Review by Booklist Review
Those who cheered Foos' exuberant, surreal debut, Ex Utero (1995), have anticipated its successor with relish. That book, however, is dark and brooding, though still rather surreal. Frances, 18, is grieving the recent loss of her wildman, 400-pound sculptor father, whom she (a sculptor, too, though closeted) idolized. Her mother, long disgusted by the art madness her mate foisted on the household, takes up bowling, meets the wealthy owner of a string of bowling alleys, and relocates Frances and their live-in companion-buddy, Bessie, to Florida. Seeing the Sea World walruses mating jars Frances' psyche and unleashes the turbulent demands of art. She sequesters herself in her room, writing walrus poetry and spurning baths and her new stepfather's salads. Eventually, herds of walruses pursue her, blocking traffic and causing problems for the police when Frances and Bessie flee back home, where her father had lived with his clay and kiln in the basement. A thought-provoking concoction, perhaps too murky for some. --Whitney Scott
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
"If I'd known walruses were waiting for me on some back road in Florida, I might have taken more of an interest in bowling." So begins Foos's satirical, fantastical second novel, which like her first, the well-received Ex Utero, delights in stretching metaphors into farcical realities. In this case bowling embodies life without art, pizza equals lust and the walrus becomes the artistic muse of Frances Fisk, a young woman who has taken to wearing her panties two sizes too small as a kind of hair shirt so she can never forget the pain she has suffered. After her slovenly father, a sculptor considered a genius by the art world, dies while attempting to take a bath, Frances is haunted by her memories of his madness. Meanwhile, her mother takes up bowling and marries "the Kingpin," a man who owns a chain of alleys across the country. Frances's artistic and sexual awakening (via a dough-covered pizza maker) are plaintively narrated in the first person, taking a matter-of-fact approach to the surreal. At times, the transformation of symbols into flesh-and-blood occurrence is awkward. Still, Foos does illustrate the destructive and restorative nature of the artistic temperament. Her unique vision and bravado create a highly original novel. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This second novel by Foos (following Ex Utero, LJ 3/15/95) is an amusing satire of artists and their critics as well as an absurdist tale of a teenage girl dealing with her sexuality. Aspiring artist Frances is the daughter of the late Morton Fisk, renowned for his "Men with Chainsaws" sculptures. Toward the end of his life, Fisk became terrorized by his own sculptures and retreated to the basement, wearing only his underpants and eating all the time. When he died, Frances's mother renounced art and married a bowling-alley tycoon. Frances is sexually attracted only to men whose underpants are visible through their clothes, and she emulates her father by hiding in her room in fear that the walruses at the local aquarium are after her. Foos is most successful in her satire of the art scene, including pretentious, critical articles about Fisk's work and the media frenzy when he occasionally leaves his house. But she falters when she turns Frances's understandable obsession with her father and confusion about sex into a bizarre, hallucinogenic nightmare. Recommended for larger collections with adventurous readers.‘Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A mad tale of a mad genius, by a young author (Ex Utero, 1995) who may be a genius herself. The coming-of-age story has a long tradition behind it and is usually pretty easy to spot. Foos constructs hers with all the traditional materials--adolescent confusion, anger, family conflict, fear--built upon a foundation of allegory rather than realism, and the effect is as unsettling as a Tudor mansion erected in the desert. Frances Fisk, our narrator, is only 18, but she's already starting to come apart at the seams. Her late father, an artist who gained attention for his sculptures of men with chainsaws, became increasingly deranged and reclusive, dying of dehydration in a bathtub. Frances herself, with the passage of time, has grown more and more obsessed with her father and his art. Meanwhile, her mother Arlene, now married to professional bowler Stanley Boardman (``the Kingpin''), is so determined that her daughter not follow in her father's footsteps that she forbids Frances to work on her shark sculptures and insists that she take up bowling instead. ``If I had known walruses were waiting for me on some back road in Florida,'' Frances complains, ``I might have taken more of an interest in bowling.'' Why? Because the walruses Frances sees mating at the aquarium become a new obsession, one that ultimately saves her from madness and brings her to the realization that she's a poet rather than a sculptor. By the time this recognition transpires, the reader has been immersed in Frances's world long enough to understand, or at least accept, the odd logic that prevails in it, and the real strength of the narrative is the clarity with which it translates private griefs and misapprehensions into coherent symbols capable of advancing an astonishingly original story. Brilliant, fresh, and remarkable: one of the few works of recent years in which brave originality is sustained by genuine skill.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
