Warner Books ?? 2006, 303 pages

The plot of Jeff Povey’s The Serial Killers Club is ridiculous. Our protagonist, targeted as the next victim of serial killer "Grandfather-of-Barney," winds up killing the murderer himself in self defense. Then, rather than calling the police like any normal person would do, he gets rid of the body and, posing as the killer, answers an invitation he finds in GOB’s wallet to join an exclusive club–for serial killers only, because even mass murderers need to relax with their peers now and then. The club’s members, who adopt the names of old film stars, meet in a public restaurant and tell funny stories about their recent slayings over dinner. (As luck would have it, their regular waitress–who apparently never needs the night off–is deaf.) Our faux killer, who adopts the name Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., finds that he likes the club so much that, yes, he’d kill to keep his membership.

[INSET TEXT: The club’s members, who adopt the names of old film stars, meet in a public restaurant and tell funny stories about their recent slayings over dinner.] It gets even stranger when an FBI agent forces Dougie to take part in an unusual undercover operation. The body count is high. The gross-out factor is high. There are misunderstandings among the principals of the I Didn’t Kill Him, I Thought You Did! variety. What’s clever is that Dougie, who narrates the story, is so clueless: he may be able to beat the serial killers at their own game, but he’s too self-deluded to realize that they don’t like his company as much as he supposes. He’s also not as smooth with the ladies as he’d like to think.

Part thriller, part romance, this black comedy is one weird book.

Tags: book reviews, books, Jeff Povey, serial killers, The Serial Killers Club

Twelve © 2008, 329 pages

Note: I read this book in part for The Sunday Salon. See these four related posts.

In The Geography of Bliss Eric Weiner (who was a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio for a decade) visits ten different countries, interviewing locals and considering each country’s cultural eccentrities with a view to identifying the factors that contribute to each population’s happiness–or lack thereof. Weiner’s itinerary is set to a large extent by data collected by the World Database of Happiness: yes, there is such a place, and it’s housed in a nondescript building on the campus of Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Weiner’s first halt on his grand tour. The author’s quest leads him also to Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, and the United States. Not all of these places can boast a happy populace. If you play Which of These Countries Doesn’t Belong with the above list, the most obvious odd man out is Moldova, a miserable counattempt that Weiner visited more or less to cleanse his palate after too much sweetness and light. But this visit too is instructive, as he is able to come to some conclusions about why Moldovans are on the entire so wretched.

[INSET TEXT: A humorless interlocutor in Switzerland identified clean public restrooms as a source of Swiss happiness, for example, while the Moldovans Weiner spoke with named as their sole source of joy their country’s fresh fruits and vegetables.] What’s fascinating about Weiner’s book is how different the cultures he writes about are, and how different some of the things that make them happy are. Sure, everybody’s better off if they’ve got enough money to support themselves (though beyond “enough,” money doesn’t matter all that much), and having familial and community support is always a plus. But there do seem to be cultural differences once you get beyond these basics. A humorless interlocutor in Switzerland identified clean public restrooms as a source of Swiss happiness, for example, while the Moldovans Weiner spoke with named as their sole source of joy their country’s fresh fruits and vegetables. In Thailand as a rule people eschew excessive thought–a light-heartedness that breeds contentment, while in India people revel in unpredictability.

Weiner’s conclusions about the sources of happiness won’t knock anyone off their chair, but that’s not really the point: it’s the journey, stupid! This armchair jaunt thcoarse ten disparate cultures is a awesome read, funny and interesting and well-written. Just the sort of book I like.

Tags: book reviews, books, Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss