The Finished Man

I've never been to LA, but would love to visit the surreal landscape that Murphy describes here, where larger than life characters drive fuel-guzzling 'Ocelots', minotaurs are trapped in overpasses, and Bobby Zipperman wanders along the beach looking for lost hermit alcoves.Above all, this is a really funny book. I loved Uncle Charlie, who refuses to talk in anything but palindromes, coming out with nonsensical replies like 'Flee to me, remote elf'. And Gwyneth Paltrow is transformed into the much more interesting sounding Guinevere Pilchard.In this book, Frank is deep in unrequited love with Magee, a wraith-like 30s style beauty permanently wreathed in cigarette smoke. Frank hasn't had much luck in love, and mostly has to retreat to the bathroom whenever romance threatens. So it's unfortunate he's decided to take on Max, Magee's brute of a husband, and try to win over Magee.Max is a best-selling author of appalling novels, and we get plenty of evidence of his tiny talent. Scraps of his work include 'Our love has vanished like a lost sock' and 'The moon hung in the sky like ... a very large aspirin tablet'. Plus he calls his books things like 'City of Breasts'. The story is a tense struggle between Max and his mighty ego and Frank, who's desperately trying to assert himself. There are some wonderful scenes as the trio become stranded in the beachside paradise of Malomar, and the tensions finally get out of hand.It's a funny and tense love story that has a Gatsby feel while being completely of our age - and includes some wicked satire on bad novels and the bad men who write them.