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Tepper Isn't Going Out: A Novel
This edition contains an excerpt from Calvin Trillin's Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin.Murray Tepper would say that he is an ordinary New Yorker who is simply trying to read the newspaper in peace. But he reads while sitting behind the wheel of his parked car, and his car always seems to be in a particularly desirable parking spot. Not surprisingly, he is regularly interrupted by drivers who want to know if he is going out. Tepper isn’t going out. Why not? His explanations tend to be rather the indisputable fact, for instance, that he has twenty minutes left on the meter. Tepper’s behavior sometimes irritates the people who want his spot. (“Is that where you live? Is that car rent-controlled?”) It also irritates the mayor—Frank Ducavelli, known in tabloid headlines as Il Duce—who sees Murray Tepper as a harbinger of what His Honor always calls “the forces of disorder.” But once New Yorkers become aware of Tepper, some of them begin to suspect that he knows something they don’t know. And an ever-increasing number of them are willing to line up for the opportunity to sit in his car with him and find out. Tepper Isn’t Going Out is a wise and witty story of an ordinary man who, perhaps innocently, changes the world around him.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
210 people are currently reading
1212 people want to read
About the author
Calvin Trillin
86 books278 followersCalvin (Bud) Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, and novelist. He is best known for his humorous writings about food and eating, but he has also written much serious journalism, comic verse, and several books of fiction.
Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and became a member of Scroll and Key before graduating in 1957; he later served as a trustee of the university. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he worked as a reporter for Time magazine before joining the staff of The New Yorker in 1963. His reporting for The New Yorker on the racial integration of the University of Georgia was published in his first book, An Education in Georgia. He wrote the magazine's "U.S. Journal" series from 1967 to 1982, covering local events both serious and quirky throughout the United States.
Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and became a member of Scroll and Key before graduating in 1957; he later served as a trustee of the university. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he worked as a reporter for Time magazine before joining the staff of The New Yorker in 1963. His reporting for The New Yorker on the racial integration of the University of Georgia was published in his first book, An Education in Georgia. He wrote the magazine's "U.S. Journal" series from 1967 to 1982, covering local events both serious and quirky throughout the United States.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 331 reviews
May 9, 2012
OK, I don't actually think this is a five star book, I think it is a strong 4 star book and I'm giving it an extra half-star because I was so pleasantly surprised. And then I rounded up. I feel I'm completely within my rights to do so, and I hope you're not getting worked up about the effect this has on the overall integrity of the GoodReads scores.
I mean, there's always something.
If you know Calvin Trillin's essays the only surprise is that he does pretty well at fiction. If you know his fiction as well as his essays perhaps there are no surprises, but that's for someone else to say.
If you don't know Calvin Trillin this is probably a good place to start, it captures his humor and pacing to a tee. The love of New York, willingness to talk about parking, ethnic food spots are here, along with not-quite-judgmental observations about human silliness. Maybe I would have expected some more prominent discussion of a good place to get bagels in New York, but over all I think the themes are distributed in fairly Trillinesque proportions.
The book's not very long, so if you want to know the plot you should probably just read the book. I'd suggest keeping a copy in your car, you can perhaps read a few pages here-and-there. If you have time left on the meter, of course.
I mean, there's always something.
If you know Calvin Trillin's essays the only surprise is that he does pretty well at fiction. If you know his fiction as well as his essays perhaps there are no surprises, but that's for someone else to say.
If you don't know Calvin Trillin this is probably a good place to start, it captures his humor and pacing to a tee. The love of New York, willingness to talk about parking, ethnic food spots are here, along with not-quite-judgmental observations about human silliness. Maybe I would have expected some more prominent discussion of a good place to get bagels in New York, but over all I think the themes are distributed in fairly Trillinesque proportions.
The book's not very long, so if you want to know the plot you should probably just read the book. I'd suggest keeping a copy in your car, you can perhaps read a few pages here-and-there. If you have time left on the meter, of course.
probably-wont-read
November 3, 2012NaNoWriMo 2012 - November 2.
This is not a review.
This starts here.
The day of our wedding was notable for being the last time that Jessica and I left the house for a purpose. The purpose here being, to get married. Once we were husband and wife we left the house every now and then, but it was only sporadically and it was never to really go anywhere that had purpose. A month or so would pass and Jessica would find me and say let’s go out. And we would. And sometimes out meant driving around the block a few times and then coming home. Sometimes out meant driving to the damn out on route 78 and watching the water for a few minutes and then fucking in the car before coming home again. One time out was a forty-eight hour road trip to nowhere and back where we only ever stopped to gas up the car, and, well to, fuck in the car while it was pulled over on the side of the road.
When we went out, we spent very little time actually ‘out’ of her car. She actually would get worked up about the fact that in this fucking state she had to get out of the car and pump her own gas. I offered to do that for her, and she relented but still thought the principle barbaric and could only praise the civility of states like New Jersey where it was illegal to pump your own gas, and nice people would do it for you.
Jessica parked her car in the garage, I’m fairly certain that in the first two years of our marriage she was exposed to the outside world, unprotected from her car in minutes that could be counted on one hand with enough fingers to give fuck you signs in America or England.
Our engagement was a short one.
She asked me to marry her and three days later we were married.
“These kinds of things aren’t worth dragging out,” she said. “The modern bridal and wedding industries are a racket.”
“Didn’t you ever dream of a big wedding, isn’t that what all girls dream about.”
“No. Fuck you.” She said.
The ceremony isn’t really worth talking about. The picture we have snapped on a point and click digital camera and in a chintzy digital picture frame in the hallway next to all the other photographs that I should mention after I get this wedding stuff out of the way, tells the whole story. She’s wearing a pair of really worn jeans and a twenty year old Smiths Louder than Bombs t-shirt. I’m standing next to her with a haircut and shave we worked on together to make me look slightly more presentable wearing a pair of Jnco’s and a hoodie sweatshirt, both from her skater/raver days when everything she wore was super baggy, but which just looked ill-fitted on me. The looks on our faces resembled what you see in Civil War era photographs of a husband and wife standing next to each other. Serious and grave. Dead in the eyes. From the photograph you wouldn’t know it was one of the happiest days of at least one of our lives.
After the wedding, that was held in a storefront of a shop that sold votive candles, tarot cards and all sorts of objects with pictures of Catholic Saints on them; we went back to her house. I guess you could call it a honeymoon. We fucked a lot and neither of us left the house for forty days.
*
“I can’t stay inside longer than Noah was trapped in his Ark,” I said.
She shrugged and said I could use the car. She slapped a tracking monitor onto one of my ankles and assured me that she trusted me, but she just needed to be sure. She asked me to bring her a certain type of chocolate snack cake that they sold at the regional gas station which she couldn’t get delivered to her through her online grocery store. She told me that if I tried to run all she had to do was click the mouse and a small explosive would take off my foot. She told me to have fun, hurry back. She smiled and said she loved me.
I went out. I couldn’t think of anything to do. I went to the mall and walked around for a few minutes. I went to Best Buy and browsed through some DVD’s. I went to the gas station and bought her the snack cakes she wanted and then I went home. Fifty-six minutes after leaving the house I was home.
“I didn’t think you’d be gone so long,” she said when I walked into the house. She threw herself at me as if I’d been gone for years. As if I’d just fought in a war and come home. Ulysses didn’t have as great of a homecoming as I did, although there were no suitors for me to slay. Instead she heated up the fanciest of the pre-cooked meals she had. We ate while she asked me all sorts of questions about every detail of my time outside. Then she removed the ankle tracking system and we fucked.
Right before we both drifted off to sleep I asked her if there were really explosives in the tracking device. She was joking, right?
“Why would I joke about that?” she mumbled half-asleep.
*
After she proposed to me and I said yes I was allowed to leave the basement.
When I said earlier that nothing shocked me at this point, I was lying. I know I also said that I don’t believe in lying, but I meant that I wasn’t shocked by her behavior. Some Talmudic nit-picker might say that this is also about her behavior and that yes, I am lying, but I already admitted to lying so lay the fuck off. The marriage proposal didn’t shock me but what I saw when I walked up the stairs and into the proper living area of the house did.
Ha, did I make it seem like I’d be walking into some creepy taxidermy den, where victims were fused together into mutant shapes or into something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Sorry, if I made you think something like that.
What shocked me was the normalcy of the house. The basement wasn’t an anomaly in the house. It was the right in line with the whole decor of the house. It was 1970’s un-hip suburban decor. The sort of rooms I could remember from childhood days of visiting friends. Yeah, I might have already expected that sort of thing, and if I’d been offered a wager I would have said, I’m living in her parents basement. But I would have been wrong. I had been prisoner in someone’s parents basement, but I have no idea whose.
Right at the top of the stairs I was met with photographs of the family that once lived in the house. And it wasn’t her family. It was a nerdiest looking African-American family I could have imagined. And there were pictures of them everywhere. No incident was too minor that wasn’t documented and placed in a picture frame that either hung on a wall or sat on a shelf. The house was a shrine to this family. The pocket-protector wearing head of the household who gained in girth from a stick figure into a portly and jolly looking middle-aged man. His homely wife who kept a pace at her husbands yearly increasing waistline. Three neebish children who appeared to have won every prize, honor and trophy available for the athetically disinclined.
Among the pictures of them were their bric-a-brac. There was stuff of theirs. The house looked like it was waiting for them to just drive right up in their wood-paneled station wagon and take their place, hang another photograph documenting where they had just been while one of them dutifully snapped a picture for posterity of the new picture being put in place.
“Who are these people?” I asked.
“The Johnsons,” she answered like it was obvious. These were the Johnsons. Who else would they be.
“Where are they?”
“Florida. Would you like an apple?”
*
I never quite got an answer about who the Johnson’s were, or more specifically who Jessica was to the Johnsons. For the first few weeks I suspected some sort of foul play. She was the sort of girl that had no problem taking someone prisoner and locking them in a basement, maybe the Johnsons were hacked up with their remains locked in a series of Glad plastic storage containers and kept behind the faux wood paneling in the basement I’d been prisoner in. This didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. Not that I think I ever thought prior to this, how would I react if I found out that the girl who saved me from killing myself by hitting me with a taser and then locked me in a basement ended up being a murderess who hacked up a whole family and was now living in their house? I’d never questioned myself about how I would react in that situation. But when I thought of it now I was more surprised at how blase I felt about the situation than at the possible situation itself.
I had no reason to fear though. On the 25th of the month a post-card arrived showing Mr and Mrs Johnson aboard one of those group fishing boats that people go out on when they are visiting Florida. Mr Johnson is beaming at a large fish hanging by a giant hook in it’s mouth that people more knowledgeable about fish could probably identify immediately, but to me is just a big fish. Mrs Johnson looks proud at her mighty fisherman husband. On the back of the post-card was written.
Another glorious month in Florida. Caught a whopper! We added a little something for you this month. Treat yourself to something nice! The Johnsons.
*
This continues here.
This is not a review.
This starts here.
The day of our wedding was notable for being the last time that Jessica and I left the house for a purpose. The purpose here being, to get married. Once we were husband and wife we left the house every now and then, but it was only sporadically and it was never to really go anywhere that had purpose. A month or so would pass and Jessica would find me and say let’s go out. And we would. And sometimes out meant driving around the block a few times and then coming home. Sometimes out meant driving to the damn out on route 78 and watching the water for a few minutes and then fucking in the car before coming home again. One time out was a forty-eight hour road trip to nowhere and back where we only ever stopped to gas up the car, and, well to, fuck in the car while it was pulled over on the side of the road.
When we went out, we spent very little time actually ‘out’ of her car. She actually would get worked up about the fact that in this fucking state she had to get out of the car and pump her own gas. I offered to do that for her, and she relented but still thought the principle barbaric and could only praise the civility of states like New Jersey where it was illegal to pump your own gas, and nice people would do it for you.
Jessica parked her car in the garage, I’m fairly certain that in the first two years of our marriage she was exposed to the outside world, unprotected from her car in minutes that could be counted on one hand with enough fingers to give fuck you signs in America or England.
Our engagement was a short one.
She asked me to marry her and three days later we were married.
“These kinds of things aren’t worth dragging out,” she said. “The modern bridal and wedding industries are a racket.”
“Didn’t you ever dream of a big wedding, isn’t that what all girls dream about.”
“No. Fuck you.” She said.
The ceremony isn’t really worth talking about. The picture we have snapped on a point and click digital camera and in a chintzy digital picture frame in the hallway next to all the other photographs that I should mention after I get this wedding stuff out of the way, tells the whole story. She’s wearing a pair of really worn jeans and a twenty year old Smiths Louder than Bombs t-shirt. I’m standing next to her with a haircut and shave we worked on together to make me look slightly more presentable wearing a pair of Jnco’s and a hoodie sweatshirt, both from her skater/raver days when everything she wore was super baggy, but which just looked ill-fitted on me. The looks on our faces resembled what you see in Civil War era photographs of a husband and wife standing next to each other. Serious and grave. Dead in the eyes. From the photograph you wouldn’t know it was one of the happiest days of at least one of our lives.
After the wedding, that was held in a storefront of a shop that sold votive candles, tarot cards and all sorts of objects with pictures of Catholic Saints on them; we went back to her house. I guess you could call it a honeymoon. We fucked a lot and neither of us left the house for forty days.
*
“I can’t stay inside longer than Noah was trapped in his Ark,” I said.
She shrugged and said I could use the car. She slapped a tracking monitor onto one of my ankles and assured me that she trusted me, but she just needed to be sure. She asked me to bring her a certain type of chocolate snack cake that they sold at the regional gas station which she couldn’t get delivered to her through her online grocery store. She told me that if I tried to run all she had to do was click the mouse and a small explosive would take off my foot. She told me to have fun, hurry back. She smiled and said she loved me.
I went out. I couldn’t think of anything to do. I went to the mall and walked around for a few minutes. I went to Best Buy and browsed through some DVD’s. I went to the gas station and bought her the snack cakes she wanted and then I went home. Fifty-six minutes after leaving the house I was home.
“I didn’t think you’d be gone so long,” she said when I walked into the house. She threw herself at me as if I’d been gone for years. As if I’d just fought in a war and come home. Ulysses didn’t have as great of a homecoming as I did, although there were no suitors for me to slay. Instead she heated up the fanciest of the pre-cooked meals she had. We ate while she asked me all sorts of questions about every detail of my time outside. Then she removed the ankle tracking system and we fucked.
Right before we both drifted off to sleep I asked her if there were really explosives in the tracking device. She was joking, right?
“Why would I joke about that?” she mumbled half-asleep.
*
After she proposed to me and I said yes I was allowed to leave the basement.
When I said earlier that nothing shocked me at this point, I was lying. I know I also said that I don’t believe in lying, but I meant that I wasn’t shocked by her behavior. Some Talmudic nit-picker might say that this is also about her behavior and that yes, I am lying, but I already admitted to lying so lay the fuck off. The marriage proposal didn’t shock me but what I saw when I walked up the stairs and into the proper living area of the house did.
Ha, did I make it seem like I’d be walking into some creepy taxidermy den, where victims were fused together into mutant shapes or into something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Sorry, if I made you think something like that.
What shocked me was the normalcy of the house. The basement wasn’t an anomaly in the house. It was the right in line with the whole decor of the house. It was 1970’s un-hip suburban decor. The sort of rooms I could remember from childhood days of visiting friends. Yeah, I might have already expected that sort of thing, and if I’d been offered a wager I would have said, I’m living in her parents basement. But I would have been wrong. I had been prisoner in someone’s parents basement, but I have no idea whose.
Right at the top of the stairs I was met with photographs of the family that once lived in the house. And it wasn’t her family. It was a nerdiest looking African-American family I could have imagined. And there were pictures of them everywhere. No incident was too minor that wasn’t documented and placed in a picture frame that either hung on a wall or sat on a shelf. The house was a shrine to this family. The pocket-protector wearing head of the household who gained in girth from a stick figure into a portly and jolly looking middle-aged man. His homely wife who kept a pace at her husbands yearly increasing waistline. Three neebish children who appeared to have won every prize, honor and trophy available for the athetically disinclined.
Among the pictures of them were their bric-a-brac. There was stuff of theirs. The house looked like it was waiting for them to just drive right up in their wood-paneled station wagon and take their place, hang another photograph documenting where they had just been while one of them dutifully snapped a picture for posterity of the new picture being put in place.
“Who are these people?” I asked.
“The Johnsons,” she answered like it was obvious. These were the Johnsons. Who else would they be.
“Where are they?”
“Florida. Would you like an apple?”
*
I never quite got an answer about who the Johnson’s were, or more specifically who Jessica was to the Johnsons. For the first few weeks I suspected some sort of foul play. She was the sort of girl that had no problem taking someone prisoner and locking them in a basement, maybe the Johnsons were hacked up with their remains locked in a series of Glad plastic storage containers and kept behind the faux wood paneling in the basement I’d been prisoner in. This didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. Not that I think I ever thought prior to this, how would I react if I found out that the girl who saved me from killing myself by hitting me with a taser and then locked me in a basement ended up being a murderess who hacked up a whole family and was now living in their house? I’d never questioned myself about how I would react in that situation. But when I thought of it now I was more surprised at how blase I felt about the situation than at the possible situation itself.
I had no reason to fear though. On the 25th of the month a post-card arrived showing Mr and Mrs Johnson aboard one of those group fishing boats that people go out on when they are visiting Florida. Mr Johnson is beaming at a large fish hanging by a giant hook in it’s mouth that people more knowledgeable about fish could probably identify immediately, but to me is just a big fish. Mrs Johnson looks proud at her mighty fisherman husband. On the back of the post-card was written.
Another glorious month in Florida. Caught a whopper! We added a little something for you this month. Treat yourself to something nice! The Johnsons.
*
This continues here.
September 23, 2018
Short read. Finished in a few hours when I was a little sick but it definitely made me feel better afterwards. I wish that the author could depict the main character in more details to make the novel a little richer considering it has actually 200+ pages....
January 22, 2020
Well, it's got a quiet humor. And satire. Even a bit of slapstick (extendable fork). About a sort of quirky character who is also an Everyman. A New York native who I can relate to, though I've generally lived in small towns & generally avoid books by ppl from NYC because they generally seem alien & isolationist. It's got some wisdom (Barney M. is actually quite insightful). some cleverness (Ray Fannon's theory, at the end, is valid).
It's an easy read, but it rewards a careful read. I'd almost give it four stars, but I think part of the reason I liked it so much is because it hit the spot after a run of DNFs and books that I read for groups, not because I chose them. I don't know which of you, my GR friends, if any, would like this. Maybe all of you. Do consider reading it, and do try it if your library has it.
But do any of you know who Ray Fannon, the columnist, is based on, and if his columns have been collected? They're probably best appreciated by residents of greater NYC, but he does have a way with a line. Well, Trillon is a columnist, so maybe he's tooting his own horn. Do you know?
It's an easy read, but it rewards a careful read. I'd almost give it four stars, but I think part of the reason I liked it so much is because it hit the spot after a run of DNFs and books that I read for groups, not because I chose them. I don't know which of you, my GR friends, if any, would like this. Maybe all of you. Do consider reading it, and do try it if your library has it.
But do any of you know who Ray Fannon, the columnist, is based on, and if his columns have been collected? They're probably best appreciated by residents of greater NYC, but he does have a way with a line. Well, Trillon is a columnist, so maybe he's tooting his own horn. Do you know?
February 17, 2010
Laughed so hard you cried? And then your really cried?
Much like the tickle-my-funny bone reaction I had to "Garp", this was another late-into-the-night read, this time taking place in my frequently refilled bathtub.
Calvin Trillin is just my kind of guy. He can take a perfectly inane subject and write an entire book about it. Call him a literary Seinfeldian, if you will. In this case, he's written about the joys and pitfalls of .....on-street parking in Manhattan. Yes.
To know Trillin is to love him ( and those who know him call him Bud). It's hard to relate just how hilarious this book is. As my daughter says, " I guess you had to be there", and so I will paraphrase and say, "I guess you have to read it." How do some people get to be so funny?
The "really crying" part comes in because my mother was my best reading friend in the world. I had recently lost her, and this was the first book that I wanted to share with her after her death. She was a native New Yorker, and had the ability to " get silly", and I knew that she would have loved it....and the realization that we'd no longer be giggling together like this was hard to take. Luckily, our granddaughter has become my reading pal. Life goes on, and parking meters expire. Read it and weep.
Much like the tickle-my-funny bone reaction I had to "Garp", this was another late-into-the-night read, this time taking place in my frequently refilled bathtub.
Calvin Trillin is just my kind of guy. He can take a perfectly inane subject and write an entire book about it. Call him a literary Seinfeldian, if you will. In this case, he's written about the joys and pitfalls of .....on-street parking in Manhattan. Yes.
To know Trillin is to love him ( and those who know him call him Bud). It's hard to relate just how hilarious this book is. As my daughter says, " I guess you had to be there", and so I will paraphrase and say, "I guess you have to read it." How do some people get to be so funny?
The "really crying" part comes in because my mother was my best reading friend in the world. I had recently lost her, and this was the first book that I wanted to share with her after her death. She was a native New Yorker, and had the ability to " get silly", and I knew that she would have loved it....and the realization that we'd no longer be giggling together like this was hard to take. Luckily, our granddaughter has become my reading pal. Life goes on, and parking meters expire. Read it and weep.
December 16, 2007
I love this book! If you're in a funk, it's a sweet quick read that will raise your spirits. Is it Trillin's best? No, but it's fun escape. A mench of a man Murray Tepper finally finds a parking space in Manhattan and he's not giving it up. From his parked car, New Yorkers seek his advice to life's eternal questions. Holding on to his parking spot causes problems and he runs up against a Rudy Giuliani of a mayor who thinks he's an evil social agitator. Through a bunch of turns, Tepper and "the people" triumph.
April 15, 2008
Tepper's a quirky guy...I think people who live in big cities that have crazy parking wars would get a kick.
June 14, 2012
Usually I am not amused by books in the humor section. I find many classified there too obvious, too in your face, too poorly written yet I found this, my introduction to Calvin Trillin's body of work slyly entertaining and very appealing. Trillin manages to include swipes at city politics, the discomfort quotient for security installations, "New York food" ( and I thought only I regarded it that way) even Connecticut magic realism. Yes , there is one of those profiled in this novel. Not only did I "laugh out loud" as so many reviews put it, it reminded me of a New York City of more innocent times. Keep on parking, Murray and thanks to Carolyn for introducing me to this perfect summer read.
May 28, 2018
cute. in the category of books i feel like is written for new yorkers only but i myself appreciate (see also: pushcart wars)
January 6, 2022
Eh. I kept losing interest in this older novel, even though I almost always like Trillin's New Yorker humorous essays. Tepper sits in his car on the street, reading his newspaper, in NYC. Go figure. Not for me!
April 8, 2017
This is a quirky, wonderful, little book. I suppose it could easily be read in one sitting, but I definitely recommend reading it a bit at a time and savoring it. That's what I did.
March 14, 2011
If you live in an area where you park on the street, if you find yourself completely familiar with all the local parking rules e.g OK to park in Loading Zones after 7pm, all day Sunday (which means it's 'good' from Sat 7pm until Mon 6am), if you know the meaning of the phrase 'I got a beautiful spot', then you will love this book. Calvin Trillin's dry humor is brilliant, and this book has the side benefit of containing a perfect caricature of Rudy Guiliani. I'm going to read more of his books.
October 8, 2016
like reading a really long episode of seinfeld
October 31, 2024
I’m more of a giggle type than an LOL type, and this book hit 5 stars on the giggle scale for me. A friend recommended the book to me years ago, but this was the perfect time for my introduction to Murray Tepper, a quiet, charming hero. It was a feel good read with the bonus that the
February 27, 2021
Read this for my book club.
Sixty-seven year-old Murray Tepper parks his car in various places in New York City and reads his newspaper. He's always legally parked and had paid for his parking space. His family and friends are puzzled by is behavior. He simply shrugs and says, "I'm legally parked."
A reporter notices him and how much aggravation he causes other drivers who want his parking space ("Tepper Isn't Going Out" refers to his refusal to leave - or go out from - his parking space). The first few chapters left me wondering why the heck I was reading this book, but it picked up as it introduced odd characters and Murray grew on me. He becomes an every man hero as more and more people learn about him and seek out a turn in his car to ask his advice.
I can't tell you much more without spoiling the ending, but the NYC mayor is portrayed as a crazy person who mounts a campaign to stop him from reading the paper in his car.
Sixty-seven year-old Murray Tepper parks his car in various places in New York City and reads his newspaper. He's always legally parked and had paid for his parking space. His family and friends are puzzled by is behavior. He simply shrugs and says, "I'm legally parked."
A reporter notices him and how much aggravation he causes other drivers who want his parking space ("Tepper Isn't Going Out" refers to his refusal to leave - or go out from - his parking space). The first few chapters left me wondering why the heck I was reading this book, but it picked up as it introduced odd characters and Murray grew on me. He becomes an every man hero as more and more people learn about him and seek out a turn in his car to ask his advice.
I can't tell you much more without spoiling the ending, but the NYC mayor is portrayed as a crazy person who mounts a campaign to stop him from reading the paper in his car.
June 25, 2015
A fun light read that reminded me more than a little of Jerzy Kosinski's Being There. For all those unfamiliar then you at least owe it to yourself to watch the Peter Sellers movie adaptation. Regardless, this is a fairly standard retelling of the old "simple man with simple tastes who just wants to be left to his own quirky devices which somehow flummoxes metro society and leads people to view him alternately as an automotive guru or a symbol of nascent anarchy in the city." Nothing that will really stick in the mind for long, but an entertaining distraction for a day at the beach.
July 13, 2018
The author is clearly a clever guy; he produces some fun sparks out of unpromising material, but only from time to time. For me, the story never really developed. The characters were as flimsy as cardboard. Sometimes the dialogue falls a bit flat.
The book is rather like a painting whose artist made use of only a limited pallette of colours - not through choice, but because he didn't want to make the effort to go and replenish his stocks. A bit of time spent on applying some local colour - of which New York must have a lot - would have been profitable.
The book is rather like a painting whose artist made use of only a limited pallette of colours - not through choice, but because he didn't want to make the effort to go and replenish his stocks. A bit of time spent on applying some local colour - of which New York must have a lot - would have been profitable.
August 3, 2018
I bought this book at a used book-store assuming that it was a fun read. It wasn't fun. Yes, it is a light and breezy story but I found the humour and plot so unbelievably tedious. I felt this is a book that should've just been a movie. After a few chapters, I found myself so irritated with the central character and his actions, I had to really slug through to finish the book. I'm sure there are others who might like this kind of book. I'm not one of them.
June 23, 2010
I love Calvin Trillin. This was the first novel of his that I've read. Previously I've read his nonfiction, nearly all about food. I love his take on New Yorkers and on all the quirks that go along with it. He certainly is a funny writer and what an amusing neighbor he must be. I'm search out more of his boks, fiction and nonfiction alike!
April 23, 2012
I liked the story. Funny in the honest brutally relatable way. However, the book struggles in the middle and veers to far from reality toward the end to have as strong an impact on the reader as the original short story.
Still its a nice book to through into a repetoire of heavy reading if you're looking for something light and fun.
Still its a nice book to through into a repetoire of heavy reading if you're looking for something light and fun.
June 30, 2011
I acquired Tepper's habit of saying, "There's always something," and it keeps me smiling.
April 1, 2018
This was a quirky, refreshing quick read.
May 17, 2021
I wish I remembered how and when I discovered Calvin Trillin. Was it in The New Yorker? Or Time? In one of his books? On a TV talk show? Would it be correct to define him as "urbane"? I just know that I enjoy his writing. I feel some kind of comfort reading his words. He embodies the NYC of my fantasies. I want to recommend this book to friends--I just don't know who would appreciate it the way I did. I don't want to spoil it with someone else's opinion that doesn't match mine. This was a treat to read. Just reading the dedication to his late wife Alice was a treat to read. -sigh-
April 18, 2019
Very funny book, though I wonder whether those who aren't born and/or bred New Yorkers would agree. Its protagonist likes to read the newspaper in his car, in various parts of Manhattan, and his Herculean knowledge of alternative side of the street, days of the week when permitted, no parking at all vs. limited parking, etc., regulations. Includes a thinly fictionalized authoritarian mayor known as Il Duce, who is of course the grotesque Rudolph Giuliani.
April 21, 2019
This book isn’t 4-star quality in the literary sense but it is that good for the humor novel that it is. I love fiction where NYC is a character and this author nails it. It is a quintessential, only in NY, parking and politics book turned feel-good simplistic philosophy of a misunderstood guru that got me to laugh with nostalgia.
June 4, 2020
An Everyman, who sits in his car, in a legal parking space ignited a political firestorm...funny and irreverent commentary on role of government in relationship with an individual’s liberty...Fun Read!!!
January 1, 2023
dumb and pointless!
February 25, 2024
Gosh this was fun. A whole community of people rooting for a ("law abiding") underdog, seeking his advice and turning him into a public hero.
August 23, 2022
Greatly enjoyed this simple story about the quirks of our human nature (with a NY twist). Have been curious to read Calvin Trillin for some time and am glad that I started with this one.
August 10, 2024
I was very pleasantly surprised. It’s so low stakes and isn’t interested in saying much, but that turned out to be perfect—exactly what this tired, middle-aged dad needed.
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