Review: A quick and funny read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 26, 2013
In DEATH WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE, the author pokes fun at everything and everyone from meditation to a detective who still thinks like a traffic cop. The serene setting hides a simmering stew of human discontent. A recovering alcoholic named Bruce Kohler is the protagonist, narrator, and Quipper-in-Chief, but the story belongs to his stout-hearted friend Barbara, who has the efficiency of a drill sergeant and a bottomless well of enthusiasm.Opening lines: "The real name of the place was the Aquarius Institute. Barbara called it a New Age intentional community. Jimmy called it a dude ranch for space cadets. Anyone who'd heard of Esalen and Sedona but wouldn't be caught dead going there called it Woo-Woo Farm."Barbara signs herself and Jimmy up for a couples workshop and persuades Bruce Kohler to go along. On the train they stumble across Melvin Markowitz, America's bestselling relationship guru, "a jowly man with a face like a bad-tempered frog." His wife is wearing "a loose dress that would have looked more at home on the prairie in 1854. He carried nothing. She was loaded down like a pack mule." So much for leading by example.The scene shifts to the Watering Can, Woo-Woo Farm's version of a speakeasy -- "You could get leaded coffee and dump white sugar in it." - but everyone sits around drinking herbal tea and reading. Enter Feather and Madhusudhan aka Madhouse, bickering about rising to a higher level with Feather's brother, Mel Markowitz.And so I lurch from scene to scene, laughing all the way.There's a murder. The victim is so disliked that everyone at the farm can be called a suspect. But activities go on, culminating in a Midsummer Night's gathering at the beach.It's a magical night: "A three-quarter moon rode high in the sky. Silvery mist rose from the water. The performance started with the throbbing beat of a drum floating across the lake, then more drums and the drone of didges. Male voices began to chant." The singers glide into view, sitting "tall and straight" in their canoes, and the murderer picks that moment to strike again.DEATH WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE is a quick read, chock full of funny lines. Zelvin has a gentle hand with even her most disagreeable characters and the setting is lovely.