Cross Dressing

Cross Dressing is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. If you are a fan of Carl Hiaasen, Max Barry, Dave Barry and other surreal humorous authors then you won't be disappointed with Bill Fitzhugh's Cross Dressing which is up there with those authors' masterpieces. In Cross Dressing twins Michael and Dan couldn't be more different. Michael is a priest living in the poorest areas of Africa devoted to his faith and helping his fellow man. Dan gave up the church a long time ago along with morals and as for caring for his fellow man, well he couldn't care less. Dan is a highly successful advertising agent who thinks nothing of stealing one of his employee's ideas to further his career. Dan's life seems to be about to get even better with Michael returning to America and telling him he will take their eccentric mother off Dan's hands which will lift a huge financial burden from Dan's shoulders. Only thing is Michael keeps annoying him wanting to borrow money to see a doctor but he never paid back the money he borrowed a long time ago so that is out of the question. Michael is obviously getting worse so Dan tells him to impersonate him and use his insurance for the morphine injection or whatever he needs. Next thing Dan knows is Michael who the hospital assumes is him is dead and if he lets on with the truth will be doing some serious jail time for fraud and also lumped with the $300 000 plus hospital bill which he can't afford. With everyone thinking he is dead and repossessing his car, apartment and everything else Dan has no choice but to become Michael the priest until he figures out what to do. He soon learns that the life of a priest is even more cutthroat and unethical than the world of advertising and that he fits right in. It may interest you to know, and save you money if you were going to purchase them, that Fitzhugh's novels McJesus or Cross + Dress are in fact the exact same novel as Cross Dressing, just published under different titles in these overseas market places.

I'm a Bill Fitzhugh fan in general but I totally love this novel which covers quite a lot of ground. It's also one of my fave romantice novels and so deliciously bizarre. Fitzhugh has not only a distinct voice but an irrevent wit that I worship, bless his pahtooties. And, the man can write ... very well indeed. Did I say he can write? Woohoo, finest kind!

I don't know if you will find this as hilarious as I did if you have no Catholicism in your past. However, if you do, this cross-pollinating of the Roman Catholic Church with the advertising industry was LOL funny. An ad man, on the lam from the law, is forced to pass himself off as a priest using his twin brother's clothes and job. Naturally, he brings all of his talents for media spin and hype to use against the church when it tries to close down his job site, The Care Center. This could have only been set in L.A. for maximum effect and it is. I must read Fitzhugh's earlier books now that I've read this one.

Pest Control was one of my favorite books....too funny. OK, now we have "Cross Dressing" as another favorite book. Brothers, church, prostitute, what a wonderful scenario. I love hysterical reads...Fitzhugh provides me with this. Laugh and love the characters. The rich vs. poor, sainted vs. slutty, moviedom vs. churchdom. Hey, I am having a wonderful time with Fitzhugh's book. It all makes for a wonderful ending.

After defying the sophomore slump with the excellent "The Organ Grinders," his follow-up to the hysterical "Pest Control," Bill Fitzhugh has established a bona fide winning streak with "Cross Dressing." It's mood inhabits a middle ground between the first two books--more emotional depth than "Pest," not as intense as "Grinders"--but is no less hilarious. His characters are, as always, instantly recognizable and relatable (if that's a word), and he accurately and fairly skewers both the media and the Catholic Church (and I know from where I speak--I'm a practicing Catholic who works in the media!). If you enjoy a very funny and (this is key with Fitzhugh) very VISUAL read, by all means read this book and everything else he's written or has yet to write.