The Premise Sounded Interesting

The four most dangerous words for an avid reader.

My wife and I both love books. We’ve been avid readers since we were little, and I suppose it was a natural thing that we’d somehow find each other, get married, and stay married while maintaining several different bookshelves these past (almost) fifty years. We like browsing in bookstores, but we absolutely love used book sales, because they combine our two favorite activities—reading and saving money.

Like many bookaholics, we already own more books than we will ever read, even if we live to be 123 (my personal target, and don’t laugh—I took one of those longevity tests a while back when I was in worse shape than I am now and my life expectancy then was 96). This has been true for a long, long time, and even though we’re now retired, the piles do not lessen. Mona has a list (of course she does) of classics she tries to find at those sales, and I think nothing of spending a buck or two for potential novels that, once I inspect the cover and read the description, show promise.

Even though Mona and I are very much alike, especially when it comes to literary pursuits, there is one major difference: If she is reading a book that she finds uninteresting (or downright boring), she will nevertheless plow on with the hopes that “it might get better.” I, on the other hand, will shitcan something that drags and/or doesn’t live up to that promise I saw when I shelled out my George Washingtons.

When I do this, she’ll ask me why I gave up, and of course, I respond with those dreaded four words:

“The premise sounded interesting.”

Well, it DID.

Stop for a moment and consider which camp you’re in: Do you read it all, regardless? Or do you only give the author to page 100 (or less) to prove themselves before moving on? You can comment below if you’d like.

For the rest of this post, I wanted to talk about my last two reads. Spoiler alert (of sorts): Both were duds.

This clown, who, like the books I am about to discuss, is not funny, but the painting was done by Red Skelton, who was.

I completed Tim Conway’s What’s So Funny, a ghostwritten autobiography. I enjoyed him as a performer, most specifically on the McHale’s Navy sitcom and Carol Burnett’s program. His interaction with Harvey Korman is legendary, as is his ability to ad-lib (he would have been a great guest star on Who’s Line Is It, Anyway). While Conway was a very funny man, his book was not. There were a couple of funny stories, but even those were of the “you had to be there” variety AND WE WEREN’T THERE. The writing was amateurish (even with being ghostwritten), and it was merely a litany of “I did this, and then I remember that, and oh, these other things…boy, what a time!”

I got all the way through it because we were considering sending it to Mona’s mother (because it was large print) and she asked me to read it first “just to be sure it’s worth the postage to send.”

Nope.

The other book is the debut novel, Stay Up with Hugo Best by Erin Somers. I’ve read part of it—88 pages, with only twelve pages to go before I dump it, most likely. Too bad, and I hate to say this, but … “The premise sounded interesting.”

A young comedienne loses her job as a writer/assistant when legendary late-night show host Hugo Best retired after twenty-five years. After a staff retirement party, he sees her perform at a comedy club later that evening and invites her to stay at his mansion in Greenwich for the long Memorial Day weekend. “No funny business,” he insists.

Keep that “no funny business” idea close to mind.

Even though this had great advance praise from Carl Hiassen (“so many funny one-liners”), Weike Wang (“funny, sharp, and very fun), and Gary Shteyngart (“…so incredibly funny”), it failed to tickle my funny bone. It’s just not funny. Not at all, not one little bit. I suspect that if I ever get a smartphone with internet capabilities, it will be so I can take it with me to book sales and look at the ratings and reviews for books I pick up and consider because “the premise sounded interesting.”

The Amazon rating for Stay Up with Hugo Best is a dismal 3.3 (only 2.9 on Goodreads and yes, I know they’re owned by Amazon, thanks). Even those who praise the book only give it three stars, and it’s the comments on the 1-and 2-star reviews that really hit home.

One of those reads that you think might be going somewhere interesting...but actually gets pretty dismal.

…reviews calling it hilarious had me fearing I was devoid of any sense of humor. To me, it was the opposite of hilarious, being depressing, poignant, and full of melancholy…

I found it to be a rather annoying story about a bunch of annoying people…I was glad that it was only 265 pages long.

Yikes. Also, spot on. To me, the main characters are somewhat plastic, and secondary characters are asshole-ish. There’s just not a lot to like about anyone, which might be the point, but there’s not a lot that’s funny about plastic people meeting up with assholes. Not so far, anyway, and I don’t expect it to improve. Or get funny.

What these two books have done is make me reexamine my own writing, especially since I’ve been trying to invoke more humor into my novels. We’ll talk about that next time.

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