The Altar of the Body: A Novel

I flew through Brenna's novel in a couple of days, which is not usually the case with me. I am not a fast reader, but this story and the characters in it were so engaging, I couldn't put it down until it was finished. So much happens in the novel. It is quick paced and consistently interesting. The novel has incorporated within it many unexpected literary treats such as a lewd saloon song contest, sappy poetry, ethnic jokes and excerpts from a western dime novel. You never know where the story is going to go. The characters and what happens to them resonated with me for days afterward. It is a gritty book, unflinching in its examination of how we handle aging, fading beauty, death and personal failure. The "American Dream" goes horribly wrong for many of us. Brenna examines interesting questions through four vividly imagined rather sleazy characters. There is much to like and dislike in all of them. A cleverly written, enjoyable and disturbing novel.

a rare match between a picaresque storyline and excellent writing. the heartland of america is the setting for a variety of quests undertaken by the all-too-human characters of this page-turning novel. there's the quest for maintaining one's youth, as embodied in the bodybuilding character of buck root. other characters are in search of, if not happiness, then a level of understanding and acceptance by others...and, more importantly, coming to accept their own selves. The dialog is crackling, the scenes compelling, humor that is sometimes black and sometimes outright funny...though never solely at the expense of the characters; rather, it illuminates their natures. One of the most enjoyable reads I've had for a long time (and I read A LOT).

Duff Brenna has been called one of our best and most original novelists and THE ALTAR OF THE BODY confirms that he is. This is the story of an easy going man who lives in Minnesota minding his own business when one day his cousin Buck Root shows up after being gone for 30 years and he pretty much turns George's life upside down. Buck has in tow his Las Vegas Legs girlfriend Joy and her mother Livia. George falls in love with Joy, but she seems to him to be too far above him. He is short, fat and bald and has never done well with women, but he proves to be just what Joy needs. Buck betrays her. Livia gets sick and as her condition gets worse, she mentally slides into the pages of a western novel she is reading and becomes the hero Cody Larsen riding the plains of Colorado. Livia is a powerful creation, a character that is both fascinating and heartbreaking. A mothering instinct awakens in George and he begins taking care of Livia. He also awakens for the first time in his life to the same rage to live that afflicts Buck and Joy and is consuming them. The book is wildly funny at times and tragic too. It is a muscled-up page turner that is impossible to put down. Brenna is a masterful stylist and the book never lags as it carries you toward its cataclysmic climax and its bittersweet denouement. As in all of Brenna's books the story is riveting and there is a lot going on beneath the surface. This is one amazing book that fully lives up to the blurbs on the jacket.