Review: FOR SOMETHING QUITE UNIQUE - DON'T LET THIS ONE GET BY YOU!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 30, 2012
Unlike most of the other reviewers here I had never heard of Norm Augustinus. After doing a bit of research I found that Norm is quite well known for his Podcasts at this time, ergo it is not surprising that I had never heard of him as I do not own an iPod and even if I did there is no way I could ever figure out how to work the thing.  Anyway, despite my ignorance of the author I downloaded this little book to my Kindle (The Kindle I did eventually figure out...sort of) hey, it was only .99 cents and I figured what the heck.  Well it was the best .99 cents I have spent in recent months.Folks this is one odd little book...a short story really containing several chapters.  Through a strange set of circumstances, and I do mean strange, two guys are trapped in the crawl-way of the rent house the author and his mother lives in.  This is in Michigan in the dead of winter and they are having the biggest now in years.  They were caught by the author's mother trying to kidnap the author when he was a tyke and rather than call the police (one of the men was the author's father recently released from prison) she sent them under the house to drive a large group of feral cats out who have been living there.  I think there was something like 1,600 of these cats....!  These two men (Think of Dumb and Dumber) become trapped under the house.I have to tell you that this is one of the most hilarious little stories I have read in years.  It brought smiles to my face, chuckles late at night while I was reading it and out right laughter.  The author, Norm Augustinus has a very, very strange sense of humor and an even stranger way of expressing it. To begin with he has very little use for comas or any other form of punctuation.  This would normally be annoying and cause the narrative to become difficult to read, but trust me folks, Augustinus pulls it off. I found myself reading sentence after sentence and actually holding my breath while doing so out of habit; which in the case of this book was difficult because I kept laughing.The entire situation we find the two lucky men, the author's mother and a small group of characters is almost surreal.  The story is filled with wild exaggerations which when you think about them closely make no sense what so ever but when taken as a whole, make all the sense in the world.  Between the unorthodox punctuation, the very strange situations, the quirkiness of the characters and the rather unique and effective rhythm of the author's use of the language, you have a story that is absolutely captivating and a pure joy to read.Now the author has also used some very earthy language in this story but has done it in a way that is not gratuitous and fits it the mood and syntax of the rest of the writing.  (Remember how Norman Mailer got around using the F-bomb to get his novel `The Naked and the Dead," past the censures?)  Yup...it's all here.This author has a strange and quirky mind and I for one will leap at the chance to read anything else he may choose to publish...this was truly a unique and fun trip.  I quite well make one of my grandsons teach me how to use an iPod...if and when I ever buy one.Don BlankenshipThe Ozarks