Great American Plain

by Gary Sernovitz

Book Overview

Edward Steinke, with all the ambition and steadfastness of his 24 years, believes in only one thing: Perfect Execution. This is the sales technique from the 1954 masterpiece Classic Sales: Theory and Technique , Ed's secular New Testament. Unfortunately for Ed, he is selling the Brackett 180-X piano organ at the South Exhibition Hall of a large Midwestern state fair, and Perfect Execution is proving perfectly useless. Barry Steinke, Ed's sullen, cocky...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805067779
• ISBN13: 9780805067774
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Great American Plain is the Great American Novel

In a time when most novels read like hard-bound screenplays, Sernovitz has written a masterpiece that stands out as original, hysterically funny, and insightful.

A well written and absorbing tale

He studied everything he could find from the wisdom of long forgotten sales mogul Alfred Orditz in an attempt to make a living. However, twenty-four years old Ed Steinke fails to sell any Bracket 180-X piano organs at the State Fair in spite of his efforts to learn. Barry, his assistant and younger brother hates the gig and wonders how he stepped away from his music group The Hotels to land in this great void. He no longer expects an answer to his inquiry of "And Then?" because like Ed, he sees no future. However, the gloom and doom of the present vanishes when store clerk Leila Genet wanders the floor of the Great Exhibition Hall. Leila is extremely shy and avoids anyone saying more than hello to her. Still Ed and Barry fall for her in different but big ways. Yet all three have entrenched demons devouring their individual souls so that any relationship seems slim and a triangle impossible.GREAT AMERICAN PLAIN is an intriguing look at one day in the lives of three apparent losers whose inabilities to communicate costs them happiness and contentment. Overall the story line moves forward at a reasonable pace, but occasionally slows down for the audience to better understand the key players (through flashbacks and parallel interactions). Gary Sernovitz encourages the reader to ponder the fumbling of micro-miscommunication in the simplest social settings as opposed to the world stage in this well written thinking person's novel.Harriet Klausner

Make a movie!

This is a completely unassuming novel that starts off in recognizable First Novel Country (the overwriting, the portentousness, the effort) and winds up as one of the most insightful, charming, and lovely books about the Midwest I've ever read. It reminded me a bit of Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker and a little of Martin Amis and a little bit of David Foster Wallace. Sernovitz is terrifically funny (one of his more uptight characters "worships at the First Church of the Holy Necktie") and he handles character startlingly well for such a young guy, though I am only assuming he is young. This book is a real find in today's climate, and should be loved by everyone Midwestern or who feels Midwestern. Once you read this, you'll know what that means. Messrs Joel and Ethan Coen, please buy the rights to this--it's so clearly your next film.

Brings back memories

This book is great! It brought back so many memories of growing up and the years right after college. It's incredibly well written -- the word choices are stunning and he paints such vivid pictures. Best of all, it's funny, funny funny.

A flashback to my youth!

This book is to literature what Slackers and Clerks was to movies. Someone finally has put into words what it's like to be a normal teenager with normal teenage problems. I felt like it was written about me and my brother. Funny, literate, a great read.