16th Meeting: Love Creeps

Never have I laughed as hard at a book as I did for the April book club book, Love Creeps by Amanda Filapacchi. (Yes, I said April, and yes, it is late June. I'm a little behind. Sue me!) I had high expectations for the book, since my friend Beth picked it, and her last book club pick was our only unanimously liked book-- Willful Creatures.  Luckily this book did not disappoint (well, me anyway-- the rest of the group was mixed, as usual). It was one of the most odd books I've ever read, and riotously funny. 

The book follows a successful New York art gallery owner, Lynn, who is suffering from a "lack of desire". Lynn tries to take a note from her stalker, a schlubby guy named Alan, and stalk someone. Lynn's thought process was that if she pretended to desire someone, the desire would eventually turn real. So, she selects the first man she sees, a tall, dark, and handsome man named Roland, and starts following him. She tries to copy everything her own stalker does, and ends up just forwarding all of Alan's notes (and even some nude photos) without even changing the signatures. While this sounds twisted and dark, it was written in such a matter-of-fact way that the silliness of the situation was the only thing that came through. 

The rest of the novel followed this bizarre love triangle-- the stalked, the stalked-stalker, and the stalker-- through a number of adventures, including an eventual reversal of the stalker chain. Some of the high points of the book for me were the passages told from the point of view of Ray, a homeless former psychologist. Apparently, Ray suffered from "excessive curiosity disorder" and while a therapist, he became so enthralled with his clients' problems that he would call them repeatedly to ask how their relationships were going. This ridiculous condition eventually lost him his job, and landed him in jail on harassment charges. So, once he was out of jail, he lived on the street, and watched the stalk-train walk past. As each of them would stop to give him change, he would whisper advice to them-- "you are being followed" or "get a hobby". It. Was. Hilarious. I clearly cannot do Filpacchi any justice by trying to describe this book, so instead I will just say read this book as soon as possible. Buy it, borrow it, or read it over someone's shoulder on the bus. Just be ready to laugh! As mentioned, the rest of the book club was a bit mixed in their reviews. While everyone agreed that it was funny, a few people didn't think that was enough, and were searching for some sort of meaning behind the silliness. There may have been a point to it, and there may not, but for me, it didn't really matter. I was entertained, and that was enough!