THE GOLDFARB CHRONICLES

A couple weathers the cultural distance between their families and contends with Mexican kidnappers in Smith’s novel.

Aron Goldfarb and Samantha O’Malley make for an unlikely pair: He’s of Jewish ancestry, grew up in Detroit, and has been a stereotypical urbanite his entire life; her family lives in the South and is exemplary of the southern tradition, made up of tough outdoorsman who prefer hunting wildlife to the trappings of metropolitan life. Unfortunately, every character in this dreary comedy is a stale caricature. Aron survives the O’Malley’s largely amiable “interrogations,” though not without some episodes of humiliation—the humor is clearly intended to be of the madcap variety, but every scene is banally formulaic. Aron and Sam wed and struggle to have a baby. A nurse cautions Sam about of one of the rigors of pregnancy in a typical example of the novel’s labored attempts at humor: “During that second trimester you are going to feel so hot and so ready that you are going to want to ride that man like a pump handle – up-down, up-down, up-down until he is dry. Just go get him. Towards the end your organisms might hurt the baby by starting premature contractions, but until then go after him like you were a bear trap.” One couldn’t possibly furnish an adequate summary of this maddeningly meandering book—in the place of a plot is a series of comic set pieces, each as tiresome as the last (Aron takes a trip to west Texas on a hunting expedition with his wife’s brother-in-law, Larry, and they end up getting kidnapped by Mexican gangsters). One must credit the author for packing his novel with dramatic action—there are no pauses in this briskly paced work. However, it is a wearisome affair, absent real characters, a coherent story, or any genuine humor.

A miserably dull assemblage of cliches presented as satire.