I'm trying to make my way through a Friedman novel, Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned. It's about a novelist who, for 7 years, can't write, until he meets a very attractive woman and strange man, probably a con artist team, who suck him into their twisted orbit and provide him with writing fodder.
I'm having trouble getting through the novel. First of all, there's something embarrassing and vaguely incestuous about writer main characters who write/talk for a quarter of the novel about the act--or implications of the act--of writing. Second of all, Friedman, who I remember as amusing, isn't very amusing in this novel. The humor level is low. Third, there doesn't seem to be a plot that I can discern. I want to put this novel down and forget about it. And it's a library book, too, so there's nothing material at stake--no cognitive dissonance to deal with.
But the good girl in me, the dutiful daughter, who started the novel, thinks she needs to finish it.
Why can't that dutiful daughter take over when I need to write something of my own?
I've got a Charlaine Harris Shakespeare novel from the same library haul I could read instead, and I can snack on a Harris novel with the same voracious focus I apply to a bowl of Doritos. Plus, I've got two more of the Sookie Stackhouse novels (which I actually purchased) waiting for me.
And a new semester begins for me tomorrow, which means that this is the last uncluttered reading afternoon left to me for three months. Why am I wasting my time on Kinky?
Decided: Two Birds will be dumped. Damn the good girl and her literary monogamy. I'm tapping into my inner slut.
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