To say that I am not a fantasy or sci-fi fan is an understatement.  The only thing coming close to either of those genres that I have ever had any interest in was the Harry Potter series.  I don’t know why.  I can’t explain it.  It just doesn’t float my boat.  So, needless to say, I was skeptical when it came to my newly acquired box set of vampire novels. 

The series centers on Bon Temps, a small town in New Orleans and it’s inhabitants.  Most notably it’s twenty-something ‘looney’ local Sookie Stackhouse.  For most of her life Sookie has been something of a pariah in Bon Temps.    Early on you learn that Sookie has what she calls a ‘disability’ and what everyone else regards as being something between bat shit crazy and mildly retarded.   Her disability makes relationships with anyone;  especially men virtually impossible.   But then she meets her perfect man, Bill.  All dark hair and dark eyes and fair skin.  Ok, not really fair skin so much as a deathly pallor; because Bill is, in fact, dead.  Bill is one of many freshly ‘out of the coffin’ vampires attempting to mainstream into everyday life throughout the world.  And he has come back home to Bon Temps to live on the plantation that his family has owned for hundreds of years.

Of course, upon Bill’s arrival, the shit hits the fan in sleepy little Bon Temps.  A series of unexplained murders start taking place which gets everyone’s knickers in a twist.  With the obvious blame falling to Bill and his undead brethren.   Although after some investigation the finger is pointing at someone even closer to Sookie’s heart than Bill.  And it is with that that she strikes out to clear the names of the people she loves while trying not to get killed herself.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I dug this book.  It wasn’t the typical vampire novel.  There isn’t a whole bunch of bodice ripping and damsels in distress, while the big bad vampires wreak havoc on the unsuspecting town, until the calvary of burly men with stakes ride up to save the day.  Sure there is the obvious amount of supernatural fantastic material contained within it’s pages.  It is a book about vampires for God’s sake.  But it is also about a tough as nails southern chick willing to look a fool and buck the system to save the men that she loves.   And almost more importantly it is about a minority stepping out on to the world’s stage and attempting to be accepted  for what they are; not what people expect them to be.  And here I thought I was just reading a book about blood suckers and red necks.   Who knew the novel about vampires and a chick with a goofy name could also be a study of independence and tolerance?

  ‘Water’…is the story of Jacob Jankowski a 90 or 93 year old, depending on what day you are talking to him, living out his remaining days in an ‘assisted living’ facility that his family put him in after a broken hip incident.  On Jacob’s good days he is ornery and viewed as a problem patient by the nursing staff.  The only problem is he really isn’t ornery, he is old and confused.  He misses his wife and being a productive member of society and eating solid food.  He hates feeling discarded and useless.  Up until this point he lead an exciting life with his beloved and their 5 children.

  The story is told through a series of flashbacks to Jacob’s former life as a circus’ veterinarian.  The story is a great many things;  excitement, sorrow, loss and savagery set against the back drop of the Great Depression.  But at it’s core ‘Water…’ is a love story. 

  It is the story of Jacob’s love for his family and his life pre-circus;  the story of Jacob’s love of the animals that he is responsible for.   It is a story of Jacob’s love for his every changing home with the circus.  It is the story of Jacob’s love for a beautiful but married performer.   A story of profound love.  Love that you are willing to risk your job, your financial security, even your life for.  And in the story Jacob risks all of those things and more.

The beginning of the book sets the reader up for a trip through the mysterious and often mystical.  In a dark alley in a far away city an unnecessary death takes place.  And a world a way the Sawtelle family is running their dog kennel, working their farm and raising their only son Edgar.

As a reader you soon realize that even though Edgar is the protagonist the Sawtelle dogs are a major character in and of themselves.  There is something about the dogs, especially one named Alomdine, that transcends the generic perception we have of our canine counterparts.

I dare not write in great detail for fear of saying far too much.  There are a million little twists and turns.  You will meander through a story of small town/farm life; one minute shopping for that week’s groceries and the next paying and learning of your future from the local ‘witch’ that works the cash register.  The descriptions of the surroundings and what/who inhabits them drop you into a world that is at once familiar and confusing.

At it’s heart that is what this story is for the people in it: familiar and confusing.  It is about love and loss.  Accepting your fate while you are still desperately trying to change it.  Owning up to who and what you are; but more importantly realizing who and what the people around you are.  And when you final have an inkling of what that is holding on to it and accepting it as it is.

‘The Story…’ is heartbreaking and joyous all at once.   You ache with these characters.  You celebrate even their smallest joys.   You mourn their greatest losses.   And perhaps the greatest loss among them is the loss of potential throughout.

Jen is what I would call delusionally confident.  When she looks in the mirror all she sees is great hair, a beautiful smile, perfect skin.  It never occurs to her that her hair is attached to a bowling ball sized head, or that her perfect skin is stretched to max capacity.  Even after she splits a pair of pants while bending over and knocks a strangers wine glass off a table at a resturaunt with her ass; she still labors under the fantasy that she still looks the way she did back in her VP or even sorority days.  And not until she has to go on a book tour and has a panic attack about not fitting into an airplane seat does she decided that changes need to be made.

This is normally when I would put the book down and move onto something else.  Weight loss is an issue near and dear to me; but reading about other people’s weight loss is about as appealing as giving up chocolate cake for carrot sticks.  I hate all the motivational inspirational rah rah bull shit that inevitibly accompanies everyone’s weight loss story.  As anyone who has ever tried to lose a signifigant amount of weight can attest to: Weight Loss is a Bitch. 

But Jen takes a  realistic approach to her weight loss.  She realizes that crazy surgeries are not her thing; but neither is self-control.  She opts for Jenny Craig because they tell you what to eat and when to eat and take all of the guess work out of it.  Things move along well enough at first and then the proverbial wall is hit.  She wants to learn to eat like a human, not live out of boxes.  And through a series of unfortunate events moves from JC to Weight Watchers.  We’ll just say that her opinion of WW is that it is one step up from a cult and leave it at that.

She also starts working out; telling her gym owner that she wants the meanest surliest personal trainer they have to work with her.  And when she gets a voiemail from her new trainer Barbie to confirm her first session with her she almost has a stroke.

Jen Lancaster is nothing if not brutally honest.  And she approached telling this story with an hoesty that I appreaciated.  She tells you all of the nasty little secrets about her weight loss.  Her cheating on her diet and looking for any excuse to not go to the gym.  She talks about her inability to climb a flight of stairs without getting winded.  And how it doesn’t matter what she wears it is always too small and never fits right.

It was refreshing to hear someone say what plays through my head on most days, which is , you don’t need to be a genius to lose weight.  You just have to use some common sense.  You know that salads and grilled chicken are better for you then stuffed shells and au gratin potatoes.  But the stuffed shells taste way better.  You know what you should eat and not eat and that sitting and watching sports on TV is not the equivalent of actually participating in them.  But Goddamn, if you want to sit and watch TV instead of going to the gym and you opt for cookies instead of cucumber slices it is ok.  You aren’t a failure, you are a human.

If ’Bitter…’  is every gory detail of what it is to fall from the upper echelon of society to become one of the unwashed masses; than ‘Bright Lights, Big Ass’ is the cringe worthy description of owning your spot in the middle of the working class.

Jen Lancaster makes no bones about it.  Living in Chicago as one of the working class is anything but comparable to Sex and the City.   In the second  installment of all things Jen she is temping while she waits for her advance check from the memior she just sold.  The indignity of walking into an interview and having to explain for the umpteenth time why she used to be a VP and is now happy to fetch coffee is more than most could deal with.  Lancaster puts on what used to be her best suit, carries her shinniest pleather portifolio,  perches her knock-off Chanel sunglasses expertly on her head and does what she does best.  Tells it like it is.

She goes so far as to tell a prospective employer that Carrie Bradshaw is a ‘dang liar’. That the picture of darling Carrie living in a great neighborhood, hardly working, drinking not dollar beers; but top shelf cosmos, having beautiful friends, handsome men and an endless stream of cash and credit to buy Manolos with is, in no uncertain terms, total bull shit.  And that is why she needs the temp job.  Because Jen, unlike Carrie, lives in a crap neighborhood, has bill collectors calling her house at all hours, has sold most of her expensive shoes and such on ebay, and is trying to get to a place in life where she may not be rich; but where she will no longer have a rat problem in her back yard.

Jen finally seems to realize that her behavior was by all accounts completely unacceptable for the better portion of her life.  And is for the most part not only trying to make her financial/living situation better; but her emotional and spiritual situation better as well.   Being knocked from her pedestal and having to work to get to the middle ground might be the best thing that has ever happened to her.  She has taken a step back and is slowly making drastic changes for the better.

 She is still caustic,  she called immigration on the neighbors and ‘doesn’t like mass transportation because it transports the masses’.  She still whines so much at her husband Fletch, that if it were me she and I would have come to blows already.  In ‘Bright Lights…’ Jen is still needy.  She is still bratty.  She is still self-centered.  She is still a smart-ass.  She is still Jen Lancaster.  And that is just the way I like her.

‘Bitter’ is the chronicling of one seriously self-obsessed chicks spiral from top exec, living literally in the penthouse to bottom feeder temp living in the ghetto.

The author Jen Lancaster paints herself truthfully if not entirely flatteringly throughout.  The whole thing starts with her discussing her upbringing and childhood.  How she started babysitting the neighborhood brats to make extra money so she could afford to shop at the local golf pro shop for her uber-preppy Izod polo shirts and plaid shorts.  And how she made sure she spent everyday of every summer in a pool even if that meant conning peoples parent’s into letting her in the house.  She gets through high school and into college where she inevitably joins a sorority and becomes something of the social director.  Out of college and into a great job making oddles of money.  Throughout this rise up the ladder though you learn pretty quick that she thinks she is the stuff of legends all blond hair and strings of pearls and she thinks everyone around her is obviously a total idiot.   The phrase condescending, ego maniacal, self-centered smartass may be the understatement of the century when being used to describe her.

She, along with her boyfriend Fletch, reach almost obscene heights in the bank account, housing, career, lifestyle department.  All the while she behaves like an utter asshole with nothing but contempt for the worlds population.  No one is immune to her rage, whining, bitching.   And then it all comes crashing down.  She loses her job working for a dotcom company; but is sure she will find something quickly and can totally afford to be unemployed while her beloved is still bringing in the bucks.  Until he loses his job too.  And then things get interesting.

All the things that she covets are all suddenly way way way out of her reach.  No more ridiculously expensive trips to the salon or shopping in all the best stores for $500 cashmere twinsets.  $300 shoes are a thing of the past as are martinis at the greatest bars in town, being able to pay the bills, having running water, heat or electric.  And her once beautiful, and as she thought, totally deserved super expensive apartment becomes nothing more than a daily reminder that the salad days are over and things need to change.  This point is driven home when she actually walks into the unemployment office carrying a Prada bag and can’t figure out why people are looking at her with such disdain.

Personally, if this were my life I would probably curl up and die.  More than likely in a box on the street while trying to eat my Prada bag.  But not Jen, ever resourceful she sells the expensive clothes and bags and shoes on ebay.  She and Fletch cut corners from buying groceries to taking care of their giant crazy dogs.   The insane apartment is a thing of the past after they move into a rental in the ghetto.  They even go as far as getting married in Vegas to get the gifts they know that accompany nuptials.  She starts temping in some seriously detestable establishments to make some extra much needed cash.  She also starts writing a blog and a publishers start to take notice.  Resulting in the book that I just finished.  In the end she realizes that her behavior in every aspect of her life is to blame for her current situation.

The way the story is told is hilarious.   I actually found myself laughing out loud while reading it.  When in actuality the story is the stuff of nightmares for most people I know.  Losing your job, your home, your dignity.  Don’t be fooled though, I don’t think what she went through was insurmountable or exclusive to her.  She didn’t cure cancer or save a bus full of school children from a fiery death.   All she did was pull her head out of ass for the first time ever and took serious stock of her life.  And realized what most people already know.  Karma is a bitch.

She has two more books out, ‘Bright Lights. Big Ass.’ and ‘Such a Pretty Fat’ both of which are sitting on the bookshelf waiting to be picked up.  The book didn’t change my life, I didn’t learn anything profound.  But, I laughed my ass off and sometimes that is all you really want or need.  When terms like ‘fucktard’ are used in story telling it is a little jarring and completly wonderful.  Because I thought I was the only one that used that word when talking to my mother.