Book of the Weak
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley July 25, 2013
Author Joe Reich
Distributor:
ISBN: 978-1-922086-86-2
Publisher: Sid Harta
Release Date:
Website: http://www.sidharta.com.au
Moss Lane is a man facing a crisis in his life: Middle aged, depressed, attending conferences for no reason other than to escape his wife, his patients and his life in general.
Witty, wry and delightful this is a comedy of errors placed in the framework of one man’s life: the effect it can have on a vast and interesting collection of others, but in the final phases one that only the owner of that life can come beholden too.
Moss Lane is a man facing a crisis in his life: Middle aged, depressed, attending conferences for no reason other than to escape his wife, his patients and his life in general.
He not only cannot cope with his life, he is desperately trying to find some sort of reality to cling to only to find, or rather feel, he has discovered this in within the pages of trashy novels; His alter ego Jaxxon and the life that Jaxxson leads.
This is a story about looking back, reviewing one’s life and finding it not all one expected. Moss challenges the state he has moved into, all the while trying to hold on to some sort of reality.
In looking back he discovers there are issues he needs to be able to view from a differing point: Issues that relate to his childhood, his parents, his father in particular, and face up to the effects this has had on his life.
He questions the elitism of the supposed lifestyle a Doctor should lead and in doing so faces the biggest challenge of all: trying to understand just how he got into this mess in the first place.
He looks at his so successful family and wonders where he went wrong: his wife who is the epitome of the successful Doctors lifestyle: his daughter who always seems to be distant and then there are his patients and their needs of him: needs he is finding increasingly difficult to meet.
All the while he is finding the pages of Jaxxson’s life far more interesting than his own, a situation that is to bring about his eventual downfall with some tragi-comedic results.
Witty, wry and delightful this is a comedy of errors placed in the framework of one man’s life: the effect it can have on a vast and interesting collection of others, but in the final phases one that only the owner of that life can come beholden too.