****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
It's hard to write a serious review of this wonderful little novel because the novel itself so relentlessly satirizes reviewers, publishers, writers, and critics: their jealousies and self-absorptions. In fact, there's a perfect bit in the book where Tom Clancy signs onto Amazon to write a terrible review of the new John le Carre novel. (Clancy perceives himself as being in "competition" with le Carre.) Earlier in that same chapter, we're introduced to Clancy listening to Jerry Orbach singing "Try to Remember," and Clancy suddenly breaks into tears. It's moments like that: crazy, sentimental, weirdly emotional that give this book its life and its strange Marx Brothers energy. In the end the novel is a love story between Stephen King and his wife, and it's very sweet one. This is an odd book, probably not for everybody, but it's totally original and deeply winning. "Courageous and fresh!"
