True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood
May 12, 2003
Notaro (The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club) opens with enough dumped-by-loser-boyfriend stories that readers will share her skepticism when Good Guy finally appears. "He was an endangered species," Notaro writes. "he only thing that could make him more valuable was if he were albino." Since Notaro can't keep Good Guy drunk and clueless forever, she switches to Plan B: frying cutlets, her major life skill. It works, and soon enough they're happily married. If this sounds mature and responsible, guess again. Other people might be able to buy a house, babysit their nephew, buy a new bra or seed their lawn without it being the least bit funny, but not Notaro. Consider the time she and her husband got a new puppy so untrainable it ate from the kitty litter box. Watching her husband get down on all fours and growl like a dog to show kitty who's in charge, Notaro comments, "Well, then, I'm not going to bother making dinner.... The cat just had a bowel movement big enough for the both of you." True, there's a lot of bathroom humor, but it's Notaro's odd take on the ordinary that's funniest. "H&R Block is really Practice Prison," a taste of what tax evaders can expect. Her sister using a breast pump looks like "a hybrid of Barbarella and a Holstein." And who else but Notaro can whisper to her (unwanted) cat as she crates him up for a trip to the vet: "if you see a bright, white light, run toward it"? (July)Forecast:Notaro's first book was originally self-published, picked up by Villard and spent two months on the
New York Times bestseller list.
Fat Bride's attractive price and funny jacket (of a woman leaning into the refrigerator) will undoubtedly lure in fans from her first book and new readers, too.