What do you think?
Rate this book
The Nimrod
SOCO “New England’s Favorite Magazine” recently featured THE NIMROD to it’s readership for “sometimes sarcastic, sometimes outraged, always funny.” THE Sloane’s life is one gigantic, hilarious MESS! Now 31 years old and life-wrecked on Cape Cod, he’s forsaken his degree in Computer Engineering (Boooooooring!!!) to embark on life’s purposely less-traveled road; a road so pock-marked with poverty, nonsense and endless troubles that no sensible person has ever even dared to travel it.Gary operates the worst landscaping business in Cape Cod history - an enterprise so ridiculous it’s literally nameless. With positively zero business sense and virtually no income, he’s dropped 78 pounds, cheered when his ex-girlfriend Jade was abducted by a local character named Low Tide, hired an employee who never comes in and can’t speak English and purchased a disintegrating pickup truck who’s broken radio only tunes in Rush Limbaugh. His only recurring landscaping client hires him not to garden but rather to watch classic films like “Annie Hall” in exchange for his thoughts (Noah says I got “the eye” but I got news for Noah. The eye doesn’t pay anything). Worse, these dire financial straits have left him living with his colorful Aunt Muriel who believes - hopes actually - that Gary’s got at least enough ambition to take it to the next level and finally become NATIONALLY infamous.
384 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 28, 2010
6 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 15, 2010
This book was a genuine find! I like to add variety to my bookshelf and I'll be the first to admit that I have a funny bone that's itching for a really good read every once in a while. I also mix in a ton of other genres as well, but I'm willing to take a chance on something that just SOUNDS interesting. This started back when my father gave me his copy of "A Confederacy of Dunces" when I was in high school (and with that shared experience we started line-sharing which was special) and continues to this day when I rush out and buy whatever Carl Hiaasen is putting out or if Christopher Moore has something new.
I heard about "The Nimrod" via my daughter's Facebook friends and they were all raving about this. Okay let me say this: I admit my daughter is 19 and we don't exactly share tastes in everything anymore, but there was a lot of laughing and yes line-quoting coming from this book so I secretly (if I DIDN'T like this, did I really want to seem old??) downloaded "The Nimrod" to my Kindle.
Oh wow! It's a little rough at first in the sense that you don't really know what's happening or what you've signed up for but as you read on that's a huge part of the fun! The title character(because Gary Sloane is indeed the "nimrod" of this story)is completely original and SOOO FUNNY! He's a down-on-his-luck landscaper living on Cape Cod who has the capacity to be doing something better with his life but never seems to realize it. He lives with his Aunt Muriel at age 31 and is besieged with calamity upon calamity. He has a sometimes employee he calls "Haji" who's real name he doesn't know, an ex-girlfriend Jade who is "jaded" in the extreme..oh and a stripper named Aspin that he's shaved bald with an electric clipper!
There are MANY laugh-out-loud moments in this book and to pick just one seems like an injustice to it. Part of the reason for that is that Kelliher never quite lets you know where any of this is going so you never know what to expect. I think my favorite scene had to either be his run-in with local Indians in the woods and the remarkably funny friendship he strikes up with a character named Midnight Run Benson, or his first ride in an airplane. Both of these scenes show an author capable of walking a high-wire of comic complexity. You just have to turn the page and find out what's coming next because you literally just don't know.
Which is the other thing. This isn't "a Rabbi,a Priest and a woodchuck walk into a bar" sort of book. There's a real mystery behind all of the action in "The Nimrod" which intensifies the humor because you want to know what this is really all about. The core story, the mystery there, is extremely satisfying!
I would recommend this one to anybody. The language is a little crude in places but when you realize what's happening you start to think "what else would a landscaper talk like?" and you see it's all intentional. I'm highly recommending "The Nimrod" Unless you just don't have any sense of humor at all, you most definitely will love this book! Oh and I forgot to say that we used to vacation on Cape Cod and there was something about seeing the Cape portrayed this way - darkly and humorously- that made me like it just a little bit more. Enjoy!
I heard about "The Nimrod" via my daughter's Facebook friends and they were all raving about this. Okay let me say this: I admit my daughter is 19 and we don't exactly share tastes in everything anymore, but there was a lot of laughing and yes line-quoting coming from this book so I secretly (if I DIDN'T like this, did I really want to seem old??) downloaded "The Nimrod" to my Kindle.
Oh wow! It's a little rough at first in the sense that you don't really know what's happening or what you've signed up for but as you read on that's a huge part of the fun! The title character(because Gary Sloane is indeed the "nimrod" of this story)is completely original and SOOO FUNNY! He's a down-on-his-luck landscaper living on Cape Cod who has the capacity to be doing something better with his life but never seems to realize it. He lives with his Aunt Muriel at age 31 and is besieged with calamity upon calamity. He has a sometimes employee he calls "Haji" who's real name he doesn't know, an ex-girlfriend Jade who is "jaded" in the extreme..oh and a stripper named Aspin that he's shaved bald with an electric clipper!
There are MANY laugh-out-loud moments in this book and to pick just one seems like an injustice to it. Part of the reason for that is that Kelliher never quite lets you know where any of this is going so you never know what to expect. I think my favorite scene had to either be his run-in with local Indians in the woods and the remarkably funny friendship he strikes up with a character named Midnight Run Benson, or his first ride in an airplane. Both of these scenes show an author capable of walking a high-wire of comic complexity. You just have to turn the page and find out what's coming next because you literally just don't know.
Which is the other thing. This isn't "a Rabbi,a Priest and a woodchuck walk into a bar" sort of book. There's a real mystery behind all of the action in "The Nimrod" which intensifies the humor because you want to know what this is really all about. The core story, the mystery there, is extremely satisfying!
I would recommend this one to anybody. The language is a little crude in places but when you realize what's happening you start to think "what else would a landscaper talk like?" and you see it's all intentional. I'm highly recommending "The Nimrod" Unless you just don't have any sense of humor at all, you most definitely will love this book! Oh and I forgot to say that we used to vacation on Cape Cod and there was something about seeing the Cape portrayed this way - darkly and humorously- that made me like it just a little bit more. Enjoy!
March 28, 2018
Loved this book. Starts off like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on steroids, as one picaresque calamity after another befalls our hero Gary Sloane, who for some reason I began to like even as he makes choice after disastrous choice. The ending wraps up well, though perhaps a little lightly, but I didn't care, I was glad to have the bits and pieces connected.
February 7, 2011
This was honestly one of the funniest books I've ever read! So unusual to come across a truly FUNNY book (not that I go looking for them mind you) but you know what I mean. I've read some novels that had funny scenes or maybe "humorous" is the better word, tucked into a much wider story. "The Nimrod" is not like that. It's unique in many respects such as the fact that the protagonist, Gary Sloane, is inadvertently out to tickle your funny bone. Not that he knows it which is what I liked best about the book. The man is CLUELESS! It is one disaster after another, but as I said, Gary somehow just doesn't see it that way. I wouldn't say he's "looking for the bright side" to events like buying a truck whose radio only gets Rush Limbaugh, or discovering that he's shaved himself and a stripper completely bald, but he does have a mentality of soldiering on despite it all. You're never sure if he's looking for a happy ending to all his troubles or more likely for them to just go away. Either way, his inability to escape some pretty unique messes leads to very, very funny reading. Despite the fact that the author gives the main character (Gary) the rugged language you'd more or less expect from a landscaper, you can't help but notice that this is exceptionally good writing. Just a whole lot of fun, this one!!! Good chance you'll catch yourself laughing out loud.
May 2, 2012
"What a long strange trip it's been..."
From the small Cape Cod town of Mashpee, to the Pacific coast north of Santa Monica, Gary Sloane does indeed have a long, and at times, VERY strange trip indeed.
If Murphy ever had need of a poster child, then Gary would be in the top five. From a stripper who lost a fight with a Remmington (hair clipper, that is), to a dock-hand whose name, Low-Tide, is only slightly better than the smell permanently emanating from his pores, Gary continually finds himself in situations that are one part "Twilight Zone" one part "America's wildest police videos" and one part "Strange Brew" meets "Better Off Dead."
Gary is a frustrated screen-writer turned landscaper who simply wants to be left alone. Gary's Aunt Muriel wants the next "National Enquirer" media sensation and goes to great lengths to make Gary just that.
How Gary makes the cross-country trip is just the tip of the iceberg.
Join Gary for a literal literary roller-coaster of a ride. You might not remember how you got there, but you'll sure enjoy the trip.
From the small Cape Cod town of Mashpee, to the Pacific coast north of Santa Monica, Gary Sloane does indeed have a long, and at times, VERY strange trip indeed.
If Murphy ever had need of a poster child, then Gary would be in the top five. From a stripper who lost a fight with a Remmington (hair clipper, that is), to a dock-hand whose name, Low-Tide, is only slightly better than the smell permanently emanating from his pores, Gary continually finds himself in situations that are one part "Twilight Zone" one part "America's wildest police videos" and one part "Strange Brew" meets "Better Off Dead."
Gary is a frustrated screen-writer turned landscaper who simply wants to be left alone. Gary's Aunt Muriel wants the next "National Enquirer" media sensation and goes to great lengths to make Gary just that.
How Gary makes the cross-country trip is just the tip of the iceberg.
Join Gary for a literal literary roller-coaster of a ride. You might not remember how you got there, but you'll sure enjoy the trip.
April 21, 2012
I loved this book so much that I'm considering going back immediately and reading it over again. It might be the funniest thing I have ever read, and that's saying something. I read it on the train (a LONG train ride) and was snorting and laughing out loud on every page. Fantastic, hilarious story of a guy, Gary Sloane, seriously down on his luck. Road-tripping, mind-bending, wonderful fun. Love it!
October 26, 2013
Not quite a five star but real close. Some parts of this book were so funny I was crying and could barely get through the antidote. Extremely entertaining. Not a read for those who can't stand an awkward moment.
January 9, 2014
Not for me.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews