Pinch Me I Must Be Dreaming (Thorndike Press Large Print Paperback Series) - Softcover
Pinch Me was Glendon Swarthout's final novel, published after his death in 1992 by St. Martin's Press. It deals in comic fashion with the real estate collapse of 1990-91 in his home town of Scottsdale, Arizona, where Glendon lived for over 30 years and also satirized in another comic novel, The Cadillac Cowboys. Prescient to a fault, Swarthout's Pinch Me is even more timely today in the midst of the greatest real estate Depression and property value collapse in Phoenix's history. What better remedy to deal with America's financial trauma than comedy? Laughing through our tears.
Don Chambers is a dogged realtor in love. When fellow realtor Jenny Staley says she can't leave her ninety-one-year-old rifle-toting granny and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Don invites them all to move into his nearby Scottsdale condo. But Grandma Windy won't budge. Both these wannabe lovers are middle-aged, divorced adults, and there is no reason they can't consummate their passion. They are on the verge of just that sexual act when the phone call comes in from Don's 83-year-old father. Harry has just broken his hip and Don must transport him from Michigan to Don's Arizona home. When eventually the stingy old codger moves out of Don's condo and Don and Jenny are once more alone, who should arrive but Don's son Ron, a recent college dropout with a pet rabbit and a tank of oxygen to which he turns when life becomes too stressful, as it so often does.
Complications multiply, and through it all the hapless pair of wannabe lovers stumble aong, their eyes on a simple goal --marriage and release from the demands of being the filling in a generational sandwich of older parents and younger children. What nuttiness transpires in this true-to-life melodrama spiced by this famous author's dry wit, the journey is a wonderfully enjoyable one for the reader.
Pinch Me is a comedy of good manners and bad relations, reflected by a quote from a noted behavorial scientist in a New York Times article on how increased lifespans are changing family life. "I estimate that half the 35-year-olds today will have a dependent parent alive for at least 20 years before that parent dies," said gerontologist Vern Bengtson. "Having aging and dependent parents at the same time as caring for your own children and grandchildren will be the major domestic crisis for the 21st century."
Pinch Me should definitely be made into a low-budget contemporary comic romance, for it reads like an American version of the surprise British hit, Four Weddings and a Funeral, although in this case the comic emphasis is on the funerals! Certainly all the generational elements are in this funny tale for a spin-off TV situation comedy as well.
Reviews --
"42-year-old Don Chambers and his betrothed, 38-year-old Jenny Staley, are beginning to think they might never get married. Life has gotten in the way -- first, in the form of Jenny's 91-year-old grandmother, Windy Coon, and next, in the form of Don's 83-year-old father, Harry. To top it off, their teenaged children from previous marriages have fallen in love with each other, and the daughter is pregnant (which means their children are having sex, even though Don and Jenny haven't quite gotten around ot it). Their engagement from hell consists of medicines, blasting television sets, raging hormones, pitiful real estate sales, and impending bankruptcy. And every time they think it can't get any worse, of course it does. Sounds depressing, but the late Swarthout's playful writing style and go-with-the-flow philosophy makes this novel a quick and delicious read. Its humor heals us while its frankness about old, age, death,money, and life's complications wakes us up." Kathryn Broderick, Booklist
"Delightful and humorous reading of a three-fold generation gap set to the background of the trendy Scottsdale area of high-rise condos and retirement meccas." Books of the Southwest
Don Chambers is a dogged realtor in love. When fellow realtor Jenny Staley says she can't leave her ninety-one-year-old rifle-toting granny and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Don invites them all to move into his nearby Scottsdale condo. But Grandma Windy won't budge. Both these wannabe lovers are middle-aged, divorced adults, and there is no reason they can't consummate their passion. They are on the verge of just that sexual act when the phone call comes in from Don's 83-year-old father. Harry has just broken his hip and Don must transport him from Michigan to Don's Arizona home. When eventually the stingy old codger moves out of Don's condo and Don and Jenny are once more alone, who should arrive but Don's son Ron, a recent college dropout with a pet rabbit and a tank of oxygen to which he turns when life becomes too stressful, as it so often does.
Complications multiply, and through it all the hapless pair of wannabe lovers stumble aong, their eyes on a simple goal --marriage and release from the demands of being the filling in a generational sandwich of older parents and younger children. What nuttiness transpires in this true-to-life melodrama spiced by this famous author's dry wit, the journey is a wonderfully enjoyable one for the reader.
Pinch Me is a comedy of good manners and bad relations, reflected by a quote from a noted behavorial scientist in a New York Times article on how increased lifespans are changing family life. "I estimate that half the 35-year-olds today will have a dependent parent alive for at least 20 years before that parent dies," said gerontologist Vern Bengtson. "Having aging and dependent parents at the same time as caring for your own children and grandchildren will be the major domestic crisis for the 21st century."
Pinch Me should definitely be made into a low-budget contemporary comic romance, for it reads like an American version of the surprise British hit, Four Weddings and a Funeral, although in this case the comic emphasis is on the funerals! Certainly all the generational elements are in this funny tale for a spin-off TV situation comedy as well.
Reviews --
"42-year-old Don Chambers and his betrothed, 38-year-old Jenny Staley, are beginning to think they might never get married. Life has gotten in the way -- first, in the form of Jenny's 91-year-old grandmother, Windy Coon, and next, in the form of Don's 83-year-old father, Harry. To top it off, their teenaged children from previous marriages have fallen in love with each other, and the daughter is pregnant (which means their children are having sex, even though Don and Jenny haven't quite gotten around ot it). Their engagement from hell consists of medicines, blasting television sets, raging hormones, pitiful real estate sales, and impending bankruptcy. And every time they think it can't get any worse, of course it does. Sounds depressing, but the late Swarthout's playful writing style and go-with-the-flow philosophy makes this novel a quick and delicious read. Its humor heals us while its frankness about old, age, death,money, and life's complications wakes us up." Kathryn Broderick, Booklist
"Delightful and humorous reading of a three-fold generation gap set to the background of the trendy Scottsdale area of high-rise condos and retirement meccas." Books of the Southwest
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly:
Episodes straight out of a TV sitcom characterize this banal romantic comedy by the late (1918-1992) Swarthout (Where the Boys Are). Don Chambers and Jenny Staley, both divorced, are ready to marry one another-but these Scottsdale, Ariz., realtors have no inkling of the impending events that will turn their romance into farce and give new meaning to the term "extended family." Jenny's feisty 91-year-old grandmother takes an instant dislike to Don and refuses to decamp Jenny's condo for a nursing home. Meanwhile, Don's father, Harry, sliding perceptibly into senility, decides to live with Don, while Don's son, Ron, drops out of college and returns home with a trained rabbit at his side; further complications arise when Ron falls for Jenny's 18-year-old daughter. Though striving for a light effect, Swarthout weaves only a sad tangle of humorless events. Harry, irascible and mean, plows into a barber shop;, Granny waves a shotgun at Don; and assorted ailments of the elderly, including diabetes and heart disease, fail to generate a smile. Will Don and Jenny ever wed? After this torturous and strained series of escapades, it's hard to care.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist:
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Forty-two-year-old Don Chambers and his betrothed, 38-year-old Jenny Staley, are beginning to think they might never get married. Life has gotten in the way--first, in the form of Jenny's 91-year-old grandmother, Windy Coon, and next, in the form of Don's 83-year-old father, Harry. To top it off, their teenage children from previous marriages have fallen in love with each other, and the daughter is pregnant (which means their children are having sex, even though Don and Jenny haven't quite gotten around to it). Their engagement from hell consists of medicines, blasting television sets, raging hormones, pitiful real estate sales, and impending bankruptcy. And every time they think it can't get any worse, of course it does. Sounds depressing, but the late Swarthout's playful writing style and go-with-the-flow philosophy make this novel a quick and delicious read. Its humor heals us while its frankness about old age, death, money, and life's complications wakes us up. Kathryn Broderick
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherG K Hall & Co
- Publication date1995
- ISBN 10 078381416X
- ISBN 13 9780783814162
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages309
- Rating
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Pinch Me, I Must Be Dreaming
Published by
G.K. Hall & Co. Thorndike, ME
(1995)
ISBN 10: 078381416X
ISBN 13: 9780783814162
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Soft cover
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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Large Print Edition. VG-. 309 pages. Trade paperback. Light wear. ISBN:0-7838-1416-X. Seller Inventory # 025996
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