A Fraction of the Whole

Starred review from September 3, 2007
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 “y 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.

January 15, 2008
For those who, if they think of it at all, think of Australia as a bloated island full of Tasmanian devils, baby-devouring dingoes, and convicts, with an iconic opera house thrown in, this eagerly awaited Australian debut novel comes as further confirmation. Here the focus is the dysfunctional Dean family, which boasts the notorious Terry Dean, bank robber, cop killer, and bona fide Australian legend. Under his large and imposing shadow, his brother and his brother's son, Jasper, have both withered into reclusive, crotchety curmudgeons with more than their fair share of eccentric opinions, and Jasper is in rebellion against not only his uncle but his father as well. This is one Oedipus story told, though, with lots of snap and crackle, as well as pop. While there are no new stories, even Down Under, Jasper's progression reads like the trajectory of a gleefully crazed Roman candle across the southern skies in this sprawling, entertaining, decidedly quirky, and at times laugh-out-loud-funny romp reminiscent of John Irving's family sagas or Brocke Clarke's "An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England". Recommended for all public libraries.Bob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2007
Given that this hilarious, sneaky smart first novel is as big and rangy as Australia, Toltzs home and the books 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 townsfolk. 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)