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Pineapple
Welcome to Los Alamos, where the big-brained boys and girls are at it again. But atoms have turned passé: now it's the Higgs boson, which they are sing to develop a clean, efficient weapon of mini-destruction, mysteriously dropping bodies into junior black holes within a fifty mile radius. Moreover, they're accomplishing this perfidy in comic rhyming quatrains. Can an intrepid group of six amateur do-gooders resolve the mystery and prevent the unleashing of this new WMD?
350 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2017
3 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
Joe Taylor
73 books55 followersI’ve had stories published in over 100 literary magazines. Pineapple, A Comic Novel in Verse, was published by Sagging Meniscus Press, as was Back to the Wine Jug, another novel in verse. NewSouth Books published The Theoretics of Love. Sagging Meniscus also published a story collection of mine, entitled Ghostly Demarcations. A previous novel of mine, Oldcat & Ms. Puss: A Book of Days for You and Me, was published several years ago by the now defunct Black Belt Press, and it was reviewed in Publishers Weekly. I have three story collections published, and I’ve edited several anthologies, notably, Belles’ Letters: Contemporary Fiction by Alabama Women and Tartts One through Five. I recently published a novel with the imposing title, Let There Be Lite, OR, How I Came To Know and Love Godel’s Incompleteness Proof. I’ve been the director of Livingston Press . . . forever.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 20, 2017
THE PUBLISHER SENT ME A REVIEW COPY. ALSO, I'VE KNOWN THE AUTHOR FOR A QUARTER CENTURY.
My Review: But anyone who's ever had a chance to hear my mouth on the subject of poetry knows that the best a friend who commits versification can hope for is silence from my general direction. It's better than what I'm likely to say, I assure you.
The sharp-eyed among y'all will note that this is a review, and carries a star rating, and isn't a bad rating at all. What gives? Well gather round, kiddies, and let Uncle Daddy tell you a little tale.
Waaaaaay back in the Mists of Time, I was a literary agent. A manuscript sailed over the transom one day, a humorous and bitter comedic romp about the North American Executive council of witches and their attempts to come to grips with a very, very bad madre of a witch in Florida (where else?) who was upsetting the cosmic balance in a big, nasty way. I was hooked. This was a decade before the paranormal book boom and I was sure the sheer verve and delight of the novel could ignite a movement.
Publishers disagreed.
It was Joe Taylor's manuscript that I couldn't, to my eternal chagrin, sell. But never mind, Joe was publishing good books via Livingston Press! Maybe I could, you know, movies or...but no. Sad to say, nothing ever eventuated except my snarky correspondence with Joe and a number of laugh-out-loud funny phone calls over the years.
So one fine day not so long ago, I got a missive from Joe telling me about this wizard idea he had for a comic novel about quantum mechanics (he's prone to saying things like that, I wasn't especially worried) where the End of the World was going to be brought about. Uh-huh, sounds cool, I said. Then Joe said IT: "I'm going to write it in rhyming quatrains."
"Are you out of your MIND? Joe, do you not WANT people to read your stuff?!" I shouted at my computer screen as I typed those very words.
Having heard the identical sentiments from me before about his dialect novel Oldcat and Ms. Puss, Joe tinkled a merry laugh and went about committing versification concerning quantum physics and the End of the World.
It's a darn good thing he doesn't listen to me. This is a comic novel of sharp, biting wit. This is poetry *about* something, not just it's own pit-sniffin' self. This is what Daniel Defoe would be doing were his rotting zombie corpse to get access to a PC and a blogging platform.
It's impossible to quote poetry in a review. Well, damn near. And narrative poetry? Fuggeddaboudit.
Nice layers of humor in there, doncha think? Suns and sons and moons and loonys...Joe knows how to make a word nerd grin, always has, and bless his cotton socks for it.
Will this book light everyone's fire? Nope. Will it light yours? If you're reading my reviews, chances are it will. *I* liked a book of poetry! Even Joe was gobsmacked about that. Go on, be a devil, try out a small indie press's big indie author's seriously weird novel-in-verse. Hey, even if you hate it, you're gonna score big on the cooler-than-thou meter (see what I did there? haw) just having it on the coffee table.
My Review: But anyone who's ever had a chance to hear my mouth on the subject of poetry knows that the best a friend who commits versification can hope for is silence from my general direction. It's better than what I'm likely to say, I assure you.
The sharp-eyed among y'all will note that this is a review, and carries a star rating, and isn't a bad rating at all. What gives? Well gather round, kiddies, and let Uncle Daddy tell you a little tale.
Waaaaaay back in the Mists of Time, I was a literary agent. A manuscript sailed over the transom one day, a humorous and bitter comedic romp about the North American Executive council of witches and their attempts to come to grips with a very, very bad madre of a witch in Florida (where else?) who was upsetting the cosmic balance in a big, nasty way. I was hooked. This was a decade before the paranormal book boom and I was sure the sheer verve and delight of the novel could ignite a movement.
Publishers disagreed.
It was Joe Taylor's manuscript that I couldn't, to my eternal chagrin, sell. But never mind, Joe was publishing good books via Livingston Press! Maybe I could, you know, movies or...but no. Sad to say, nothing ever eventuated except my snarky correspondence with Joe and a number of laugh-out-loud funny phone calls over the years.
So one fine day not so long ago, I got a missive from Joe telling me about this wizard idea he had for a comic novel about quantum mechanics (he's prone to saying things like that, I wasn't especially worried) where the End of the World was going to be brought about. Uh-huh, sounds cool, I said. Then Joe said IT: "I'm going to write it in rhyming quatrains."
"Are you out of your MIND? Joe, do you not WANT people to read your stuff?!" I shouted at my computer screen as I typed those very words.
Having heard the identical sentiments from me before about his dialect novel Oldcat and Ms. Puss, Joe tinkled a merry laugh and went about committing versification concerning quantum physics and the End of the World.
It's a darn good thing he doesn't listen to me. This is a comic novel of sharp, biting wit. This is poetry *about* something, not just it's own pit-sniffin' self. This is what Daniel Defoe would be doing were his rotting zombie corpse to get access to a PC and a blogging platform.
It's impossible to quote poetry in a review. Well, damn near. And narrative poetry? Fuggeddaboudit.
It was a dark and bleary night. Which means,
I s'pose, Ol' Sol done gave it a rest.
Dave's dad, bandanna in teeth, was last Sol'd seen.
Now Ms. Moon watches two Hansons, a harsher test.
Do you think, by the way, sun and moon
communicate? Morse code? Telepathy?
Ah, but I promised no spiritual loony tune.
Still, it'd be nice to think they share empathy.
Nice layers of humor in there, doncha think? Suns and sons and moons and loonys...Joe knows how to make a word nerd grin, always has, and bless his cotton socks for it.
Will this book light everyone's fire? Nope. Will it light yours? If you're reading my reviews, chances are it will. *I* liked a book of poetry! Even Joe was gobsmacked about that. Go on, be a devil, try out a small indie press's big indie author's seriously weird novel-in-verse. Hey, even if you hate it, you're gonna score big on the cooler-than-thou meter (see what I did there? haw) just having it on the coffee table.
March 26, 2018
I couldn’t resist taking this up for the novelty of a science fiction thriller/comedy written in rhyming verse. Admirable attempt, but for me the novelty wears thin pretty quickly. Hard to get past the sing-songy element, which undercuts immersion in the characters and plot. I recently enjoyed an audio version of Pope’s 18th century translation of the Iliad, but in that case the elevated verse aligned with the elevated drama. Sometimes here the verse enhances the humor, but the limerick-like requirements often distracts from comic action by calling attention to word forms themselves.
Beyond the verse issue, what about the sci fi stuff and how does that jive with the comedy? The first aspect kept me going. We have Carmen, a relatively inexperienced agent from one or the other agency, who is working on infiltrating the networks of lower level employees at the same Los Alamos base that built the first atomic bombs. A body turns up that is in small pieces, suggestive of a fiendish weapon of some sort. Another woman appears to be compressed to the size of a garbanzo bean.
No more untidy corpses with blackened
cells; all fleshly matter fizzled down to a
chick pea. No more Fibronacci counting,
what who could tell; this sleek, improved
Higgs boson filled them with glees.
Is there some secret government experimentation going with a novel weapon or has the wrong sort of people gotten ahold of the theoretical weapon? Drug dealers and gangsters are in the woodwork, as are believers in alien invasion and secrets of Area 51 and bad karma over the subjugation of Native Americans. Carmen and her intrepid associates have their hands full with all potential suspects, and in this the chaos and bad juju, the comedy brings needed relief in snatches.
But as we struggle to figure out what is fracking going on here we get another assault on our suffering attention span. The author intrudes every few pages. He talks about his tricks and problems in writing what you are reading and renders excuses and apologies for flaws and deficiencies. Just when you are getting pissed enough to close the books (getting addressed as “dear reader” already got old in Victorian novels), he starts talking about his own life until he becomes at least as interesting as the characters in “his” story.
He has a girlfriend who makes both reasonable and radical complaints about details in his drafts. She finds that one character resembles his daughter and wants him to render her a happier sex life. Most of this the author character lets roll off his back. Soon we get confused between the characters in the author’s supposed life and the fiction ones he is writing about. His power of words is applied in his own life by giving his girlfriend different names according to her mood and outlook:
Here’s something I should set loose about Trixie: She’s
quite the lass, cunning, funny, and gay. But oft times
she becomes a Dixie,
strident as Stonewall Jackson, has to have her way.
Then after she gets it, ooo, love city. Her little toes flex
and I call her Pixie….”
At one point the author complains his readers shouldn’t expect too much from him, followed by a pep talk for his characters:
Though we be but entertainers, we so hope to shield poor human souls! How? By embellishing, disguising, sugar-frosting, or just plain lying concerning this globe’s woes.
Listen up! (My dear and faithful Reader, this complaint aims not for you.) Listen up, you wayward, dratted characters in this beleaguered, blasted, blessed, beatudinous novel! Back off! Show respect! Act as if you inhabit more than rhyming quatrains spewing dreck, or you. just. might. wind. Up. in. some snake-infested hovel!
Yes, there is some novelty here, but it just feels too smug. And the novelty isn’t that novel. Already by 1914, we had Unamuno’s “Fog”, in which we have a character making a revolt on playing his part and taking his objections and threats to the author. In Pirandello’s “3 Characters in Search of an Author” in 1921, we have a director’s play rehearsals interrupted and taken over by the people the characters are based on. In 1939, we get a Russian nesting doll of characters and authors in Flan O’Brien’s “At-Swim-Two Birds”, and in 1979, the characters in Calvino’s “If on a winter’s night a traveler” are readers hopscotching their way through interrupted stories from 10 books getting fed up with authors and publishers.
You now have enough information I think to tell if this twisted tale might fulfill your taste in whimsy. One more factor is your tolerance of non-PC speech. A goodly number of the characters are stuck in misogynistic and racist attitudes and say those ugly words that deserve no callouses. It takes the right, trusted comedian to make bigotry sing as humor, and I can’t provide much assurance that Taylor foots that bill.
This book was provided by the publisher for review through the Netgalley program.
Beyond the verse issue, what about the sci fi stuff and how does that jive with the comedy? The first aspect kept me going. We have Carmen, a relatively inexperienced agent from one or the other agency, who is working on infiltrating the networks of lower level employees at the same Los Alamos base that built the first atomic bombs. A body turns up that is in small pieces, suggestive of a fiendish weapon of some sort. Another woman appears to be compressed to the size of a garbanzo bean.
No more untidy corpses with blackened
cells; all fleshly matter fizzled down to a
chick pea. No more Fibronacci counting,
what who could tell; this sleek, improved
Higgs boson filled them with glees.
Is there some secret government experimentation going with a novel weapon or has the wrong sort of people gotten ahold of the theoretical weapon? Drug dealers and gangsters are in the woodwork, as are believers in alien invasion and secrets of Area 51 and bad karma over the subjugation of Native Americans. Carmen and her intrepid associates have their hands full with all potential suspects, and in this the chaos and bad juju, the comedy brings needed relief in snatches.
But as we struggle to figure out what is fracking going on here we get another assault on our suffering attention span. The author intrudes every few pages. He talks about his tricks and problems in writing what you are reading and renders excuses and apologies for flaws and deficiencies. Just when you are getting pissed enough to close the books (getting addressed as “dear reader” already got old in Victorian novels), he starts talking about his own life until he becomes at least as interesting as the characters in “his” story.
He has a girlfriend who makes both reasonable and radical complaints about details in his drafts. She finds that one character resembles his daughter and wants him to render her a happier sex life. Most of this the author character lets roll off his back. Soon we get confused between the characters in the author’s supposed life and the fiction ones he is writing about. His power of words is applied in his own life by giving his girlfriend different names according to her mood and outlook:
Here’s something I should set loose about Trixie: She’s
quite the lass, cunning, funny, and gay. But oft times
she becomes a Dixie,
strident as Stonewall Jackson, has to have her way.
Then after she gets it, ooo, love city. Her little toes flex
and I call her Pixie….”
At one point the author complains his readers shouldn’t expect too much from him, followed by a pep talk for his characters:
Though we be but entertainers, we so hope to shield poor human souls! How? By embellishing, disguising, sugar-frosting, or just plain lying concerning this globe’s woes.
Listen up! (My dear and faithful Reader, this complaint aims not for you.) Listen up, you wayward, dratted characters in this beleaguered, blasted, blessed, beatudinous novel! Back off! Show respect! Act as if you inhabit more than rhyming quatrains spewing dreck, or you. just. might. wind. Up. in. some snake-infested hovel!
Yes, there is some novelty here, but it just feels too smug. And the novelty isn’t that novel. Already by 1914, we had Unamuno’s “Fog”, in which we have a character making a revolt on playing his part and taking his objections and threats to the author. In Pirandello’s “3 Characters in Search of an Author” in 1921, we have a director’s play rehearsals interrupted and taken over by the people the characters are based on. In 1939, we get a Russian nesting doll of characters and authors in Flan O’Brien’s “At-Swim-Two Birds”, and in 1979, the characters in Calvino’s “If on a winter’s night a traveler” are readers hopscotching their way through interrupted stories from 10 books getting fed up with authors and publishers.
You now have enough information I think to tell if this twisted tale might fulfill your taste in whimsy. One more factor is your tolerance of non-PC speech. A goodly number of the characters are stuck in misogynistic and racist attitudes and say those ugly words that deserve no callouses. It takes the right, trusted comedian to make bigotry sing as humor, and I can’t provide much assurance that Taylor foots that bill.
This book was provided by the publisher for review through the Netgalley program.
October 14, 2017
I found this book to be quite creative. This is a prose poet who knows his way around the edge of a word.
The effect of this book was a rolling sense of words combining to create a story. Like prose, we get the narrative; like poetry, we get word play.
Recommended.
The effect of this book was a rolling sense of words combining to create a story. Like prose, we get the narrative; like poetry, we get word play.
Recommended.
September 7, 2018
ray gun fun in a river run of rhymes
April 8, 2021
If you haven't read a novel in verse in some time or perhaps never, this is the one to start with. For one thing Joe Taylor is a great undiscovered treasure of a writer. His stuff and novels are funny, inventive, and damn well written. He takes irreverence to a level you've never experienced before but buckles it around some serious literary profundities. There is adventure, puns, zany characters and just well genius pathways through the verses in this novel in verse to leave you begging for more.
Pineapple will leave you wanting more of Joe Taylor so please check his other books out. (His book of ghost stories, for instance, is pure literary treasure.)
Pineapple is about a crazy group of people in the town 'that spawned the atomic bomb' Los Alamos, and it all gets better from there.
No more spoilers, just settle in with this book and enjoy.
Jim Harris
Pineapple will leave you wanting more of Joe Taylor so please check his other books out. (His book of ghost stories, for instance, is pure literary treasure.)
Pineapple is about a crazy group of people in the town 'that spawned the atomic bomb' Los Alamos, and it all gets better from there.
No more spoilers, just settle in with this book and enjoy.
Jim Harris
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews