Stengrow's Dad

May 29, 1995
A young man's search for his ``true dad'' leads him on a series of bizarre and comic misadventures in a nightmarish American landscape of greed and menacing consumer manipulation. When Reynold Stengrow discovers that his biological father was an anonymous donor from a controversial sperm bank (``fine, high-class individuals... with at least a 150 IQ,'' claims the doctor), he grabs the doctor's secret records and sets off to find the True Dad. Gullible Reynold is easily swayed by each genius/potential progenitor: a neo-Nazi, a black separatist (he distributes flyers for both), a presidential candidate and an eccentric poet are among the paternal possibilities. He's also influenced by a professor who uses subliminal advertising to manipulate the nation as easily as Reynold is swayed by each new dad. On this odyssey, Reynold wonders, ``If I'm so intelligent, how come I never meet anyone stupider than I am?'' Katz (Armed Love) has a way with clever lines, though as satirical comment on the follies of modern America, it is not entirely successful. Consumerism, demagogues and the novel's ``Church of Marilyn'' are too-easy targets. But in its deadpan, cynical way, it does divert and amuse.