“Sliding Off,” by Alejandro dell Mar

This novel has the problem in spades. Its only saving grace is that once the plot gets rolling, it’s like a snowball down a mountain: all speed and power with an inevitably horrendous smash at the end.

The first sixteen chapters contain an elaborate description of each character’s personality, clothing, setting and lifestyle. It is all smoothly written and marvellously observant, but it is much too long and the action crawls.

This is social satire, spoofing a wide swath of American life: the advertising business, social media, Trump supporters, the Right, the Left, Mormons, the Olympics, professional sports and…well, it’s pretty comprehensive.

Characters are all exaggerated takeoffs of stereotypes, a bit too real to be very funny. However, the three main instigators of the plot —while trying desperately not to get lost in the crowd of kooks and weirdos — finally begin to attract some of our sympathy. When they start to get their act together in Chapter Seventeen, we start to take their side, and suspense develops. After all, their business venture is sort of like taking transport trucks to a protest; it’s so off the wall that it might actually work.

For the last third of the book the tempo makes up for previous slothfulness, and the  finale explodes into full-on slapstick, with all the plotlines and characters crashing together in one huge righteous-anger-fueled and bubble-bath-lubricated mêlée.

I usually find books that start out slowly continue that way, but this novel is an exception. The beginning is worth ploughing through. It is well-written satire, though not as humorous as I would prefer. Once the action starts, the plotlines and characters blend tightly, with each character performing exactly as we have been led to expect, and the whole gestalt exploding into a farcical version of a political event most Americans would like to put behind them.

Recommended for fans of satire and students of modern American society and politics.

4 out of 5 stars (4 / 5)

About the Author: Gordon Long

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