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Since the novel is set in the woozier fringes of Southern California, many are the occasions for such misunderstanding. Weiner's courtship of Jonica involves being hauled along to various odd, uncomfortable situations. There is the amateur performance of a feminist play called All My Sisters Slept in Dirt/A Choral Poem: "The theatre itself turned out to be tiny—so small that at first I thought we were in another waiting room. The only seating was what I feared, folding wooden chairs. I can't imagine who set them up—Helen Keller maybe. There was much switching around of seats until everyone realized that all the seats were bad." There is also an obligatory visit to a thrift shop, Jonica's favorite milieu, and a cruise on a yacht with a onetime TV sitcom heroine, her inept suitor and much too much booze.
While taking painkilling medication for a sprained ankle (incurred during a foiled attempt to spy on his landlady), Weiner sees a newspaper headline: FOUR THOUSAND OAKS RESIDENTS KILLED IN AUTO CRASH. His groggy response: "I may have been full of codeine but I was stunned. 'Four thousand people were killed in an automobile accident?' This was it. I'm getting out of here. Call the airport." Before his hero finally leaves, though, Plunket puts him through some memorable surrealistic paces. This book makes a riotous debut: The Aspern Papers somehow performed by the Brothers Marx.
—P.G.