[ephemeral]

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz (February 2008)
Requirements: ePUB, MOBI Reader | 1.85 Mb
Overview: Meet the Deans... Heroes or Criminals? Crackpots or Visionaries? Families or Enemies?

"The fact is, the whole of Australia despises my father more than any other man, just as they adore my uncle more than any other man. I might as well set the story straight about both of them... Anyway, you know how it is. Every family has a story like this one."

Most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn't decide whether to pity, hate, love, or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son. But now that Martin is dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the crackpot who raised him in intellectual captivity, and what he realizes is that, for all its lunacy, theirs was a grand adventure.

As he recollects the events that led to his father’s demise, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and shocking discoveries—about his infamous outlaw uncle Terry, his mysteriously absent European mother, and Martin’s constant losing battle to make a lasting mark on the world he so disdains. It’s a story that takes them from the Australian bush to the cafes of bohemian Paris, from the Thai jungle to strip clubs, asylums, labyrinths, and criminal lairs, and from the highs of first love to the lows of failed ambition. The result is a rollicking rollercoaster ride from obscurity to infamy and the moving, memorable story of a father and son whose spiritual symmetry transcends all their many shortcomings.

A Fraction of the Whole is an uproarious indictment of the modern world and its mores and the epic debut of the blisteringly funny and talented Steve Toltz.
Genre: Fiction, Literary, Family Saga

"At the heart of this sprawling, dizzying debut from a quirky, assured Australian writer are two men: Jasper Dean, a judgmental but forgiving son, and Martin, his brilliant but dysfunctional father. Jasper, in an Australian prison in his early 20s, scribbles out the story of their picaresque adventures, noting cryptically early on that “My father's body will never be found.” As he tells it, Jasper has been uneasily bonded to his father through thick and thin, which includes Martin's stint managing a squalid strip club during Jasper's adolescence; an Australian outback home literally hidden within impenetrable mazes; Martin's ill-fated scheme to make every Australian a millionaire; and a feverish odyssey through Thailand's menacing jungles. Toltz's exuberant, looping narrative—thick with his characters' outsized longings and with their crazy arguments—sometimes blows past plot entirely, but comic drive and Toltz's far-out imagination carry the epic story, which puts the two (and Martin's own nemesis, his outlaw brother, Terry) on an irreverent roller-coaster ride from obscurity to infamy. Comparisons to Special Topics in Calamity Physics are likely, but this nutty tour de force has a more tender, more worldly spin." ~Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Given that this hilarious, sneaky smart first novel is as big and rangy as Australia, Toltz's home, and the book's setting, the title is a laugh. No doubt Toltz could go on, but this torrent-of-consciousness saga of an eccentric father and unconventional son is capacious and unwieldy enough. But what satirical fun is found on the madcap pages of this rough-and-tumble tale of cruel schoolchildren, insane sports fans, and herd-mentality towns-folk. Beyond all the feverish action, this is also a deliriously philosophical novel (the title is from Emerson). Martin Dean spent much of his childhood in a coma and the rest of his life refusing to play by the rules, mightily resenting the worship of his younger brother, Terry Dean, an outlaw folk hero, and driving his motherless son, Jasper, crazy. Their roiling life stories take readers to prison, a mental institution, a house inside a labyrinth, and a strip club. A suggestion box leads to mayhem, a murderer writes a crime handbook, Jasper tangles with a redhead he calls the Towering Inferno, and Toltz salts it all with uproarious ruminations on freedom, the soul, love, death, and the meaning of life. This is one rampaging and irresistible debut.” —Booklist, starred review

Short Listed for the 2008 Booker Prize

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