Characters: C-
Writing: B-
Plot: B
Pacing: A-
Poignancy: B-
I suppose I should just accept that comedic books, especially satires, aren't really my thing. I mean, I enjoy comedy — who doesn't? — and I like the concept of satire, I like the depth and precision a book can wield, and everything else that should make me appreciate comedic books. But it's happened a lot lately: I'll read a book, conclude that it was cute enough, but ultimately a bit flimsy and forgettable. Wondering what the book was missing, I'll look at other reviews and notice everyone calling it "laugh out loud funny," or whatever, and realize — oh, this book was supposed to be comedy? It's not that I thought the jokes didn't work. If forced, I'm not sure I would be able to point out what was even meant to be funny. Which is not to say that The Thieves of Manhattan a bad book. I enjoyed it well enough as goofy, lightweight satire that sort of missed the mark but was pleasant to read. I guess I'm just not the market for goofy, lightweight satire.
Thieves is the story of an aspiring memoirist, Ian Minot. He lives in a world where the publishing industry publishes only outlandish memoirs — at least that's the impression I got, given every character's bizarrely dismissive attitude toward fiction; but then again, maybe this was part of some broad satirical statement, and maybe the fact that the satire was so difficult to pinpoint was part of the problem. Ian interacts with loud, generic morons and struggles to find a publisher for his work, until a strange man informs him of a scheme to hookwink the publishing industry. With extremely little effort, they hoodwink the publishing industry. Who knew it was so easy to achieve rampant success! Of course, shenanigans ensue.
I think the problem for me is the tone such novels take. Thieves is a satire attacking memoir writers, liars and greedy editors, with a bit of a metafictional bent, which for obvious reasons intrigued me on paper. But satire in novels always seems to end up so broad and goofy, whether it's the raunchy randomness of Palahniuk or the slice-of-wacky-life essays of Sedaris. And there's a good reason such writers adopt a lightweight tone and zippy prose: they want to make you laugh, and if the prose is feisty enough to begin with, you'll already be in the mood when the jokes land. If they land. If there are jokes to begin with. The satire in Thieves is so broad and cartoonish that I'm guessing the tone was the joke; that the reader's understanding of the publishing industry is meant to be filled in, a self-provided punchline. But the characters are all too ridiculous, the situations too contrived, the repercussions cliched and silly. Langer gets a few good jabs in, of course, but jokes about the publishing industry more or less write themselves. One main character is meant to satirize James Frey and other such writers who have published "memoirs" full of outlandish, impossible-sounding drama. The character is as generic as a character could possibly be, a loud, crass thug who ends every sentence with "yo", even if that sentence is a written blurb advertising another book. There is no context or background for his success, but it's meant to seem ludicrous — as if just making the improbable happen in a fictional novel will somehow prove a point. Another character can't get published because his mystery thriller novel isn't "true." Okay, satirizing the industry for latching onto bullshit memoirs, that I get. But a novel that sounds awfully like Da Vinci Code can't get published because it didn't really happen? Because a thriller novel wasn't a memoir? Seriously?
Whatever Langer had to say about the publishing industry gets lost in a haze of conflicting messages and unbelievable behavior. The tone remains cute even when the action picks up, and there are plenty of in-jokes to make sure that literary types understand that this one is for them. But cute is all it really is. If that's your thing, this is a good book for you. It's enjoyable, it's silly, it reads fast. I'm just not altogether sure what the point was.
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