Steve Toltz' darkly comic "A Fraction of the Whole" is as full of indie quirkiness as any Sundance aspirant, but it's Australian and in bookform so, as Robert Frost says- "that has made all the difference".
The Deans are a kooky family: there's Jasper, as adept at aphoristic wisdom as his father, Martin, who is also a much despised wreck at the Australian level. Then there's Terry, a beloved national icon of crime a la Jesse James, Billy The Kid, or O.J. Simpson. Like Alan Arkin's grandfather in "Sunshine Cleaning", Martin is always in the throes of deranged inspiration and caught in endless schemes to make money that ends up destroying those around him. All he's left with is general contempt, his outsized genius, and a wagonful of baggage to drop on Jasper's shoulders. This is a huge, HILARIOUS novel about doomed people and the wisdom and foolishness we inherit genetically. There are many EVENTS in this huge novel, and I'm not sure that there's a lot of PLOT, but I didn't care: the Wildean bon mots carried me through, and there's three or four in every page- and around 300 in the eminentably quotable last chapter.
Sampler:
Toltz on religion: "If I live in a house, why should I care who the architect was?" On opinions: "People aren't ever FOR anything: they're just opposed to its opposite." On sex: "Wearing a condom is as insulting to the senses as putting a windsock on your tongue before eating chocolate." On self-destructive BABIES: "He had an infant's razor-sharp instinct for suicide."
It's SOOO true, isn't it? Leave a toddler alone for an hour and I guarantee they will find an outlandish way to euthanize themselves. They'll eat a coinjar, bash their tiny brains agaist the softest of walls, drown in a two inch-deep puddle. It's like they're deeply disappointed with life right off the bat.
ABOVE: No, bad baby! We do not antagonize animals with teeth!
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