A Review of Munchausen by Proxy for Fun and Profit, by Ken and Solomon Goudsward

 

(Prince George, BC, Canada: Dimensionfold Publishing, 2021). ISBN: 9781989940020

We live in an increasingly humorless world, where language is increasingly regulated (and manipulated) and, should you say what is deemed by a certain sector to be the wrong thing, you might just be “canceled” by the swiping, judgmental (read righteous) left thumb of the judgers on social media.

In such a sensitive, unsophisticated world, novels such as Munchausen by Proxy for Fun and Profit—written by a father and son—are essential reading. They take on serious subjects (in this case, the illegal sale of prescription drugs) and invite us to see them in a different, nuanced way—through the motivations of the often simple-minded everyday people who deem these courses of action as their only means to participating in Rabid Capitalism. A Cash-Grab Extravaganza from which they imagine everyone else on the planet but them is benefiting.

In “real life,” if these dreaming schemers’ stories are interesting and lurid enough on the venture-capitalist trend-o-meter, they become the subject of a top 10 Netflix documentary.

I have reviewed (and overall enjoy) these types of novels. The most famous authors in the genre are Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (Good Omens) and Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (The Illuminatus trilogy). I also read lesser-known authors, who are equally as talented, such as John Gartland (Orgasmus), Peter Adams (the DaDa Detective Agency series), and William Douglas Horden (Life and Death in the Hotel Bardo). There are also a good number of indie horror writers who focus on working-class characters, which is often the case in film.  

Whether you call novels such as Munchausen absurdist, bizarro, satire, or just plain fun, they all share certain traits. The hero is usually more of an antihero. In Munchausen, this is a twentysomething underachiever called Luke Clark. If this was a film, I’d cast Rupert Grint (Ron in Harry Potter) as the lead. Luke is the quintessential simpleton. He doesn’t actually understand linguistic principles such as double entendre, wordplay, punning, and so on, yet he prides himself on being a sort of virtuoso at them (causing no end of confusion with whomever he is talking). Content to look after his nursing home nana (but is it mostly for the cookies?) and to work a day or two a week with a shadowy cleaning service, Luke is barely scraping by. Like many of his ilk, he relies on the kindness of his roommate, his girlfriend Sylvia (think Ariel Winter, Modern Family), and cheap junior bacon cheeseburgers (JBCs) at Wendy’s (a sort of stand-in for the chocolate in Willy Wonka when Charlie finds some cash).

As I expressed to the first author in an email roughly halfway through the book, Luke traffics in the kind of narrowness of vision one can really enjoy. His constant misunderstandings—and inability to comprehend, much less correct them—are rather endearing in this overly competitive world and when Luke and Sylvia found themselves increasingly in the weeds in the quest for Capitalist Nirvana, I was hoping they would adjust in time to save themselves and just a glimmer of their naiveté. 

Every story, absurdist or not, needs an Inciting Incident and some Obstacles and Stakes. The Goudswards deliver in spades. Luke’s roommate suddenly up and leaves him for a better job and city, precipitating a housing crisis for our antihero, and his parents are simultaneously moving away to their own version of Nirvana—the sweet, fuzzy sounding Peachland.  I mentioned Willy Wonka… the parents in Munchausen are reminiscent of parents in the books of Roald Dahl—not quite equipped to be parents at all and happily naïve as to their deficiencies. Set a good plate and keep a neat garage and you are Parent of the Year.

In the midst of his growing financial mayhem, Luke, through a multilayered, nonmalicious mistake involving printed receipts, pants pockets, and pills, embarks on a journey of prescription drug dealing, with the impatient-for-something-more Sylvia firmly at the helm.

Watching Sylvia grown into her own in the midst of Luke’s retreat into a Walter Mitty–esque fantasy world of robot battles and talking pets makes for delightful reading. Sylvia is a different kind of simple… I’ll call it Suburban Simple. She wants to move out of her mother’s house, drive a car of her own, have the ability to buy her man JBCs whenever her generous heart desires, and to get out of her soul-sucking job at the liquor store.

This is the dream of millions. And why the heck should it not be?

Selling Adderall, Hydrocodone, Donepezil, Benzos (and other pharmaceuticals that Luke has trouble pronouncing) to the party crowd, on college campuses, and to the nursing home residents who are the primary source of the pills in the first place is Sylvia’s (in)elegant solution. Watching her work her deals, refine her tactics, and navigate the ever-increasing obstacles to her dream of domestic bliss with Luke (all while watching her lover drown, despite the lifelines she constantly throws him) is a dark-tinged kind of joy. That is, it is suspiciously like watching two trains that are approaching one another on the same track from your vantage point up in the mountains… You want to scream for them to stop, but you also cannot look away and salivate (just a bit) as they collide.

This kind of voyeuristic complexity is why these types of books are essential reading in this post-9/11, Death of Complexity world.

Although it is impossible (and utterly unnecessary) to know how the work of co-writing the novel was divvied up between father and son, the most important points are clear—the structure is solid, the dialogue is laugh-out-loud, the characters are relatable, and all the scene-to-scene transitions are seamless. They make an impressive team.

So… if you want to step away from the simplistic PC norm, into a world as funny as it is brutally honest and morally complex when it comes to your average, ordinary, working-class couple and their dreams of Financial Fabulousness at Any Cost, then Munchausen by Proxy for Fun and Profit should be at the top of your list.