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The
Quality of Life Report by Meghan Daum Rating: • (Read only if your interest is strong) |
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Addicted If your idea of entertainment is to read a
novel about a gen-X professional who leaves New York and its self-conscious
self-centeredness for Prairie City (PC), a politically correct Midwestern
town in search of an improved quality of life, by all means read Meghan Daum’s
debut novel, The Quality
of Life Report. Expect to read several enjoyable pages of Daum’s pointed
barbs at those who live in NY and in PC. She captures characters in both
locations at their worst. Daum presents an underlying theme of addiction and
recovery, by the protagonist, Lucinda’s, boyfriend, and in various forms by
Lucinda and other characters. Here’s an excerpt (pp. 64-5): I
didn't tell Daphne or Elena or anyone else that I'd given my phone number to
a guy I met in the woods, a guy with three kids who worked in an elevator,
made jokes about killing someone, and, come to think of it, hadn't said he
wasn't married, which, in light of the Joel encounter, didn't appear in
Prairie City to be a deterrent in asking women on dates. I didn't tell anyone
that when Mason called a few days later—"Uh, hi I think we met in the
park," he said when I answered, invoking neither his name nor mine—1
agreed to meet him, albeit in a public place. He suggested we go to Effie's
Tavern. As I explained earlier, Effie's was legendary not
just in Prairie City but also throughout the region for being an equalizing
force among all socioeconomic and ethnic groups. Though some chalked this up
to Effie's affable, low-key atmosphere (there was a pool table but no keno
gambling) I soon learned what all the regulars knew—that the equalizing force
had less to do with things like open arms and open minds than with the fact
that Friday afternoon happy hour drafts at Effie's were $1.00 and at
Applebee's, just a quarter mile down the road, they were $1.50. It
was a Tuesday evening when I met Mason at Effie's. There was hardly anyone in the
place, just a handful of overweight white women with muscled black
boyfriends, every single one of them with a shaved head. Mason was sitting at
the bar wearing the same outfit he'd worn in the park, except his tank top
was actually on his body. I had on my J. Crew pants, a linen Brooks Brothers
shirt, and a strand of freshwater pearls. "I didn't think you'd show up," Mason
said. "I always keep my appointments." He
surveyed my outfit. "I don't think they have wine spritzer here," he
said. "I'll just have a beer,'" I said.
"I'll have a, uh, a Heineken.' "I
don't think they have Heineken." "What are you drinking?" I asked. "Leinenkugel," he said. "What's that?" "It's kind of like urine," he said.
"With a note of Heineken." A gigantic woman with bleached blond, penned hair
was leaning over the pool table, her two-sizes-too-small shorts riding up
over the tops of her thighs. I noticed a small child clinging to her legs.
Stevie Ray Vaughan was blasting through the speakers. Mason got up to get me
a beer and came back with a Rolling Rock. "Best in the house," he said. "So," I said, "what building do you
work in?" "What building?" he said, perplexed. "Where is your elevator?" "On Highway 36." "Is it an office building?" "No," he said. "It's just an
elevator. A grain elevator." A grain elevator! He wasn't an elevator operator as
in a guy with epaulets and a hat. He worked with grain. He worked in an
agricultural capacity, which put him in the neighborhood of farmer. "Did you think I worked in a regular
elevator?" he asked. "Oh, no," I said. "Well, maybe." "And you still agreed to meet me?" "I'm not sure what a grain elevator is," I
said. "It stores the grain," he said.
"Farmers bring their crop in after they've harvested it, we put it in
bins, sometimes dry it off if it's wet, and then load it onto trains." "Why is it called an elevator?" "Because an elevator lifts the grain up to the
top of the bins," he said. "Ours is about seven stories high." "So how do you spend most of your days
there?" I asked. "Most of the guys watch soap operas," he
said. "I leave as much as possible. It's pretty slow except during
harvest. The boss practices tai chi all day." If you liked that excerpt, there’s plenty
more where that came from on the pages of The Quality
of Life Report. I kept waiting for the book to get better, but it never
did. If you’re not from New York or one of the many PCs, or have suffered the
cycles of addiction and recovery, you might enjoy The
Quality of Life Report. For most readers, there’s not enough reason to
bother turning these pages. Steve Hopkins, August 22, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the September
2003 issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The
Quality of Life Report.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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