Word: plot
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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While the book does have a plot of sorts, it is more a compilation of snapshots of life for twenty-somethings in the mid-90s than a saga. The story is less about the band's struggle to record an album then it is about the way the band members spend their afternoons and nights. Gary, uncomfortable and nervous, makes a fool out of himself while shopping for a Christmas present in Victoria's Secret. Mark takes an AIDS test in a free clinic after waking up so hungover that he can barely remember the sex, much less have...
...book succeeds wildly at cataloguing the experiences of the characters. The story, however, often wanders and diverges at what seems to be the wrong moment. In the final pages, as the plot careens towards a surprising conclusion, we are side-tracked for almost a page with a pointless anecdote about how Steve once spent a Christmas day playing in a cardboard box with his older brother. Ironically, Gomez criticizes his characters for being inattentive and losing focus, even as he meanders over their pasts and present thoughts as if there were no plot waiting to be resolved. The book often...
...novel seems to set Bottlecap up for another sequel. While the plot is mostly resolved, we are left wondering what will happen to Gary, Steve and especially Mark in the years to come. Will their record sell? Will they become rich and famous? The same questions can be asked about their creator. Will Geniuses of Crack find the twenty-something audience that will appreciate the allusions and references? Will these same twenty-somethings be willing to shell out $12 for a paperback? Only time will tell, but it is clear that Gomez, too, deserves a sequel, and there...
...novel's catchall metaphor, and therein lies the book's essential problem: to complete the metaphor, the characters get stitched rather awkwardly into the narrative, as if merely to cover holes in its fabric, and the clumsiness of their insertion detracts from the clever manipulations of Nicholson's plot...
Despite his journal, Stuart never rises far above the plot-aid rank of Nicholson's other characters. A tour guide with an uncanny knowledge of London, Stuart seems merely manufactured to attach himself to Judy (the self-declared incarnation of the city), clinging long enough to influence the story before breaking off like a virus--never quite away from her, though never really part...