While browsing the library catalog, I spotted an intersting title: The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun, by Robert Kaplow. It was billed as a parody of The Cat Who........ books. Being a fan, I brought the slim volume home and prepared to be entertained and amused. Instead, I became thoroughly disgusted.
The book opens with the decapitated body of Lilian Jackson Braun being found in the toilet of a Greenwich Village gay bar and goes downhill from there. It is replete with smut, gratuitous sex scenes and bathroom "humor". In addition, the writing is terrible, employing asides and background explanations, which bear no relationship to the plot (such as it is).
Recurring cameos, by Philip Roth do nothing for the story. References to Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, Mary Astor and The Honeymooners are disjointed and require great stretches of text, to semi-connect them.
Mr. Kaplow has produced a piece of prose which, shredded, would not be fit for my cats to eliminate on.
The above is solely the opinion of the writer.
The book opens with the decapitated body of Lilian Jackson Braun being found in the toilet of a Greenwich Village gay bar and goes downhill from there. It is replete with smut, gratuitous sex scenes and bathroom "humor". In addition, the writing is terrible, employing asides and background explanations, which bear no relationship to the plot (such as it is).
Recurring cameos, by Philip Roth do nothing for the story. References to Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, Mary Astor and The Honeymooners are disjointed and require great stretches of text, to semi-connect them.
Mr. Kaplow has produced a piece of prose which, shredded, would not be fit for my cats to eliminate on.
The above is solely the opinion of the writer.