THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM

1990

cover gif
Click here to check for discounts and to
browse this and other books at the Howling Fantods bookstore

The mysterious disappearance of her great-grandmother and twenty-five other elderly inmates from a Shaker Heights nursing home has left Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman emotionally stranded on the edge of the Great Ohio Desert. But that is simply one problem of many for the hapless switchboard operator-seriously compounded by her ongoing affair with boss Rick Vigorous; the impending TV stardom of her talking cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler; and similar small catastrophes that threaten to elavate Lenore's search for love and self-determination to new heights of spasmodic weirdness. Fiercely original, bracingly funny, and deeply mysterious, THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM is the brilliant precursor to David Foster Wallace's celebrated second novel, INFINITE JEST.

1993 Avon Paperback

MY VIEW

A fantastic first novel! Quirky, surreal, stories about stories within the story (check out Dennis Potter's (title when I remember it!) if you like this kind of stuff!) and a lot of the DFW humour I just can't seem to get enough of (Missing old people, crazy religious TV, a man who plans to grow to infinite size and a complete nutter of a psychiatrist to name just a few). From the novel's first line I could feel something special developing, "Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden." If you like DFW, I strongly recommend that you read his first novel.

Some Links on the web:

Michiko Kakutani's review of "The Broom of the System" (12.27.86) from The New York Times
Caryn James's review of "The Broom of the System" (3.1.87) from The New York Times Book Review

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page