On my third birthday, my father, in an attempt to get me to stop sucking my thumb, gave me a gun.
“Today son, you are a man,” he said, snatching the little blue binky from my little pink hand.
So I shot him.
So begins Mort Morte, a macabre, coming-of-age story full of butchered butchers, badly used Boy Scouts, blown-up Englishman, virginity-plucking cheerleaders, and many nice cups of tea.
Poignantly poetic, hypnotically hysterical, sweetly surreal, and chock full of the blackest comedy, Mort Morte is like Lewis Carrol having brunch with the kid from The Tin Drum and Oedipus, just before he plucks his eyes out.
In the end though, Mort Morte is a story about a boy who really loves his mother.
David Henry Sterry is an author, performer, educator, activist, and a man who hasn’t worn matching socks in 20 years. David is the author of 11 books, the first of which was published in 2001. Prior to becoming an author, David was a professional actor and screenwriter.
The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published (aka: Putting Your Passion into Print) (Workman, 2005). Based on the Stanford Workshop created by himself and his wife, former agent and author, Arielle Eckstut. “Before you write your own book, read this one first. Arielle Eckstut and David Sterry understand the process of publishing. Their advice will help you envision and frame your work so that publishers will be more likely to perceive its value.” –Jonathan Karp, Publisher, 12 Books “This book demystifies the process of getting published and is a must-have for every aspiring writer with a dream to see his or her passion in print. With input from agents, editors, and writers, this book is thorough, forthright, and importantly, also quite entertaining.”--Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Satchel Sez; The Wit, Wisdom & World of Leroy Satchel Paige (Crown, 2001). Picked by the ALA as one of the best books of the year for teens.
Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent (ReganBooks, 2002). A San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. Sold into nine countries. Under option by Showtime for a TV series. “Sterry writes with comic brio… [he] honed a vibrant outrageous writing style and turned out this studiously wild souvenir of a checkered past.”--Janet Maslin, The New York Times “Stunning… Sterry's prose fizzes like fireworks. Every page crackles… Very easy and exciting to read--as laconic as Dashiell Hammett, as viscerally hallucinogenic as Hunter S Thompson. Sex, violence, drugs, love, hate, and great writing all within a single wrapper. What more could you possibly ask for?” –The Irish Times
Travis & Freddy’s Adventures in Vegas (Dutton, 2006). Written under the pseudonym Henry Johnson. “This is a winner.”— Library Journal
LittleMissMatched’s Pajama Party in a Box (Workman, 2007) LittleMissMatched’s Fabulous Marvelous Me (Workman, 2007) LittleMissMatched’s The Writer in Me (Workman, 2008) LittleMissMatched’s The Artist in Me (Workman, 2008) LittleMissMatched is a company dedicated to inspiring creativity and self-expression in girls of all ages. These books, created with David’s wife, Arielle Eckstut, have been sold everywhere from FAO Schwarz to Toys R Us to Disneyland.
Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Rollerskates and Chippendales (Canongate/Grove-Atlantic). “Master of Ceremonies is dizzying, tender, and… resplendent with seedy glamour, hilarious backstage madness, and unflinching honesty.”--Library Journal
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent-Boys: Professionals writing on Life, Love, Money & Sex (Soft Skull, 2009). Now in its third printing after only 6 weeks in print. “Eye-opening, astonishing, brutally honest and frequently funny… unpretentious and riveting — but also graphic, politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.”—The New York Times Sunday Book Review (front page review)
The Glorious World Cup: A Balls-Out Guide (Dutton, to be published in April, 2010).
David is unique as an author in that he brings together his love for the written word with his love for performance. In his life as an actor, he performed with everyone from Milton Berle to Will Smith to Michael Caine to Zippy the Chimp. He performed in over 750 commercials, including 4 Clio winners, starred in HBO's Emmy Award-winning Encyclopedia, and emceed at Chippendale's in New York City. As a screenwriter, he wrote for Disney, Fox and Nickelodeon. After his memoir, Chicken, was published, David put his performance and playwriting skills to work and wrote and performed a one-man show based on the book. After a highly praised debut i
Mort Morte is a satire on many strange things in life made into a long story. If you have a bizarre mind, see things a bit weird at times, have an odd sense of humor, then you will like this book. I LIKED this book! A dark sense of humor but it was just what I needed at the time!
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It's fall now and the season for amusement parks may have drawn to a close but if you're looking for one wild ride, you could do a lot worse than pick up Mort Morte by David Henry Sterry. By turns absurd, hilarious and tragic, this fairly quick read tells the story of Mordechai Murgatroyd Morte, a young man who follows his mother through her unfortunate marriages to several physically and sexually abusive men.
The novel begins with these lines: "On my third birthday, my father, in an attempt to get me to stop sucking my thumb, gave me a gun. 'Today, son, you are a man,' he said, snatching the little, blue binky from my little, pink hand. So I shot him."
Although the abusive element is merely hinted at in the character of Mort's father here (who gives his three-year-old son a gun?), the farcical quality is immediately apparent and sets the tone for Mort's experiences with his mother's future and more clearly terrible husbands. As she moves from conjugal attachment with one man and then another, Mort ultimately finds new ways of ridding himself and his mother of their nonsense by acts of gruesome murder.
As Mort advances into his teenage years and moves to Rome, Texas so that his mother may tie the knot with Billy Bob Bobby Joe Willy Dick Bodine (BB, for short), the first hint of Mort's own intense sexuality emerges in a lusty relationship with Muffy Thunderbuck, his school's goddess of beauty and sensuality. "In out, in out," Sterry writes in multiple consecutive paragraphs, representing the relationship in absurdly physical terms, which reflects equally on the emotional hollowness of the men brought into his life by his poor "milky" British mother.
Cleverly, however, into the apparent hollowness of the prose one can read some of the most serious of childhood traumas--vulnerability, helplessness at the hands of abusive adults and the kind of resilient self-reliance that is the sanctuary for young men lacking the benefits of a stable household. Both socially awkward and intellectually brilliant (the latter quality of which captured Muffy's heart, or did it capture her legs?), Mort becomes the dreaded agent of his mother's constant widowhood and also her savior as he rids her time and again of negligent, angry men.
The novel seems to reflect the story of a sensitive young man and his mother struggling to survive in a tough, unforgiving world. The final irony of the story, however, occurs after Mort, having blown up his mother's latest beau, Bartholomew Dinsdale Dinkleberry, with a vial of nitroglycerine, finds that he and his mother will be kicked out of Rome. Following a self-pitying visit to Muffy Thunderbuck for some physical "comfort", Mort returns home to find his mother has slipped out of town, stating in a note she has left behind that she has moved ahead and will "find a good boarding school for bright young people who don't quite fit in, which we all know you are, pet, and you will join us later. Everything will be fine, most likely."
Only, Mort knows nothing will be fine. His mother, he realizes in an instant, is in many ways the cause herself of so much grief and self-destruction in submitting to the abusive routines of so many bad men. Whereas Mort always believed in his goal to protect, he now--at the moment of maternal abandonment--realizes it was her destructive personality which, aside from earning her a great future through the wealth of one now-dead husband, has callously prompted her to leave behind an awkward son.
The monumental irony then is upon the discovery of abandonment. If children are often seen as wild uncontrollable creatures, their adult counterparts fare far worse in this writer's treatment. Mort Morte is the engaging and unusual story of a young man who finds the one person to whom he is most devoted to be the primary agent of his worst suffering.
Today I read Mort Morte by David Henry Sterry. I also took the train to a city 50 kilometers away for a meeting, came back, spent 3 hours working on a couple of Etsy orders, procrastinated with my favourite iPad game and went to the supermarket. And it’s not even 17:00 yet. Why am I mentioning all this? Because I read the whole book during the 90 minutes I spent on trains today!
So, Mort Morte is a short book and a quick read. This, however, does not mean it isn’t enjoyable. It is very enjoyable! Which is interesting, because usually I’m all for thick books. One of my all-time favourite novels is Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, which I seem to recall is 1000+ pages with a tiny font, and which is still not long enough for my taste.
Mort Morte is an entirely different kind of book. Short, poetic and to the point. It tells the story of Mordechai Murgatroid Morte from the age of three to sixteen, as his mother brings home a string of new husbands after ‘Mort’ shoots his father at age three. Each of the new husbands is bad news, but Mort is determined to take care of his ‘milky’ mother. The writing style evolves as Mort becomes older, but his voice is nonetheless consistent (and poetic in a prose way, fi that makes sense) throughout. Especially witty are the popular references, such as: “My indescribably milky mother put on the grief-stricken widow face she kept in the jar by the door”, which of course refers to a famous (and for me inexplicable) line from The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby. Sterry is also amusing in his absurd depiction of several cultures, as is perhaps best illustrated in the name of the third, Texan husband: Billy Bob Bobby Joe Willy Dick Bodine.
Reading the book, I was never sure whether to laugh or to cry. Terrible, serious things happen to Mort, but they are described in such a poetic, off-hand and (possibly) humorous way that I found it hard to come up with a response. This makes the book simultaneously dark and light, serious and funny, sad and happy.
I enjoyed the novel more than I had expected. The surreal story, the beautiful language and the quirky characters, make it worth reading. This is why I am giving it four out of five stars. I am not giving five stars however, mostly because of the ending. The story starts with a bang, but it ends with a whimper. This I found rather disappointing. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to anyone who has to spend 90 minutes on a train and wants to read something surreal and witty!
Holy mother of murder, Mort Morte! I'm thinking that David Henry Sterry ate Aesop for breakfast one day and burped this book out later that afternoon; there has to be a lesson in here somewhere, but I'm still stunned speechless so I can't quite articulate it. I think it has something to do with the medicinal qualities of tea ... Are you a fan of Beavis & Butthead? The Simpsons? Family Guy? Did you laugh when you saw/read American Psycho? If so, you're going to love this short story. And by short, I mean short.
Mort Morte is the story of a boy who loves his mother, and who knows evil when he sees it. Mort Morte is a boy who is ready to right wrongs, unfortunately in all the wrong ways. Mort Morte is a troubled child. Then he commits murder. Not once, not twice, read the book to find out how many times. Mort Morte's mother is a troubled woman. She keeps marrying the wrong man. Not once, not twice, read the book to find out how many times.
Seriously, MORT MORTE is a brilliant satire, a sad commentary on the dark side of life, and a hysterically disturbing story. I can't say it's my kind of humor, but the book is original, fast paced, and captivating. Despite all the aforementioned murder, I had to keep turning the pages to see what would happen next. And that is the sign of a great story.
Four Stars
(If I were a bit more twisted, I'd probably have given it five!)
This book isn't going to be for everyone. It's an interesting short, black comedy, coming-of-age story centered around Mort Morte some pretty dark incidents.
FIRST IMPRESSION: The way the book starts is pretty shocking and sets you up well for what's to come in the story. It really grabbed my attention.
THE PLOT: Even though the story spans from Mort's early youth to teen years, the story isn't dragged out at all. The pacing is great. Like previously mentioned, the plot is a bit dark in places.
THE CHARACTERS: The characters were all very vivid, which I was impressed with since it's such a short story (142 pages). What I liked best about the characters is the fact Mort develops throughout the story.
THE WRITING: The prose is really what I loved about the book -- even with the darkness. It's poetic throughout the book, filled with vivid metaphors and a great flow. The way the world is described is so unique, with the right amount of vagueness that it really makes the read interesting.
CONCLUSION: This book is really worth reading, particularly if you like macabre.
Mordechai Murgatroyd Morte is aptly named. His formative years – between ages 3 and 16 which are chronicled in David Henry Sterry’s Mort Morte reads like Dexter visits South Park. With dark compelling illustrations by Alain Pilot it feels like an adult comic written by a repressed British poet. The chaotic romp blasts off when Mort loses his binky in a confrontation with his father who loses considerably more. This page-turner never loses altitude as we witness Mort’s character develop in direct relation to his ‘milky mother’s’ dubious decisions. I devoured the brief comic adventure in part of an afternoon and then went back to re-admire its well-wrought details.
Not my typical type of book, but it hooked me, pulled me in and spit me out the other end laughing. Black comedy, irreverent character classifications, brutal child abuse and serial killings and yet it is somehow sweet, too. Names are over the top and like neon signs flashing each characters’ attributes. A Texas cheerleader named Muffy Thunderbuck asks Mort to her house to be her Frainch tooter…say no more, say no more.
Sterry’s tongue-thru-cheek comedy will surprise you and leave you wanting more … and a cuppa tea.
Deep within all of us lurks Mort Morte. At least, all of us have had those moments when we wish our inner Mort would step forward and do the right thing in a most brutally wrong way. It is almost sinful to enjoy this story of bullying, humiliation, and abused, but enjoy it you will. You’ll find yourself chuckling, peeking over the page top hoping no one nearby noticed, then chuckling some more. Young Mort is a disturbed young man, but give his circumstance, who wouldn’t be? Each page reveals the darkly disturbing yet fully engrossing life of Mort Morte. It is painfully raw, painfully funny, a look at the underbelly of life alongside a refreshing twist on revenge.
If you have ever enjoyed Richard Pryor’s dark humor or George Carlin’s laser-sharp wit, you will relish this whimsical story. And when listing some of literature’s best opening lines, Mort Morte will be noted as one of the greatest. Do yourself a favor, grab a copy and open yourself up to David Henry Sterry’s masterfully crafted satire.
A lyrical rollercoaster ride through the dark mind of a young serial killer.
Not so much a novel, but a post-modern fable or fairy tale about a boy who is continually abused and bullied. The plot is surreal and absurd, but somehow all too real! It reads like a drunk at a bar telling you his fucked-up life story. I was quickly sucked in and enjoyed the book on it's own terms.