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Wrack And Ruin (2008)

by Don Lee(Favorite Author)

3.44 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0393062325 (ISBN13: 9780393062328)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

review 1: You think it's going to be all about two estranged brothers and a land conflict, but its focus is really on art, expertise, and the burden of celebrity. Lyndon Song, a middle aged Asian-American man, abandoned his (very) successful art career in New York. Now he is a principled Brussels sprouts farmer in California who has a conflict with a big-time developer, strange friends with whom he bartends on the side, and weed plants on his land. The tone of this book centers on the comical (a collection of kitschy bric-a-brac rains down from a bar ceiling on people at the height of a climax scene), and the story encompasses a great deal of events you don't normally associate with a small-town farmer's life. Getting roundhouse-kicked by a former Hong Kong movie starlet, for instan... morece. And from the massage scene at the very beginning on, the novel tosses its characters about with a stark physicality.While there's clearly a great deal of thought and research behind the topics of farming, California land use policies, and Buddhism, the novel has its greatest force, as I've said, when it discusses the business of art through the lens of Song's experience. His experience at the point where art, capitalism, and racism collides has left a mark, and it's convincing, moving. The reason I give it 4 and not 5 stars is because the ending really races to tie a lot of loose ends together really quickly. Some characters are a bit extraneous (Hana) and others are too convenient (the ice cream shop teens, Sunny the pot dealer). It's a really fast read, with nary a dull moment.
review 2: This is a light-hearted book that doesn't take itself seriously - in a good way. It's definitely more plot-driven than character-driven but it was fun to read. Having once worked as a newspaper reporter in northern Delaware, where developers were snatching up any farms they could lay their hands on to turn them into subdivisions and make a tidy profit, I knew a few stubborn residents who stood in their way whenever they could, and that aspect of this book rang true. less

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