Peter Leroy constructs a plausible adult life for his grade school chum Matthew Barber, now living in Boston, where he is vice-president of a toy company by day, but becomes Bertram W. Beath,... This description may be from another edition of this product.
Matthew Barber is a middle-aged, recently divorced man spiraling through midlife crisis. He reflects miserably on his past, loses himself in fantasies, and therefore fails to focus on reality and his potential to find happiness in the here and now.As a side job, he develops a persona, B.W. Beath, to use when writing his sarcastic, sharply insulting restaurant reviews for a local Boston periodical. Each chapter in the book provides scenes from Matthew's life in which he visits a restaurant, and concludes with B.W.'s review of the chapter's featured restaurant. As the novel progresses, however, the content of each review has less to do with the dining experience at hand, and has more to do with the self-imposed unraveling of Matthew's life. Toward the end, B.W. takes on more power in Matthew's personality - as he finds his way into the body of the chapters and he begins to interrupt Matthew's thinking and influences his decisions and actions.This book is a page-turner, comic and biting, humorous and harshly real. Eric Kraft has done it again - though this book has a much different flavor than his other Peter Leroy adventure stories, it is every bit as entertaining and enlightening. For a thorough sampling of this artist's talent, style, and wit be sure to check out his web site!
It changed the WAY I eat at restaurants!!!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
Fabulous book- absolutely loved the way he thinks about everything (I guess that I wholly relate to him). It seriously changed my restaurant experiences - forever! Thank you Mr. Kraft-- I'm starting Herb 'n' Lorna now!!
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