The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0738804010/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/102-1514635-5264950?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155

by Daniel Pinkwater

I'm not sure how this book ended up in my stack. I think Nancy put it there. I read Chicago Days Hoboken Nights (a collection of odd short stories) some number of years ago, but for the most part Pinkwater sticks to children's books. Some of you might say that I am still a child and those books may still be pertinent to me. You may be right.

In this book, Pinkwater sticks to what he knows best: fat people, food, and ludicrous humor. The story centers around book editor Milton Cramer who has awaken to find himself dead and in a strange 'fat heaven'. In case you didn't know, heaven is segregated into different sections and Milton is consigned to the heaven for fat people. The story then retraces the journey that led to Milton's current situation. Along the way Pinkwater introduces us to more oversize characters like aspiring writer and deli hot dog consultant Milo Levi-Nathan, ever-eating psychotherapist Dr. Alan Plotkin, and the porcine diet guru Francis Plumly who has really let himself go. Along the way there are many other characters who cross Milton's path. Most of them seem to be just as corpulent as the main characters. To me though, there were too many characters. I love the Vonnegut-esque writing style reminiscent of the wild abandon of Breakfast of Champions, but the sheer enormity of characters is sometimes daunting to keep up with. At the end of the story they do all manage to tie up in a nice neat little bow, but until then it was tough for me to understand how that was going to happen.

That's really my only issue with the book. At times it is hilariously laugh out loud funny. (That's laugh out loud funny, not LOL funny.) The book premises written by Milo and the therapy session with Dr. Plotkin, who by the way holds his session in a restaurant that seems to serve everything, were the funniest to me. Don't let the fat jokes fool you. Just like Vonnegut, the book does seem to reach for deeper meaning, but to me it fell a little short of that goal. Overall though it's a nice little book to read, especially if you need a big fat belly laugh.