[email protected]: (A Medicated Memoir)

The inside front cover and back cover of this book have comments which have tried and failed to convey the humor, wit and wisdom of the work. The writer is compared to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon. The book is described as a cross between Voltaire's Candide and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Not exactly. In fact, there is no writer to whom anyone might accurately compare the style of Tom Grimes. Nevertheless, I will give it my best shot, but I also will fail. I would have to say that the book reads similarly to what would obtain if Dave Barry were explaining at length to Honore de Balzac what in the hell the phrase "post-modernism" means in a purely erotic context. As in, and I quote: "Authorities now suspect that having a sense of humor might make some victims susceptible to the virus [The author is seeking the cause of Information Sickness virus]. One popular culture professor and the author of the self published Just Kidding: Jokes, Rib-Ticklers and Bathroom Humor: Toward a Hermeneutics of Laughing; or, the Guffaw as Simulacral Paradigm in Laugh Track Culture, told staff reporters at the Prometheus, `Laughter is a trait of the fin de siecle periods. I mean you don't see people cracking jokes in the Iliad. Revolutionaries tend not to subscribe to the someday-this-will-all-seem-funny theory either; ask Robespierre.'" Yes, the book has a plot, and subplots. The narrative is linear enough to be enjoyed as a tale. The character and his life are probably not quite like you and yours, but, oddly enough, there are plenty of similarities if you have ever taken a course in college and embarked on a quest (and who among us has not?). The campaign speech made by the candidate for President alone is worth the price of the book. Actually, it's a very funny book. Give it a try. If it doesn't make you laugh, you're grounded.

BOOKSTORE OWNER, DARK HORSE BOOKS, Chicago, IL.:If I had to write a one-word review for this wacky book, it would be this: "Funny!" That's exactly what this novel was to me. The unlikely protagonist of this book is a perpetual (but lovable) screw-up who, due to an over prescription of Prozac ("plus a little Lithium") finds himself flunking right out of College and, what's worse it seems, losing touch with reality. (Or is he? We never really know.) Somewhere along the way, the main character, Will (the title of the book refers to his diary, which is also a website), develops the notion of a sinister plot: some "mad scientist" who has developed the ultimate potentially threatening Weapon of Mass Destruction: a "virus," crossing cyberspace and real-life boundaries. This virus is called "I.S." or as it's otherwise known, "Information Sickness." I.S. -- like the Monty Python skit that seems to have inspired the idea "The Funniest Joke in the World" (check out --http://www.pion.ch/Fun/funniest.html) -- seems to kill anyone it comes in contact with, allowing the infected party to KNOW ALL --thereby knowing nothing. (Information overload that borders on anti-information overload, which thus cancels each other out? You betcha'!)Whether this virus, or this mad doctor, or ultimately this entire adventure or "quest" exists is open to question. And this idea is what the author, Tom Grimes, plays with: an adventure in which the protagonist or hero is self-aware, or due to drugs, cognizant of the many levels of "reality" operating all at once. This may sound very complicated, but take my word for it, it's all quite entertaining, very simply written, and hilarious. WILL@epicqw... whatever -- let's just call it "WILL" -- is a madcap frolic, truly a hilarious novel, which requires an open mind and the ability to laugh. There's a fierce intelligence behind the book, true, but never one that overrides the aim of the book -- which in many ways is simply to entertain. In some ways, it's quite goofy, (yes, like a Mike Myers/Austin Powers flick) -- but always, always entertaining. Sorry I couldn't be more negative!

"Quirky" and "edgy" are hard things to write. And in Tom Grimes's funny, smart novel "[email protected]," the edgy and smart are very much present. Only here, they're mixed with chemically-augmented satire -- an intoxicating mix.Will is the 21st-century lost-long twin of Holden Caulfield: a depressed loser college student with a weird family, who also has enough medication in his body to open his own pharmacy. He's wrapped up in his own bizarre thoughts and lets schoolwork go to the wayside. Oh yes -- he has a quest to go on (get it? epicqwest.com?).I.S. (Information Sickness) is "a virus that makes people think, and occasionally laugh, too much," and kills them when it overloads their minds. Our anti-hero is out to stop the malevolent Dr. Bones and his sexy henchwoman, and save everyone from overload and imminent death. To save humankind (or something like that, Will joins forces with his talkative computer Spunk to stop Dr. Bones before it's too late."Wacky" is not usually a good word to associate with a satirical novel. But "[email protected]" has a certain sense of wackiness that keeps it from being heavy-handed. Grimes takes pokes at postmodern civilization: at sex, philosophy, computers, love, parents, capitalism, learning and drugs to keep us happy -- and it's all through the jaded eyes of a heavily medicated college student. It's either hysterically funny, or insanely scary.Most cool genre-bending authors trip over their own efforts to be edgy and cool. Grimes doesn't. While peppering the story with pop culture references, he excels in his writing -- at some times it seems like a straighforward first-person story. At other times, all those drugs in Will's system twist his viewpoint a little bit. The dialogue is amazing, especially during scenes where the characters are having major "moments" ("I loved you even before I saw you airbrushed onto a haystack"). Even the chapter titles are called things like "Part Two, Chapter Two: In Which I Sate the Reader's Need for Narrative Drive, or Suffer the Wrath of the Marketplace." Anti-hero Will is a witty, strange protagonist with unusual priorities. It's hard to summarize a guy whose brain takes up an entire book, and seems to spill over the edges. He's weird, and it works. And Spunk, the Pancho to Will's Don Quixote, is what makes the quest a winner, with his constant opinions and input. (Think C3-PO, but much less subserviant)Sardonic and edgy, this is a must-read (especially for cynical students). Tom Grimes' wry fourth novel "[email protected]" is a hyperactive satire with a manic edge. Better than Prozac.

In the titular character of this romp, Grimes has created a protagonist who can't decide whether to unify the polarizing forces within him or let them pull him apart. Nineteen-year-old Will (as with so many who roam the Internet, no last name provided) is fantastical, yet all-too believable. He's entirely at the mercy of his own raging emotions and confused as to which to use productively and which to subdue with medication. He asks for purpose from a culture of cheap vanities and gross commodities. He is a student habitually absent from class. His family is archetypically dysfunctional - harpy for mother, jailbird for father - yet succoring. Will is, in short, an insightful post-adolescent who could either turn out to be a gag writer for Conan O'Brien or the next Noam Chomsky. As the story (or "quest") begins, young Will has uncovered a plot by an evil scientist with an Elvis fixation, a supermodel girlfriend and tenure: Dr. Bones - to infect humankind with Information Sickness (IS) via ubiquitously distributed fat-free food substitutes. His sidekick in his adventure is his laptop, named "Spunk," whose various programming functions enable it to operate as everything from buddy to Greek chorus throughout. Will may know who is responsible for IS, but he does not know if a cure exists or can be developed in time. Supporting stock characters - trigger-happy yokels, beautiful but shallow coeds, sentimental slackers, political overachievers, academic narcissists, venture capitalists, intellectual property attorneys - jack-in-the-box out of other chapters but offer little help as Will tries to break out of his chemically induced state into choices that will restore himself and his world to balance. Which is to say that, after all, there is a serious cast to the entertainment. IS not only leaves its victims with a sense of "trivialized omniscience" - knowing everything, but knowing, too, that "everything" has no significance - but it also kills. Grimes is addressing here the difficulty of the satirical enterprise. When life seems to have fulfilled the prophecies of such satires as John Barth's Giles Goat-Boy and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, what's a humorist to do? [email protected] is a wild (and wildly literate) entertainment that works both as a satire of our product-obsessed culture and a coming-of-age story (set in our marketing-intensive, Prozac-popping age of pseudo-enlightenment). You'll want to dip into this book, again and again, laughing till you cry all the way.