Bookspam, 4/22/11: The Toy Collector, Raw Shark Texts, Gilligan's Wake

Bookspam is one of my new featurettes. Basically, it's going to be a list of interesting books that I've heard about or am in the process of reading. Feel free to throw your two cents in via the comments, if you've actually read any of these. This week's list is "post-modern fiction" flavored. Enjoy.

The Toy Collector by James Gunn (Bloomsbury, 2000)

James Gunn wears many hats: writer, director, ex-husband of Jenna Fisher AKA Pam from The Office. Gunn used to work for Troma Entertainment, so he's got some serious pulp art chops, which are evident in his films Slither and the more recent Super with Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page. His semi autobiographical novel The Toy Collector apparently contains the same mix of humor and the macabre that he showcased in his films; the protagonist (whose name is also James Gunn), is an orderly at a hospital who steals and sells drugs, then uses the money to add to his huge collection of toys. That concept alone sounds interesting, but Gunn's use of post-modern gimmicks straight out of the Delillo and Foster Wallace playbooks, like using his protagonist's toys as alternate narrators and interspersing flashbacks and drugged out interludes throughout the narrative, should add up to something special. This one's in my Amazon queue right now.

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hill (Cannongate, 2007)

This one was suggested to me by a good friend, who said it "was like House of Leaves, but not as boring, and shorter". Sounds good so far. The jacket describes the books as "Melville meets Michael Crichton" and "Pynchon meets Douglas Adams". Ok, I'm a bit more intrigued. From the wiki article I learned that there are allusions to Jaws, The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and Toy Story in the book. After that, I was pretty much sold. This one's on my bedside table right now.

Gilligan's Wake by Tom Carson (Picador, 2003)

The title pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this book: it's Gilligan's Island meets James Joyce, although it's more like Dubliners than Finnegan's Wake, if you ask me. The book is split into seven vignettes, each following a different character from Gilligan's Island through their lives after they've escaped the island and returned to 1950s-60s America, where they run into period events like Red Scare paranoia, the Kennedy Assassination, and the Beat Generation. Tom Carson's efforts to create distinctive voices for each of the characters are earnest, but sometimes it feels like he's trying a bit too hard. In my opinion, the best moments in the book come when he's having fun with the absurdity of his concept, rather than the "serious" meditations he makes on the social and moral climate of America. Check out the wiki if you want to learn more.