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This is going to be a short post because I'm hopped up on Dunkin Donuts (honestly, I don't know why I drink the stuff when it gives me the shakes and make me feel nauseaus) and have not yet begun to pack for tomorrow's trip to Utah. I'm joining a polygamist cult. Just kidding, but that is actually what I told my boss. Truth is, I'm heading to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary to spend some vacation days volunteering. I am beyond psyched. Beyond.
But back to the book at hand. "Puff" by local Massachusetts comedian Bob Flaherty is called fiction. I do not believe that for one second. I whole-heartedly believe it is memoir and the names and towns have been changed to protect the, uh, guilty. It is, in a word, hysterical.
In a suburb of Boston, on a particular day when a Nor' Easter hits, John and his brother Gully decide they must get to Braintree where Worms Faulkner is holding pot for them. So they set out in their trusty steed (their deceased father's ramshackle van) intending to get to Braintree and smoke. Instead, every possible thing goes wrong, from run-ins with the cops, to being stuck driving their childhood priest around to console people stuck in their homes. The hijinx are so ridiculous that I just have to believe this is a true story from Bob's childhood. I just don't think he could make this stuff up. While the circumstances alone are funny, it's the manner of writing that made me laugh on my commute into work. I would describe it as if you took David Sedaris and dropped him in the gutter. That's Bob Flaherty's style. Simple, dry, and dirty to the max. But then again, John Gullivan is twenty-three.
I would love to put some especially hysterical bits in here to tease you with but I have to go! I'm off to play with puppies, kitties and horsies!
Happy Reading!
~Stephanie
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