Suzanne
Rating:
Review
Wrack and Ruin, an oh-so-appropriate title, describes a weekend gone haywire in the life of Lyndon Song. Lyndon is an erstwhile famous New York sculptor who ditched rampant "success" for the simple life of welding and farming Brussels sprouts in rural California. His weekend of reverse serendipity starts suspiciously close to when his bad brother Woody shows up after 16 years with a washed-up kung-fu film star in tow. Woody is the epitome of Southern California superficiality – the opposite of Lyndon’s down-to-earth values. Lyndon just wants to hide away from the world, but it’s suddenly coming at him from all directions. Obnoxious developers high-pressure him to sell out his farm, his ex-girlfriend sabotages his truck, his harmless little secrets threaten to leak out in a hazardous way, and a new possible love interest inspires him to act unlike himself. The story is witty and amusing, with unlucky karma turning up all around. Paper airplanes and even a potato fly past now and then, seemingly out of nowhere, adding a surreal quality to it all. Quite enjoyable and quite contemporary.
Best Line:
"I hate when women just want to be friends." (pg. 234)
Kim
Rating:
Review
Main character Lyndon Song is quirky and likable within the first few pages, and when his brother Woody makes his first appearance, I was hooked. The brothers have been mostly estranged their entire adult lives until a few years before, but their relationship is still strained. Lyndon is a Brussels sprout farmer/welder/part-time bartender living on his 20 acre ranch in Rosarita Bay, California. Woody, a movie producer with a tainted past, decides to visit his brother for the long Labor Day weekend, though it is less of a consolatory visit and more about an ulterior motive. Lyndon has a lot on his plate at the moment, with a resort developer pressuring him to sell his land to make way for a golf course, and an ex-lover with a penchant for hammering nails into his truck tires when he’s not looking. Most of this story is Lyndon’s, but I learned a lot about Woody, the Harvard educated germaphobe with some serious self-worth issues. There are a few other characters in this book that are quite memorable, including Lyndon’s stoner pal, JuJu, and Yi Ling Ling, an aging actress known for her martial arts skill that clocks Lyndon the first time they meet. Lyndon and JuJu also participate in some pranks and minor vandalism against the resort developer that is laugh-out-loud funny. This story takes place over the span of a few days, but I polished it off in a couple. It’s that good, and that fun.
Best Line:
"This was the thing about family: you were forced into an intimacy with people with whom, given a choice, you would never care to associate."
