The Portable Veblen

It began with a word and a quote.

Seropurulent \ ˌsir-ō-ˈpyu̇r-ə-lənt“He...wanted to sputter Seropurulent! which had been an ironic superlative they used in med school for terrible things that had to be overlooked.”From The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth Mckenzie.

I was browsing through some blog post drafts and I ran across this. The Portable Veblen? I had no memory of reading it. I double-checked Goodreads. No, nothing. But, I quickly learned, The Portable Veblen was on the National Book Awards longlist, and it was available at my public library. And there was a squirrel on the cover. Sold.

This is exactly (EXACTLY!) the sort of book I love. It's about nothing, and it's about everything. The characters are completely flawed and imminently loveable. The conversations are Alice-in-Wonderland-ish-ly strange and brilliant. The format of the story is conventional and yet also mildly surprising. It's humorous, too. And there are squirrel characters.

Let me share a little of the plot.

Veblen (yes, that's a name) is (kind-of) planning to marry Paul, and they are crazy about each other. The chief thing they have in common is that they both come from wildly disfunctional families. Paul has fallen into a fabulous job with a pharmaceutical firm after he has developed a Pneumatic Turbo Skull Punch to treat battlefield head trauma, while Veblen never finished college (should she tell Paul?) and does temp work and has conversations with squirrels.

Okay, I think that's enough.

I'm desperate now to read more by Elizabeth Mckenzie, and it seems she has a small backlist, so off I go.