Review: `I hate my job!'
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 5, 2014
Canadian author Rory Scherer on the surface appears to be a businessman having an MBA from The Schulich School of Business - York University in Marketing and employed by the DAC Group, SR Entertainment Inc., having been affiliated with Impact Mobile, Odd Thought Inc., Siebel Systems as a digital product strategist and architect and on and on with experience and titles and awards and volunteer work. All of that and more is important, but the aspect of this very bright and creative young Toronto man that for this reviewer shines most brightly is his gist at writing - first his hilarious RHYME TIME  and now with his over the top (in the best sort of comedic writing) THE PROFESSIONAL FREELANCER.Scherer wisely yet oddly opens his hilarious take on the current human condition (or at least his narrator-cum-main-character's) tied to a chair in a warehouse, surrounded by Mafioso like goons: various forms of secretions/excrements sour his securely trapped body.  From there Scherer takes us into the pre-captured life of a man who has been through what seems like an endless parade of futile and boring jobs. Scherer's prose is so alluring that some should be shared at this point: `You see, like a Depression-era tramp carrying a bindle stick traveling as a stowaway on the railways from town to town looking for employment, I dabbled through working the grill at a fast-food restaurant... before the big fire, then telemarketing... before the Securities Exchange Commission shut us down, then door-to-door selling bibles... until I was assigned to a Muslim neighborhood, then house painting... until I fell off the ladder, then a lifeguard at a public pool... until the incident that the media dubbed "Urination Abomination", then... well, I think you get the point now. It was about four more dreadful jobs until my close friend Will finally pulled some strings to get me one at a software company. I dabbled in coding back then, but I was nowhere near the Zuckerberg-level of expertise that Will has.' (Will, by the by, is addicted to internet pornography)On every page of this over the top masterfully written novel is enough parody, bordering-on-unbelievable situations, curious jolts of various forms of crime and more absurd realities than any author has been able to condense into what ultimately feels like the everyman version of The Rake's Progress. Blisteringly funny, brimming over with prejudices, embarrassingly crude at times (because of the proximity to our own realities), and ultimately such a superbly constructed comedic novel, Rory Scherer needs to write more. Nobody else is this funny. This just may turn out to be the job he loves! Highly recommended. Grady Harp, June 14