There’s a precious handful of writers whom I reread every few years just to remind myself what great writing is. Hemingway isn’t one of them.
Several recent releases from my favorite authors have recently been released, but I haven’t bought them because they’re kind of pricey, and things are a little tight just now. But I couldn’t resist David Handler’s latest Stewart Hoag book, The Man Who Wasn’t All There.
As with all the recent books in the series, this one isn’t contemporary, but is shoehorned into Stewart’s past. The Man Who Wasn’t All There is set in the 1990s. Hoagy has finally overcome the writer’s block that metastasized into drugs, divorce and destitution for him, and is clean again, working at last on his next novel. Even better, he has reconciled with his ex-wife, actress Merilee Nash. He’s been living in her New York apartment, but he’s just moved out to her Connecticut farm to winterize the house when he isn’t creating, while she’s in Budapest shooting a movie with Mel Gibson.
It’s great until he’s approached one day by a tubby little man with serious BO, who’s cobbled together something resembling a state trooper’s uniform, and carries a pistol. This delusional man is looking for Merilee and tries to push Hoagy around. Hoagy and his faithful basset hound, Lulu, run him off.
Hoagy then calls the police, and soon a fleet of official vehicles show up. Turns out the weird little man is Austin Talmadge, the second richest man in Connecticut. He’s delusional, and sometimes goes off his medications and harasses people. This is of concern to his brother Michael, the richest man in Connecticut, a recluse who’s close to the governor. The police are soon headed out to bring Austin in again, but it goes wrong, and Hoagy (along with Lulu) gets kidnapped by the loony billionaire. Much violence and mystery follows, until Hoagy figures it all out.
The Man Who Wasn’t All There went down very smoothly. The Stewart Hoag books are consistently fun to read. Hoagy is a bit of a snob and a dilettante, but possesses just enough humor and self-awareness to make his company amusing. Occasionally he hints at opinions I don’t care for, but (as you see above) he sometimes gets it right. He disses Hemingway in this one, and that always pleases me.
Recommended.