My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist

by Mark Leyner

Book Overview

This book is fiction the brain can dance to, by one of the funniest and most subversive young writers of this or any other decade.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517575795
• ISBN13: 9780517575796
• Release Date: March 1990
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA)
• Length: 154 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

hilarious

Very very clever and full of anarchic wordplay. Enjoying the absurdity of the wordplay is enough to give these stories meaning. despite a previous reviewer saying it was infantile - it think in this era of sappy books designed to enlighten people, which hardly seems to be saving society as we know it - a dose of weird and crazed thinking may do more to impact the way people think than a straightforward native with a "moral." Dig it.

Why no love?

In a world of hate and war, we must take a look back on this book. "My Cousin" was the first book by Leyner I read.And, I still read it. This tome of delightful, poetic anarchy is not for everyone; But, if you can be distracted by the rantings of a stick figure in a Jhonen Vasquez comic, then this should definetly be a treat for you.I recommend "Enter The Squirrel".I say "Ole`!" to this author. (That's a good thing.) And, I recommend this book to everyone I meet, pass by, or steal from.My rating? Two fists up.

Sometimes it's not the plot....

In the hyperkinetic style of writing, one Leyner has been doing for well over a decade now you have to take what happens as a fever dream or the author inviting you into his acid flashback world.Mark Leyner has a gift for prose and uses it along with cultural icons to create smart, if sometimes near-incoherent fiction. I remember reading this to a class of computer music students after class and they were laughing so hard they were near tears. Perhaps it is a love/hate thing but there is no denying Leyner can conjure up some witty situations and absurdist comedy. It isn't that Leyner is a bad writer, rather it is readers expectations that make "My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist" polarizing. Leyner's metaphors are great fun, he does not spend much time with scenic description unless it has significant import to the story. The dialog is crisp and, well weird, but in a droll way. His choices of charaters and their stories are funny and merit re-reading.If you can check the book out try the first page or two. If you find it funny or engrossing you probably won't be let down. If it makes no sense you might as well put the book down as it's not going to get any easier to deal with.To the right minded reader this book is a treasure.

Brain Damage For The Kiddies

Tired of being popular? Want to sharpen your alienation skills? This is the book for you. The weirdos self-help guide and 12 step program. No self-respecting cynic can live without its powers. Guaranteed to contain at least 3 gestalt shifts per book or get your sanity back free.

Refreshingly free of morals.

A tangy blend of sex, violence, and everything you should havelearned in Chem but they wouldn't teach you, My Cousin combinessubjects that were always afraid of each other in a way that makes just enough sense to keep you reading. By the middle of the book, you will be enough in tune with Leyner's message to laugh when Yogi Vithaldis's eye lands in the styrofoam coffee cup. In addition to its taboo subject matter, My Cousin covers the seemingly inconsequential with viscious detail, while easily skimming over anything that might become a plot. The dialog is indiffererent and cynical, indicative of the world where Leyner lives, where phone sex happens on the answering machine and a man is a man is an android. This book paints an exiciting and depressing picture of the future, a time when all the priorities will have changed. My advice to the reader: read twice, once to laugh and ask "why the hell..." and once to see "why" and to put it together. Lynne Plettenberg PS: Makes great quotes to throw off your friends in conversation.