book only one star seems to have been anticipating a great number of punchlines in this book. There aren't that many. The book isn't based on "jokes" as such but on wry, pithy obsevations of the world at large, seen through the lens of Leyner's sense of the absurd. If you want "jokes," there are plenty of books like that out there. This book is not for a general audience anyway -- it takes a special outlook to even appreciate this book -- but for those with the mind set to appreciate this kind of humor, while it may not be falling-down funny, it is enjoyable.

To tell you the truth, I bought this book because some reviewer said that Leyner is William Burroughs and Beavis&Butthead combined. Well, no need to rush to your nearest internet bookstore -- he is neither. His jokes are not funny, they are at most cheeky (and by that I mean the kind of cheakiness that people in their 40s have when they try to sound young, fresh, hip, clever and imaginative). At first you allow yourself a smile, in anticipation of "the funny stuff", but it just never comes. This collection of short stories is probably "ok" for a column in Esquire, but it is simply inadequate as a book, because while in mens' magazines apart from the text you also have pictures of pretty chicks, this compilation has nothing else to offer.

Granted, it is difficult to judge a writer by short stories, but reading this is a total waste of time and I can only blame myself for being too thick to realise it only after I almost finished the book. Oh, by the way, here in the UK the book has a different title: "A dream date with Di". Well, a person fantasizing about a date with Princess Di does not strike one as a progressive writer, and one who actually tries to make fun of the idea is even worse.

I read by the pound and am not easily impressed by the output of most wordsmiths. Leyner is at his hyperactive best here, delivering insanely comic bits peppered with his broad knowledge of culture, tech, medicine and car bombs. I'm on my third copy of this book because I lend it out and it never comes back.

Very very clever and full of anarchic wordplay. Enjoying the absurdity of the wordplay is enough to give these stories meaning. despite a previous reviewer saying it was infantile - it think in this era of sappy books designed to enlighten people, which hardly seems to be saving society as we know it - a dose of weird and crazed thinking may do more to impact the way people think than a straightforward native with a "moral." Dig it.

I was a little disapointed in this one. Not as good as Et Tu, Babe, and Tooth Imprints on a Corndog. I guess his later work is the best.

I must ask your indulgence for a brief autobiographical anecdote (it is relevant). When I was seventeen-years-old, I was an aspiring author, and this was one of my favorite books, along with Henry Miller's BLACK SPRING. MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST, I thought, expanded language to the breaking point. Flash-forward ten years later. I found a jaundiced copy of this book in my parents' basement, along with BLACK SPRING, and re-read both during a week-long visit.

Was I ever THAT young????

My impressions had changed radically. The book now seemed infantile to me: it is nothing more, really, than a frivolous, badly strung-together collection of verbal sound-bites. The book is superficial and hollow at its core. Now, I'm not a fan of transcendental meanings or linear narratives, but, FOR GOD'S SAKE or for the sake of WHOMEVER, even experimental fiction should have at least SOME formal consistency. The surrealists' experiments (one thinks of SOLUBLE FISH or THE MAGNETIC FIELDS) or the work of Alfred Jarry all have an internal logic. This book has none. It is completely meaningless and disjointed.

In fact, the book is a mess: a hastily written, blithe little throwaway of a book.

MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST is pure entertainment, nothing more. If that is all you are interested in, so be it. But if that is the case, then you must accept that there is ESSENTIALLY nothing to distinguish this book from an episode of the TV show, FRIENDS, except that the latter is probably more memorable.

This book belongs on the shelf next to BLACK SPRING, a much more "illustrious" book (if only because it was reviewed by Maurice Blanchot), but also one that suffers from a similar disorder.

I've given this book two stars only because to give it one would be to demean my prior self.

In a world of hate and war, we must take a look back on this book. "My Cousin" was the first book by Leyner I read.
And, I still read it. This tome of delightful, poetic anarchy is not for everyone; But, if you can be distracted by the rantings of a stick figure in a Jhonen Vasquez comic, then this should definetly be a treat for you.
I recommend "Enter The Squirrel".

I say "Ole`!" to this author. (That's a good thing.) And, I recommend this book to everyone I meet, pass by, or steal from.
My rating?
Two fists up.

As I was reading (and not at all enjoying or understanding)this, I thought of all the people who probably deem this "brilliant", and would suggest that I just don't "get it". Well, maybe not. But if someone would like to explain to me even one redeeming quality of this, I'm all ears. It's just random nonsense. I actually suspect it's Leyner being subversive, and putting out the worst thing possible and seeing who would be fooled into thinking that its on another level. I have now read three Leyner books, and I know that there is brilliance hidden in there somewhere if I keep looking. It came out in The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel, which I enjoyed very much. My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, um...not so much. Based on Tetherballs, I'll keep trying, but so far Leyner is 2/3 pure literary hoax, 1/3 brilliant. I Smell Esther Williams is in that 2/3.

If you couldn't get through ten pages of William S. Burroughs the one time you tried, if you stared at Andy Kaufmann and wondered why anybody would think what he was doing was comedy, if The Residents produced what is, to you, an offensively pointless mish-mash of sound, then you will certainly not be able to finish this brilliant book. Move on to Leyner's equally excellent easier stuff.

'Tooth Imprints on A Corndog' is great. This one is an unreadable collection of rambling nonsense.

Leyner is more often than not a solid 4-star writer (My Cousin, Et Tu, Tetherballs), but his first book offers little pleasure beyond the fun of its title. A number of years passed between this debut and the much more worthwhile "My Cousin" and it was a healthy period of artistic growth, evidently. There are a few flashes of cleverness here and there, but this is overall a soggy and underdeveloped effort that makes you realize how delicate and precise his unique style is: in later works, it's a marvel of pop culture satire, rapid fire wit, and intriguing arcania. Here, it's a sophomoric dud that too often reads like really bad Barthelme. Or really bad Leyner.

Don't misunderstand: everything Leyner's done after this first collection is brilliant writing and mandatory reading. But ESTHER WILLIAMS is the most godawful hodgepodge of literary conceits and pratfalls you may ever be unlucky enough to read. Obviously, some episode of satori marked the time between this and his next book, the now-classic MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST. I'm being harsher than I should be, perhaps, considering how great a satirist Leyner has become. But even he probably wishes this book would crawl off his resume. Take a pass on ESTHER and go straight to his other four collections.

This page a day is just terrible. I'm almost ashamed to have it on my desk at work.

5% Of the days just talk about the authors
5% Plug the book
15% Movie quotes
25% Discuss some of the more stomach turning side-effects of pregnancy
20% Genitalia (human, animal, museums dedicated to)
30% Unscientific answers to questions with obvious answers (i.e. "If you eat a watermellon seed, will a watermellon grow in your stomach?")

It's not that it's crass and I'm offended (although there are plenty of days that I cover up so that coworkers aren't offended). It's that it's a waste of resources and money.

Today's page talks about the author being born and some elf talking to his mother in the hospital and prophesizing the book he'll write some day. I think it's supposed to be humorous?