Lunatics - Softcover

Barry, Dave; Zweibel, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425253376 ISBN 13: 9780425253373

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2012

Synopsis

Philip Horkman is a happy man, the owner of a pet store called The Wine Shop, and on Sundays a referee for a local kids’ soccer league. Jeffrey Peckerman is the proud and loving father of a star athlete in the girls’ ten-and-under soccer league, and he’s not exactly happy with the ref.

The two of them are about to collide in a swiftly escalating series of events that will send them running for their lives, pursued by the police, soldiers, subversives, bears, revolutionaries, pirates, and a black ops team that does not exist. Where all that takes them you can’t even begin to guess, but the literary journey there is a masterpiece of inspiration, chaos, and unadulterated, well, lunacy. And they might even learn a lesson or two along the way.

About this title

About the Author:

Dave Barry is proud to have been elected Class Clown by the Pleasantville High School class of 1965. From 1983 to 2004, he wrote a weekly humor column for the Miami Herald, which in 1988 won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He is the author of some thirty books. His most recent bestsellers include his Peter Pan prequels, written with Ridley Pearson; his Christmas story The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog; Dave Barry’s History of the Millennium (So Far); and I’ll Mature When I’m Dead. Barry lives in Coral Gables, Florida, with his family and a domestic staff of forty-seven.

Alan Zweibel is an original Saturday Night Live writer who the New York Times said has “earned his place in the pantheon of American pop culture.” He is the winner of lots and lots of Emmy Awards for his work in television, which also includes It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, Monk, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and PBS’s Great Performances. He won the Thurber Prize for his novel The Other Shulman and collaborated with Billy Crystal on the Tony Award–winning play 700 Sundays. Zweibel and his wife, Robin, live in Short Hills, New Jersey, because they enjoy paying exorbitantly high property taxes.

From Booklist:

How do two humorists effectively collaborate on a novel? By each writing the narrative for his character, alternating the perspectives in an insane adventure. Phillip Horkman is a by-the-rules kind of guy, a pet-store owner and soccer referee. Jeffrey Peckerman is a profane forensic plumber who thinks the world is populated with jerks, with the exception of himself. The New Jersey suburban dads collide when Horkman disqualifies what would have been a game-winning score made by Peckerman’s daughter. The two embark on escalating violence that takes them on a wild car chase that gets viewed as a possible terrorist threat by the police. On the run, they travel by cruise ship, submarine, helicopter, freighter, and airplane to Cuba, Somalia, China, and the Middle East, wreaking havoc and inadvertently checking off a lot of items on the U.S. geopolitical to-do list along the way. Barry, humor columnist for the Miami Herald, and Zweibel, award-winning comedy writer originally with Saturday Night Live, are more than effective in this collaboration, although the gag of two lunatics on the run sometimes wears a bit thin. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Pulitzer Prize–winning humorist Barry and Emmy, Thurber, and Tony Award winner Zweibel bring plenty of star power to a comic novel that will be supported by a national print and electronic advertising campaign. --Vanessa Bush

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0425253376
• ISBN 13: 9780425253373
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368