This novel is funny. Not witty or zany, but funny, actually funny. This is a wonderful thing. Maybe if there were more funny writers about we could stop trying to laugh at the work of a certain few. Laughing may be good for the health, but fake laughing, let alone lying, is definitely bad. Maybe we pretend because we know it’s very important that we get some funny novels, at least a few a year. Whether you’ve been playing along or not, it’s a relief to find this one, and then you lean into the book to be sure you don’t miss the next laugh, and then every sentence is more alive than before. Alive, that is, which does not mean lively (almost as bad as zany), because this brat is tired, unhealthy, and feeling lousy. As his house of Usher falls around him, he’s not laughing much: when we laugh, it’s neither with nor at him.
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