Product Description

When the stock market crashes on the Thursday before Easter, you -- an ambitious, although ineffectual and not entirely ethical young broker -- are
convinced you're facing the Weekend from Hell. Before the market reopens on Monday, you're going to have to scramble and scheme to cover your butt, but
there's no way you can anticipate the baffling disappearance of a 300-pound psychic, the fall from grace of a born-again monkey, or the intrusion in your
life of a tattooed stranger intent on blowing your mind and most of your fuses. Over these fateful three days, you will be forced to confront everything from
mysterious African rituals to legendary amphibians, from tarot-card bombshells to street violence, from your own sexuality to outer space. This is, after
all, a Tom Robbins novel -- and the author has never been in finer form.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26294 in Books
• Published on: 1995-11-01
• Released on: 1995-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780553377873
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Robbins's latest tells of a Seattle commodities broker whose life is abruptly changed by a wild weekend with a handful of eccentrics.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Robbins offers a wild and wacky trip featuring, among other things, a stock market crash and various philosophies about meaning and the origins of cultures. Gwen, an endangered stockbroker, is involved with strait-laced Belford and his born-again monkey. When she is attracted to Larry-who has cancer and is currently between trips to Timbuktu-she must choose among the American dream, the Timbuktu alternate, and something else. The book is a whirlwind of mad incidents, semiprofound observations, and an endless supply of great lines. The author of Skinny Legs and All (LJ 3/1/90) has come up with a very funny book that might incite a bit of thinking as well as laughter.
--Robert H. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This is an extraordinarily funny novel. At first it seems gimmicky. Robbins assumes the voice--the entire persona, in fact--of a 29-year-old Filipino woman by the name of Gwen Mati, a Seattle stockbroker, who must re-assess her material and psychological resources over the course of one weekend following a Black Thursday on the stock market. But soon we fall, hook, line, and sinker into her plight; the yarn has a genuineness, a warmth, a humor, and an incredibly compelling plot, which hold our attention to the end. So, anyway, the stock market has taken a nosedive, and even though brokers themselves aren't nose-diving out of windows, there is concern in the Seattle financial community about how to repair portfolios and reputations. In the midst of this grave concern, Gwen has a Thursday-evening-to-Monday-morning lesson in the weird side of sex and the puzzlement of love. Gwen's unwitting adventures during a weekend when she needs to be concentrating on emotional repair lead her from pillar to post and one strange character to another. Robbins' style is a knockout--"How typical of your luck that when you finally arrived in a position to poach your golden eggs, the goose had a hysterectomy"--and the pace is unrelenting; but most important of all, you come to love Gwen. Brad Hooper

Customer Reviews

Completely Awake
I picked up this book while staying at a friend's loft in NY and only had enough time to read the first twenty-five pages before I had to leave. I was so engrossed I wanted to take it home with me. Yes, it was so brilliant I actually considered stealing from a friend. The first thing I did when I got back to LA was buy the book. I had read some Robbins as a kid and after reading this fun, brilliant, provocative book, decided to reread all of Tom Robbins books. With so many crappy, stupid, uninspired, poorly written books these days, Robbins is a breath of fresh air. Not only is he a truly great writer, a master and lover of the written word but he is a writer with something interesting to say and the smarts to back it up. Robbins knows how to construct plot and character, while mixing in so many interesting ideas without being didactic or arrogant. There is nothing cliche in what Robbins writes and he shares in an entertaining way his knowledge of so many topics. This is a man who thinks, is interested in the world seen and unseen and paralays the information into the most imaginative and fun stories I've ever read. His creativity is astonishing, his style flawless and his ideas provocative. I recommened all his books to anyone who wants to be reminded what literary genius is all about.

Lighten up folk
I don't read Tom Robbins for meaning, story, plot, characterization, or any of the other things I might look for in conventional fiction. I suspect he would scoff at the notion that he is somehow presenting a philosophy. I read Tom Robbins for his exquisite word play and his unending ability to fuel my sense of the absurd.

C'mon. Who else would define "rapscallion" as a hip-hop onion?

Given the two reasons I read his work, this book scores on both counts.

Uncommon Robbins, Uncommon genius.
I, like many others, have read most of Tom's books and while some of his main characters have been slightly annoying (Still Life with Woodpecker, anyone?), Matti takes the cake. Don't let her character dissuade you from reading the book. Her character is a money-grubbing stockbroker containing no true love or passion for life. She is intended (I believe) to represent the consumer in all of us, albeit the worst parts. She is not supposed to be likable. A likable Matti would have taken away this stories point: how even the most vile, egotistical, greedy person can transform, or should I say be pushed to transform when the stakes are raised high enough. The story begins at the start of a four-day weekend, just after a major stock crash. Matti is in jeopardy of losing her job, she can't even make the payments on her new Porsche, boo-ho! Moreover, the boyfriend that she's been dating because of his giant paycheck has decided to give it to charity. On top of everything, his monkey gets loose (did I mention that this monkey was trained to steal jewelry and that the aforementioned boyfriend has taken it upon himself to convert the monkey to Christianity?) and may be heisting peoples belongings. Craziness!

As always, Tom's writing is spectacular and you'll be learning arcane bits of knowledge on every page. Some of his ideas are crazy, but deep down are not all ideas crazy?