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Publisher:
St. Martins Griffin |
Release
Date: Sept. 2004 |
ISBN:
0312323689 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Paperback |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Contemporary / humor |
Reviewed:
2004 |
Reviewer:
Janet Elaine Smith |
Reviewer
Notes:
Janet Elaine Smith is a well-known magazine writer for 12 magazines
(both print and ezines), the author of 12 published novels,
one non-fiction book and has gained a growing audience for her
marketing expertise. |
Copyright
MyShelf.com |
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Millard Fillmore, Mon Amour
By John Blumenthal
I
went into this book, Millard Fillmore, Mon Amour, fully expecting
it to be a historical novel about one of my ancestors. Was I in
for a surprise! There is nothing historical about this book, but
hysterical, well, it was definitely that. Even an old sobersides
would have to break out into an occasional hee-haw while reading
about the misadventures of Plato G. Fussell.
Plato
(who was called not-so-affectionately “Fussell”) by
most of his acquaintances. I can’t say he honestly had any
friends, other than perhaps his one contact who helped him gain
information on his long-time hero, Millard Fillmore. The closest
thing he had to a friend other than that was Dr. Wang, his psychiatrist,
who was nearly as crazy as Plato himself.
We
first get an insight into Plato as a child, when all the kids in
kindergarten teased him and called him “Play-Doh.” It
was there that he met and fell in love with Daisy Crane. His parents
are quite another issue. His mother is a hypochondriac, but it is
his father who ends up in the hospital, and eventually dead. Plato
is not at all prepared for the shock he gets at the reading of his
father’s will when he discovers that the father he thought
he knew was a complete stranger to him. This leads his mother to
seek a “new life of her own,” which sends Plato into
near convulsions.
Plato
is a delight, who often speaks in spoonerisms and at other times
he says words in complete reverse, announcing that he is Otalp Llessuf.
His obsessions bring him in contact with a woman, Emily Thorndyke,
who is as weird as Plato. It is not long, however, until he discovers
that Emily has a secret of her own, which he confesses to Dr. Wang,
and soon a triangle has formed that seems doomed to destroy all
of them.
As
the book winds down, the twists and turns are easily equal to those
on any hairpin road through the Rocky Mountains. This book will
have you in stitches from start to finish. Highly recommended!
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