The Locklear Letters

A rare book comes along that makes you laugh out loud. An even rarer book comes along that makes you laugh out loud and provides a creative, quality literary read, with an inspired plot to boot! The Locklear Letters is all of this! Indeed, Michael Kun has ingeniously created a sub-genre, using one man's quotidien correspondence as the vehicle to expose his unraveling life and his deepest internal struggles. It is a blast of a read, and an inventive book that you will want to re-read immediately to enjoy all of its different layers and to spend more time with its endearing protagonist, Sid Straw. I encourage all lovers of creative new fiction to read The Locklear Letters.

With all the recent attempts to make celebrities seem approachable and just like ordinary folk (if the Osbornes could ever be considered ordinary) Kun's book goes one step further and let's us see what happens when one man attempts to re-connect with someone he knew before she was famous.The results of Sid Straw's attempts, and the resulting misunderstandings, take us for an extremely funny ride, providing biting commentary on lawyers, parents, relationships, work and even more lawyers.The creative way in which the story is presented, as a "simple" series of letters, notes and memos, carries you along with great ease and expertly conveys the story of this hapless but lovable individual.With a keen ear for language and a wry sense of humor, Kun has created a must-read book, not just another piece of "summer reading". More importantly, it's a book that you will want to recomend to your friends and read again and again.

Michael Kun has easily surpassed his promising first novel, A Thousand Benjamins, with this continuously hilarious epistolary venture. The novel's sole epistolator, Sid Straw, combines the timidity of early Woody Allen with the fecklessness of Albert Brooks (a natural for the movie version) and the social satire of the letters of Don Novello. He is an accident that doesn't wait long to happen--about 100 of them in the first 100 pages. Kun is an expert comedian who knows how to build through repetition with variation; and just when the momentum peaks, he shifts into a totally satisfying vindictive gear. There is a letter a page and at least two laughs per letter--you do the math. And don't worry if you've never heard of Heather Locklear. You can substitute any celebrity. I read this book in 1.5 sittings and I am a painfully slow reader. You can take this to the beach without fear of getting sand between the pages: you will finish it before you can turn over. Buy this book!

I picked this book up on a whim, and I sure am glad that I did. The author has put together an absolute comic masterpiece. Sid Straw is a character you will never forget. I can honestly say that I have never laughed out loud so many times while reading a book before. The book is such a quick read that it's easy to miss how carefully and perfectly constructed it is. Somehow, the author is able to get laughs from words that aren't even on the page, or from the act of turning the pages themselves -- which won't make sense until you read the book. As for the writing, it's hard to say what the funniest letters are: the florist who keeps screwing up Sid's notes to his girlfriend("still stinking of you" had me rolling on the floor laughing), the government agents who tell Sid's mother that Sid hates her cooking, Sid pretending to be "Mrs. Sad Striw", or the porno mags that get sent to the American Cancer Society. I'm laughing just thinking about them and looking forward to rereading the book this weekend.