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Shining City (2008)

by Seth Greenland(Favorite Author)

3.46 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1596915048 (ISBN13: 9781596915046)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Bloomsbury USA

review 1: Greenland has a very funny premise here. When a criminal dies, he lives his “dry-cleaning business” to his long estranged brother. This business “opportunity” lands in his brother’s lap at the perfect time. Marcus Ripps, an average Joe, has just found out that the entire toy-manufacturing operation where’s he been a foreman for 15 years is being shipped to China. Without the inheritance from his brother Marcus would have two options – move his wife and 13-year-old son to China to run the plant there or face unemployment. The inherited drycleaning business seems to be a godsend, but Marcus quickly discovers the business is a front for a prostitution ring. Faced with limited options, Marcus decides to give being a pimp a try and Greenland milks every drop of hu... moremor there is to be found as this average Joe goes about trying to learn and manage the business – everything from interviewing girls to discover which perversions they’re willing to tolerate all the way to deciding what to do with the body of a John who dies in flagrante delicto. Marcus is determined to be a good guy pimp so he even establishes a 401(k) and health plan for his working girls. Originally, he tries to keep the business a secret from his wife, who has her own dying dress boutique, when she discovers what he’s up to, she helps take the business upscale and make better use of the internet. It’s all very funny and satirical. There are a number of surprise twists along the way. If you’re not squeamish about reading the details of all the various perversities everyday folk can get into, you’ll thoroughly enjoy it. What makes the book so unique and fun to read is that it doesn’t portray the seedy underbelly of a criminal activity, but instead stays grounded in the mundane realities of this ordinary guy’s attempts to run an illegal operation while trying to pay his mortgage and save up enough to throw his son a decent bar mitzvah. There are also enough surprise twists thrown in to keep it a page turner. I enjoyed it so much I’m going to read Greenland’s other novels.
review 2: I'm always in the market for a funny book, simply because there aren't that many good ones. So, after hearing lots of buzz about how hilarious this book was, I took it along on vacation. The story revolves around an mild-mannered Los Angeles factory manager in his late 30s named Marcus. When his childhood friend and current employer pulls the rug out from under Marcus's middle-class lifestyle by relocating his job to China, Marcus is left twisting in the wind as the family's debts start to pile up. Fortunately, his brother dies.It seems that this brother was the polar opposite of Marcus -- a hellraiser with outsize appetites and a penchant for shady shenanigans. As a final dark joke from beyond the grave, the brother has left Marcus the titular dry cleaning company -- which is a front for his prostitution ring. Desperate to save his family from financial and social ruin, it doesn't take Marcus long to rationalize himself into the pimpin' game. The rest of the book plays out somewhat predictably, as Marcus struggles to keep his new job a secret from his wife and son, all while learning the tricks of his new trade. There are the inevitable over-the-top characters, some menace from a competitor, and several reversals of fortune.Greenland writes well, with very funny lines scattered throughout, and story is well-paced, but it lacks a certain edge. Even when the story is supposed to turn dark, it never quite manages to move beyond light gray. There's a device throughout whereby Marcus tries to contextualize his situation by drawing on snippets from his undergraduate philosophy studies, but these fall kind of flat. Finally, it's hard to imagine any reader failing to figure out well in advance just how Marcus is going to be able to turn it all into a Hollywood ending -- the clues are too obvious. Don't get me wrong, it's all perfectly entertaining fluff -- but nothing that amazing.Note: Readers of a certain age may recall another mild-mannered fictional character who is forced by circumstances into the pimping life -- Doctor Detroit. less

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