This Book Will Save Your Life

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Richard has been celibate for quite some time until he meets Sydney. What does it mean to try to start a new relationship after having been single for so long? Richard goes outside, stands with his feet on the edge of the hole—it is definitely deeper than it was two hours ago. The horse looks up.

I started this book in the A.M., finished in the P.M., and couldn’t sleep all night. Ms. Homes just gets better and better.”—Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends This one made me stop and think. It made me seriously reflect about decisions I have made in my life and the impact my actions had on others, such as my kids. Sure, we sometimes think about these things, BUT this book made me REALLY think about it, wallow in it, really think of the consequences of my actions. To be sad in the moment. To be uncomfortable. To not like myself The larger problem, though, is the dullness of Homes's satiric edge. She portrays Los Angeles as a city collapsing -- morally and physically -- but it's Apocalypse Lite. Anyone who wants to make fun of bizarre diets, ludicrous luxuries, New Age fads and crippling exercise regimes has to stay ahead of the ever-escalating real-world grotesqueries of modern life. If you're as isolated and disconnected as Richard, you'll find the details here surprising and hilarious, but otherwise, it's yesterday's news. There are some heavy themes here – such as the relationship Richard has with his son Ben. One or two of those scenes are full on drama and very intense. The pent-up pain and resentment of a child who Richard left when he ran off from his ex-wife (Ben's mum), so many years ago. It's been all over the TV," Richard says, leading him in, pointing to the screen. "You looked pretty good in that helicopter."Americans try on the spiritual life of others like they don’t have any of their own,” Anhil says. How has the importance of the spiritual life changed over time in America? The only things I believe in are God and a clean house. Are you going to put your headphones on or do I have to talk to you all day." Cecelia takes her can of Endust to the window and looks out. "Not only is there a hole," Cecelia says. "There's a horse in the hole."

I loved this book. I loved every single character in this book. From Anhil, the existentialist donut man, to the overworked ex-wife (she who shall not be named, I guess), to misguided, sweet Ben, to the misunderstood, sweet Nic, to Cynthia---who I can so relate to---but most of all, I love Richard. This book left me cold. Not indifferent-this-is-failing-to-evoke-a-reaction cold. The good kind of cold. The this-feels-eerily-close-to-reality cold. This is the start of a sequence of events that make Raiders of the Lost Ark look like a walk through your local library. Wonderfully skewed stories . . . sharp, funny, and playful . . . Homes is confident and consistent in her odd departures from life as we know it, sustaining credibility by getting details right. A fully engaged imagination [is] at work—and play.”—Amy Hempel, The Los Angeles Times There is a horse in the center of the hole, eating grass. Again, he thinks of the signs on the telephone poles at the bottom of the hill. "UFO? You Are Not Alone."While the girl is on the phone, the movie star talks to Richard. "I don't trust this hole. We need a helicopter to lift the horse out of the hole. How does that sound?" The characters in this book are quirky and utterly hilarious. Set in LA, the people tend to be blunt, if not outright rude. Richard is such a likeable character, despite the fact it’s pretty clear he’s been behaving like a bit of an ass for going on ten years. But the important point is that we can see why. It makes sense, and he’s not behaving that way because he is an asshole, but because he’s afraid, and miserable and he doesn’t know what else to do. In some respects, Richard reminded me of my father. He wants to do well, but he just can’t quite figure out what it is that other people might need. Fascinating . . . I consumed these stories exactly like a spectator of a good fight or a neighbor peering through the hedge, and I felt sharply observed in turn. Homes, with her fierce sharp wit, reveals her characters’ deep flaws. No one gets away with anything and the spectacle is delightful.” —Molly Livingston, The Paris Review Daily

But holy cow. This book was the most comforting thing I’ve read in a really long time. I absolutely loved each character and couldn’t of been happier to see their growth. I would be done reading for the day and my heart would ache because I missed the characters so much. I think this brave story of a lost man’s reconnection with the world could become a generational touchstone, like Catch-22, The Monkey Wrench Gang, or The Catcher in the Rye. . . . And hey, maybe it will save somebody’s life.”–Stephen KingI liked it and it kept my interest for a good while, but only because I could almost never imagine what was coming next, certainly not because what came next was in any way organic or a necessary outcome of anything previous. The book seemed to become more frenetic and random as it neared the end, and I got a little impatient with it--I had realized by then that nothing was going to be wrapped up, we'd just keep lurching from event to event--by the time we came to the SOS from the car trunk, I was pretty much done.

Richard and Cynthia are both trying to reclaim their lives. In what ways do they help each other? How are their efforts similar? Who is more successful? A compelling, devastating, and furiously good book written with an honesty few of us would risk.”–Zadie SmithIn the title story, a Holocaust survivor taps into a theme of the collection when he describes the way people hold the history of previous generations inside them. ‘We carry it with us, not just in our grandmother’s silver,’ he says, ‘but in our bodies, the cells of our hearts.’” — Wall Street Journal For every time I started to think this book was just lightly entertaining there would come a scene so real and brutal it would hurt a bit. Broken child-parent relationships. Exes whose scent still lingers. Women sobbing in the produce section of a supermarket. They get in line for the driving ride. You must be at least three years old and so high to go on this ride. These stories are remarkable. They are awesomely well-written. In the sense of arousing fear and wonder in the reader they entertain, but what they principally bring us is a sense of recognition . . . Here are all the things that even today, even in our frank outspoken times, we don’t talk about. We think of them punishingly in sleepless nights.” —Ruth Rendell As startling and riveting as her fiction . . . a lacerating memoir in which the formerly powerless child triumphs with the help of a mighty pen.”– San Francisco Chronicle