Review: The Gentleman Tramp, Charlie Chaplain and Peter Pan in a great new book
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 28, 2014
Great book.  The voice of the book is an interesting combination of British English thought and various cultural flair depending on the main character’s surroundings.  The main character, a homeless Charlie Chaplain impersonator and an outsider to these various cultures, can most closely be described as a Peter Pan character.  His constant inner dialogue with himself is unique and strangely child-like:  the boy who never grew up.  He along with his morbidly funny dog and proverbial albatross, Scraps, travel the world looking for gigs, adventures and a way out of bad experiences.  He is also strangely connected and disconnected throughout the novel—both outside of society and impersonating a member of society.  Through the main character’s cynicism, the reader learns about Mariana, the first great love of the main character’s, Bruce, the overly successful and glamorously vagrant brother and other backstage characters that the main character ultimately distances himself from for one reason or another.  Very quickly, you learn that there is something seriously wrong with the main character—some sort of mental isolation accompanied by physical seizures and other ailments.  I won’t give away much of the rest of the novel, but the tone of voice, the symbolism, the rhythm of the text and the story of isolation of the Gentleman Tramp is simply gripping.  I could not stop reading this piece.  I was enthralled with the voice of the main character and the delicate and often betrayed relationship he has with Scraps.  The Gentleman Tramp is both extremely intelligent in his cynicism and developmentally stunted in his emotions and perceptions of reality.  If you are looking for something to read that keeps your attention and makes you feel slightly uncomfortable being so close to such a character and story as the main character’s, then this is definitely the book to add to your reading list.