THE KARMA CAPER
In the bestselling style and hilarity of Elmore Leonard and Kurt Vonnegut – Noel Anenberg has written a Hollywood comic masterpiece.
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THE KARMA CAPER stars Walter Shore, naïve twin brother and business partner to Barry Shore, a “B” list Hollywood movie producer and shyster. An Armenian crime family invests $10 million into a Barry Shore Productions film. When the film never materializes the Armenians call the loan. When Barry doesn’t pay the Armenian’s juice men pickup unsuspecting Walter as he walks out of a dry cleaners on Larchmont. They drive Walter to a Glendale sausage factory and feed him alive into the meat grinder. Walter goes to heaven and comes back to Barry in the body of a Chihuahua who has to gather good karma to get his former life back.
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Frederick Delano Rubenstein (F.D.R.) is a hapless counterman at his father’s delicatessen across Melrose Avenue from Shore Productions. F.D.R.’s secret passion is to become a Hollywood screenwriter. When his father, the King of Corn Beef dies, FDR sells the deli, moves to Malibu, and agrees to write a script he once pitched to Barry Shore. There’s a twist. Barry Shore uses the script to borrow from Hasidic money launderers. Now, F.D.R. is the fall guy!
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Barry convinces Walter that Walter will accrue good karma by shepherding F.D.R through the screenwriting process while he, Barry, stalls the Armenians and gets major studio backing. All chaos breaks loose as one scam and scheme follow Barry Shore, Walter his Chihuahua brother, F.D.R., the Armenians, the Hasidic money launderers, and the rest of us.
The reader will laugh at this farcical novel of love, life, and larceny.
Definitely a 9 ½ on the Rotten Corn Beef Scale.
My Books
Anenberg beautifully and convincingly portrays the contradictions of American society during the period, and he ably juxtaposes Eaton's mission to save her son with stories of the past--showing a world which, despite many technological advances, has made few discernible social advances….
In this historical novel set shortly after World War II, an African-American woman seeks to save her injured son amid racial tension and strife.
Phosie Mae Eaton leaves her home in Galveston, Texas, to visit her son, Will, a wounded U.S. Marine fresh from combat on Iwo Jima, now in a Los Angeles military hospital. Even as a Southern black woman familiar with the evils of segregated society, Eaton is stunned to discover that racial rules and regulations extend to war heroes. She finds that they are kept in a separate house from the white soldiers, banned from receiving whites' blood transfusions and aren't allowed basic amenities, such as coffee, from the Red Cross. She finds Will balancing precariously between life and death, as the gunshot wound in his stomach has festered and become infected. Doctors usually treat such infections with an easy injection of penicillin, but the hospital has no 'colored' needles due to their treatment of venereal-disease cases (which have skyrocketed due to postwar celebrations). Eaton strives to help her son in any way possible and, in order to stay in California, takes a job as a maid for a wealthy and eccentric Jewish family
THE DOG BOY
The Dog Boy is an emotionally entertaining novel set just at the end of WWII in Los Angeles. It follows Phosie, an African-American maid who moves to Los Angeles to be with her son who was wounded in the war and is in the hospital recovering. She works as a maid for Lucille Goldberg as a means to making a living during her son’s recovery and encounters Jakie, Lucille’s brother, and Lucille’s son who believes he is a dog and acts and lives like one at all times, thus the title of the book. Racial issues are at the forefront of this book as care for Phosie’s son is not what it should be due to his color. Also explored quite beautifully is the relationship Phosie has with Lucille to whom she becomes somewhat of a mother figure, albeit one who knows her place. The key relationship is between Phosie and the little dog boy to whom she also becomes somewhat of a mother as well. The author does a brilliant job of exploring the life of an African-American maid during this time in post war Los Angeles without making it the main point of the book. Instead, the focal point is Phosie herself, a strong woman who only wants the best for her son. I really enjoyed this book and found myself completely taken in by the story. I read this on my ereader which formatted it to digital form perfectly and the cover was intriguing as to how it correlated to the book title. This is definitely worth the read.