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Lounge Lizard
"The experience of orgasm is one of life's best jokes. The apex of ecstasy lasts for a single second...and afterwards you're worthless. If you happen to be with a woman, you want to be alone. If you're by yourself, you feel lousy. But you can't stop chasing down that climax, again and again and again." [Mark SaFranko, 'Lounge Lizard'] Ronald Reagan has just been elected president, and Max Zajack can't make it out the door. Trying to recover from Olivia ('Hating Olivia'), Max hasn't had sex in years, suffers from writer's block, and is mired in debt. But Max's luck changes and, as the corporate machine pulls him in, he begins meeting all kinds of women ready and willing to jump into bed with him. Money and sex are enough for any man...or are they? 'Lounge Lizard' is the much-anticipated sequel to 'Hating Olivia'. Once again, it features an introduction by Dan Fante, where he recognises Mark SaFranko as "one hardnosed, kick-ass, American original."
216 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2007
47 people want to read
About the author
Mark SaFranko
45 books53 followersMark SaFranko’s novels and stories have garnered rave reviews and a cult following, mainly in Europe. Hating Olivia was recently nominated for the Prix Littéraire Rive Gauche à Paris. In 2018 he was named the first Author in International Residence at the University of Lorraine in Nancy, France. His paintings have been exhibited in Europe, and he is also a musician. He divides his time between the United States and France.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 10, 2013
Mark SaFranko's first Max Zajack novel, Hating Olivia, deals with the mutually self destructive relationship between Max and Olivia Aphrodite and its inevitable collapse. This, his second, begins with Max trying to deal with this break up, albeit not particularly well. We find him as him walking around his hovel - 'The Dungeon' - smoking endlessly, rarely seeing sunlight and barely eating. He's become a wreck, an emaciated recluse with stained teeth and little else. Things have to change. His landlord is demanding rent and Max faces the necessity of having to gain some sort of employment. Max lands a desk job with AT&T where, after a short spell, he finds himself at a party.
And Max meets a lady...
And Max likes the lady...
And the lady likes Max... for a night...
After this, we watch Max go through a series of one night/week stands without quite knowing why or how. He says as much to his therapist who thinks he's trying to exact some sort of revenge on Olivia. He's not. It's the ghost of Olivia who is the avenger here.
Max is good at his job (which he hates), picks up women (which he loves) but this is a man at odds with himself. He finds neither escape nor security in what he does but can't stop.
This said, Max never proclaims himself a victim. He just is one. He has moments of self doubt, not self indulgence, and this is where SaFranko's skill as a writer comes in. Never at one point will the reader go 'so this guy's got a job and he's got himself a sex life, maybe he should fuck off and go tell it to someone else'. Though both of these things are true what's also true is that we can relate to Max. We can see our good points and our bad points in him, and most importantly, he alerts us to our own sense of identity through the loss of his.
And that's what literature is supposed to do
And that's what Lounge Lizard is.
A great piece of 21st century Literature.
Read it, look at yourself and tell me I'm wrong.
And I'll tell you you are too.
And Max meets a lady...
And Max likes the lady...
And the lady likes Max... for a night...
After this, we watch Max go through a series of one night/week stands without quite knowing why or how. He says as much to his therapist who thinks he's trying to exact some sort of revenge on Olivia. He's not. It's the ghost of Olivia who is the avenger here.
Max is good at his job (which he hates), picks up women (which he loves) but this is a man at odds with himself. He finds neither escape nor security in what he does but can't stop.
This said, Max never proclaims himself a victim. He just is one. He has moments of self doubt, not self indulgence, and this is where SaFranko's skill as a writer comes in. Never at one point will the reader go 'so this guy's got a job and he's got himself a sex life, maybe he should fuck off and go tell it to someone else'. Though both of these things are true what's also true is that we can relate to Max. We can see our good points and our bad points in him, and most importantly, he alerts us to our own sense of identity through the loss of his.
And that's what literature is supposed to do
And that's what Lounge Lizard is.
A great piece of 21st century Literature.
Read it, look at yourself and tell me I'm wrong.
And I'll tell you you are too.
March 23, 2018
Writing a sequel requires plenty of luck and talents, especially one that has to come after something like Hating Olivia, a nuclear bomb of a book, but Mark nailed it with Lounge Lizard, the chronicle of Max Zajack’s life – or sex life, really – after his split with the impossible Olivia. While there’s a stronger sense of drama and emotional turmoil in Hating Olivia, here in Lounge Lizard the writing is more loose, more care-free, more light-handed, with chapters that wrapped themselves up after only a page or two (some of them), and scenes that jammed easily into the butts of the next. It’s hell to say that, but there’s a briskness in the lines that is seen only in the best of Bukowski. Reading it made you feel that a fucked-up relationship really could teach you a thing or two about writing – even though it might first turn you into a howling wolf that broke into women’s house (oops, spoiler).
December 31, 2021
I paid 155.46 euros for a used copy of this rare book.
Was it worth it? Yes and no.
First of all, no book is worth such an ungodly amount, not even a hypothetical one that was called The Meaning of Life (which would be blank anyway).
However, as I've immensely enjoyed all of SaFranko's Zajack novels I've been able to get my hands on, and as Lounge Lizard was the last one available for purchase, albeit for an exorbitant price, I figured that there's at least a decent chance that this one might end up being the best of them all. Mark SaFranko, after all, as far as I'm concerned, is the modern day Bukowski. And so, perhaps this book then is the modern day Women?
Unfortunately, I prefer my Max Zajack as I prefer all of my protagonists. Miserable. Down and out. Crazy. And on a downward spiral. I don't want them to succeed, you see; I want them to fail. And out of all the other Zajack books that I've read, in this one he seemed to be doing pretty good for himself most of the time and I'd have really preferred he hadn't.
Why do I like reading about miserable characters who never succeed at anything? Because such stories make me feel better about my own endless misery and lack of success. Whereas reading about the opposite would, for obvious reasons, only make me feel even more miserable, since I'd inevitably be comparing myself to them. After all, people only like characters they can relate with. And I cannot relate with the winners; I only relate to the losers.
Or who knows... maybe I was just jealous at the ungodly amount of pussy Zajack got in this one? And it wasn't crazy pussy either, like in Bukowski's Women, which might make it more trouble than it's worth in the end.
Regardless, the writing of Lounge Lizard is classic SaFranko. It is so readable that you hardly notice that you're reading a book, requiring no mental effort whatsoever. And no, that is in no way a bad thing since Mark SaFranko is a master at writing lean and mean fiction. He cuts away all the extraneous fat and only puts on page what you actually want to know, instead of having to wade through endless boring descriptions—which most authors put in their books—that are only there to make the books longer and because some shitty popular writer told them that "this is the way to write"—when in truth there are no rules to writing; none whatsoever.
In any case, regardless of the subjective lack of sufficient misery to satisfy my twisted mental faculties, and regardless of the exorbitant price I paid for it, I nonetheless enjoyed reading this book and in a world of Stephen Kings and Paulo Coelhos, I sincerely wish that there were more Mark SaFrankos.
Because in such a world, people might actually enjoy reading a book, instead of just pretending that they do because it's a bestseller and therefore has to be good or because everybody else says it's good and who am I to go against the grain?
Because in such a world, going against the grain would be appreciated. Unlike in our actual world where doing so is condemned.
Was it worth it? Yes and no.
First of all, no book is worth such an ungodly amount, not even a hypothetical one that was called The Meaning of Life (which would be blank anyway).
However, as I've immensely enjoyed all of SaFranko's Zajack novels I've been able to get my hands on, and as Lounge Lizard was the last one available for purchase, albeit for an exorbitant price, I figured that there's at least a decent chance that this one might end up being the best of them all. Mark SaFranko, after all, as far as I'm concerned, is the modern day Bukowski. And so, perhaps this book then is the modern day Women?
Unfortunately, I prefer my Max Zajack as I prefer all of my protagonists. Miserable. Down and out. Crazy. And on a downward spiral. I don't want them to succeed, you see; I want them to fail. And out of all the other Zajack books that I've read, in this one he seemed to be doing pretty good for himself most of the time and I'd have really preferred he hadn't.
Why do I like reading about miserable characters who never succeed at anything? Because such stories make me feel better about my own endless misery and lack of success. Whereas reading about the opposite would, for obvious reasons, only make me feel even more miserable, since I'd inevitably be comparing myself to them. After all, people only like characters they can relate with. And I cannot relate with the winners; I only relate to the losers.
Or who knows... maybe I was just jealous at the ungodly amount of pussy Zajack got in this one? And it wasn't crazy pussy either, like in Bukowski's Women, which might make it more trouble than it's worth in the end.
Regardless, the writing of Lounge Lizard is classic SaFranko. It is so readable that you hardly notice that you're reading a book, requiring no mental effort whatsoever. And no, that is in no way a bad thing since Mark SaFranko is a master at writing lean and mean fiction. He cuts away all the extraneous fat and only puts on page what you actually want to know, instead of having to wade through endless boring descriptions—which most authors put in their books—that are only there to make the books longer and because some shitty popular writer told them that "this is the way to write"—when in truth there are no rules to writing; none whatsoever.
In any case, regardless of the subjective lack of sufficient misery to satisfy my twisted mental faculties, and regardless of the exorbitant price I paid for it, I nonetheless enjoyed reading this book and in a world of Stephen Kings and Paulo Coelhos, I sincerely wish that there were more Mark SaFrankos.
Because in such a world, people might actually enjoy reading a book, instead of just pretending that they do because it's a bestseller and therefore has to be good or because everybody else says it's good and who am I to go against the grain?
Because in such a world, going against the grain would be appreciated. Unlike in our actual world where doing so is condemned.
April 23, 2013
Max Zajack strikes again! Another long ball shot by Mark SaFranko. if you can get this in the states, i suggest you check it out!
August 19, 2018
this semi-autobiographical sequel to hating olivia continues the great tradition of bukowski, henry miller et al, with all that entails - alcoholism, the impoverished writer, self-deprecation, self-hatred, and no small amount of misogyny.
August 8, 2021
Fantastic novel. Really glad I got to read this book in the series. Like all of SaFranko's work, Lounge Lizard is relentless, dark and isn't shy to show the ugly side of the human condition. Grab a copy if you can!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews