Beemer

Beemer: A Novel by Glenn Gaslin ISBN-13: 9781569473290 ISBN-10: 1569473293 Publication Date: 6/2003 Publisher: Soho Press Hardcover 5.8 x 8.6 inches, 261 pages Southern California Through The Looking Glass 0 What Lewis Carroll did for rabbits and Kurt Vonnegut did for war, Glenn Gaslin does for ambition in this zany send-up of all that's holy in America. — His hero, Beemer Minutia, lives and works in his tricked-out Honda Civic. Like every young thinking person on the rise, he intends to make it very big very fast, turning his name into a cash magnet before he's thirty. His four-wheeled home is parked in America's answer to the rabbit hole, southern California's Orange County, where the streets are paved with golden possibilities: the taco stands look like food courts, the gas stations look like movie theaters, and the movie theaters look like small cities. An advertising job, Beemer concludes, will allow him to grow his personal brand. Unfortunately, his girlfriend's teenage brother seems bent on destroying consumerism as we know it. Gaslin's vision is mesmerizing and alarmingly funny. His pixelated dreamscapes titillate and unsettle, as his video gamer's mind swings everything out from under everyone at the most unexpected moments.