I first found out about Rosalyn Drexler through the BURIED BOOK CLUB where I read about her career as wrestler, artist, experimental writer, and general eccentric. I was intrigued. I mean, how could I not be?

Unfortunately, the writing in this book did not excite me nearly as much as the idea of the author's colorful personality. It's an epistolary novel written by a woman who could possibly be Drexler herself (she mentions certain things that line up with the real-life Drexler) to her supposedly dead brother. This MS was in turn presented by some other narrator who only appears in the forward and the afterword, explaining that she met the author of the letters briefly before the author died of food poisoning.

All pretty exciting, on the surface, and with made up blurbs on the back like this one from Joyce Carol Oates "I've never read anything like this ... in fact I haven't read this."

The problem is that the letters themselves read like trivial musings, trite thoughts, and cheap jokes. And the voice is flippant throughout, which I couldn't understand. There is no attempt at developing any of the characters. Nowhere does she give me any reason to care who this person or her brother is. Even that is forgivable if the language was interesting, or the thoughts were enlightening. But no.

There's a running joke about a piece of shit who gets flushed down the toilet and then tries to pursue a life as an entertainer. HAHAHA, umm . . . no. I "get" it, but that is something I might have found funny 20 years ago, or maybe found it chuckle-able if it were only a one-liner. But this was a drawn-out joke over many pages!

Was it experimental? Only if you count the fact that it did not have any traditional plot (or any plot at all). But other than that and the framing device which itself isn't that original, I would not call it experimental.

I can't say this book was atrocious either. The problem is that it's completely mediocre, so mediocre that in the middle of exhuming it, I almost fell into the grave myself due to boredom.

PS - Lest I seem overly damning in my judgement, I wanted to add here that the author was 81 years old when this was published! I would be lucky if I could think in full sentences by that age. So no, no damning of the author, just of this book. I will probably check out her earlier books, eventually. ( )