Holy Water

February 8, 2010
The latest from Othmer (The Futurist
) reads like a very contemporary Heart of Darkness
run through the satire blender. Longtime company man Henry Tuhoe has a self-absorbed wife who is learning witchcraft and pressuring him to have a vasectomy; he’s increasingly alienated from his friends, and is forced to decide between getting fired or accepting a new position opening a call center in an obscure Third World country called Galado. So he takes the job. That the call center doesn’t have working telephones or employees who can speak English are just a couple of Henry’s concerns in a plot that bounces between everyday realism and the absurd. His new workplace is as morally and spiritually corrupt as the corporate culture back home, and Henry makes it his personal humanitarian mission to help provide clean water to Galado’s poorest citizens. Othmer wrings humor from nearly every facet of contemporary culture, with many of the most comical moments taking place in brief anecdotes (as with a Gulf War I re-enactor). It’s well-done satire—dark, but not too—in the vein of Gary Shteyngart and early Colson Whitehead.

June 15, 2010

Othmer's second novel (following the much-heralded The Futurist) is a comic, lighthearted romp of a story about corporate greed, globalization, and bottled water. The characters are broadly drawn, and the narrative depicts with considerable black humor one man's search for meaning and authenticity in a world governed by big money, soulless international corporations, and sleazy executives. The protagonist, Henry Tuhoe, a midlevel exec, endures indignity and humiliation as he is buffeted by downsizing, economic recession, and existential malaise. Henry ends up accepting an offer to open a customer service center for a Vermont bottled-water company in the impoverished Asian country of Galado. Complications and ironies proliferate wildly here, but by the end of the novel, Henry is a humbler and wiser man. VERDICT Othmer, himself a former corporate advertising executive, describes his experiences in the highly regarded memoir Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet. His fast-paced, entertaining new novel extends that search.--Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2010
Former adman Othmer follows his memoir, Adland (2009), with his second novel. Henry Tuhoe, vice president of underarm research for an antiperspirant maker, is paralyzed by self-doubt after an ill-advised move to the suburbs. Then his department is eliminated and hes transferred to the tiny kingdom of Galado on the Indian-Chinese border, where hes to oversee a call center for a Vermont-based bottled-water company. Unfortunately, Galados own water is a toxic stew, and, ironically, plastic bottles are forbidden. Worse, the country is a kleptocracy run by a steroid-crazed prince whose grandiose dreams of multinational investment are threatened by popular rebellion. Othmer is a sharp and intelligent writer, offering scathing takes on the realities of global commerce and the myopia of wealthy nations. But hes frustrating, too. The book opens with a piece of bravura absurditya corporate outing on a burning riverbut never quite regains that intensity. When it comes to novelistic housekeeping, hes too conservative and the story loses momentum. Its a good book. But, one suspects, if Othmer went truly gonzo, he might write something great.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)