You need to be ready for Mark Leyner. Pick up this book when you're tired or cranky, and it will strike you as an almighty pain in the ass; return to it refreshed, and some of it is actually very funny, even if you don't know Mark Leyner from a chili dog and find the transatlantic vernacular mildly mystifying. The first line that made me chuckle, during a merciless send up of The Road to Wellville, referred to "a wildaficionado of American pop culture who named his daughter Kojacqueline"; well, it seemed funny at the time. There are plenty of sharp gags as Leyner turns his rapid fire irreverence on some fairly predictable targets - Barbie dolls, sperm banks, fatherhood and post Soviet Russia - and some less predictable ones like Mahler (Mahler???) and murder. And I read right to the end without finding out what zeppoles are.
