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Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer
A Year with the Hoopers, by by James Hoby.
James Hoby is a writer new to this reader, an artist who is a welcome discovery. Like some of our more controversial novelists of the time - Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Chabon, Augusten Burroughs, Mark Haddon, etc.
Hoby begins his witty diatribe about contemporary society’s preoccupation with other people’s privacy with a gimmick that works: Hoby tells us in his introduction that his idea for this book came ‘in June 2005, when a large box was thrown from a passing van into my front yard. ‘Inside the box, I found a grass-stained baseball, a torn pair of shorts, a blue-green vase, various other worthless items, and a tremendous amount of shredded paper, which was used as packing material.’
He then states he obtained software for his computer and enlisted the help of two teenagers to scan the mess into his computer and then unscramble the contents, the body of the book being those assembled bits of information. Is this true or is this the beginning of a mad gossipy peek into the lives of one Hooper family? Does it matter? No.
What follows is one of the most hilarious series of characters and interweaving stories that has appeared in print. At the same time, Hoby demonstrates his comedic genius in writing biting and intelligent satire, the likes of which few writers can imitate.
Hoby’s reconfigured shreds allow us to meet the insurance executive Mr. Hooper whose control over his business pries open a Pandora’s box of corporate degeneracy; Mrs. Hooper whose automobile accident is followed by a supposed witness - one Xenophon Munny - who repeatedly sends bizarre letters demonstrating why he could not possibly have been a witness (including a side story of a massively obese woman upon whose death Munny must scatter a garbage can full of her cremated ashes over her beloved college with disastrous consequences); daughter Jenny who writes in a diary those incidents that establish her as philosopher of the misunderstood and abused youth, among whose duties is frequently transporting her farting funky Aunt Trudy to see a doctor who requires her presence and assistance for colon exams; the grand dame of the family Gertrude Greathouse whose constant changing of her last will and testament describes a twisted radical mind of the elderly.
In addition to these unforgettably drawn characters the reconstructed papers contain original greeting cards of a macabre nature, pieces of wallpaper with wild tales of their own, pages from a book about a mass murderer of 82 college sorority girls, a literary preface to ‘Jump for Joy’ by Tennyson that contains some elegantly and eloquently beautiful writing, shopping lists, and a final invitation to the Hoopers to allow Jenny’s participation in an experiment named the ‘Reverse-Pinocchio Effect’ - in which a creative child wishes to become a puppet.
Whether the premise of how this book began is true or false matters little. The writing is sensationally fine, amazingly creative in concept, and reveals a talented novelist who understands fully that comedy is the window to self examination, especially for a society so intrusive into the lives of others through computer blogging, cellphone eavesdropping, instantaneous visualization of history-making events (read prying) with the flip of a cellphone camera, and dismissal of global consciousness in favor of tabloid mentality. He keeps it funny and light - until the back cover closes, leaving us with a sense of embarrassed guilt that we have arrived at this state. James Hoby has the gift; we’ll here more.
Purchase A Year with the Hoopers at Amazon.com
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