4 minute read
Unique humor, nonpareil creativity
Review of “Big Time” by Jen Spyra
Reviewed by Carole J Greene
This book may not be for you if you are easily offended by repeated use of the f*** bomb plus frequent sexual references. But if you watch any R-rated movies or if you’ve recently listened to conversations in any food court, such things won’t faze you. Even if those utterances are repugnant to you, I implore you to give the book a chance, so you can discover a truly creative mind at work.
“Big Time” by Jen Spyra, former staff writer for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The Onion,” is a collection of bizarre short stories, each one pushing the envelope of imagination a bit further than the one before. If you are the kind of reader who likes to figure out the ending of a story before it is revealed, you will be surprised, bemused, perhaps shocked by the twists Spyra comes up with. You might hear yourself muttering, “No, surely she wouldn’t…” and then she does.
The stories run the gamut from amusing to comical to off-the-charts hilarious. I’ll share with you a couple of back-cover blurbs. Mindy Kaling, writer, producer and director, says: “When I first met Jen, I thought she was a deeply funny, normal woman. After reading her hilarious book of stories, I see she is even funnier than I thought, though exponentially less normal. It’s a pretty good trade-off.”
Another writer, producer, director — Tina Fey — says: “Jen Spyra’s stories are shocking, silly, smart, and absurdly funny. Underline both those words. I don’t care how much it costs!”
Spyra’s creativity produces this, in the story titled “Birthday Girl,” when a friend tells the protagonist what she is giving the birthday girl, Molly, for a gift: “Yeezy Moonbeam boots in ‘Oil,’ a bronze cast of Molly’s torso mounted on a polished hunk of maple harvested from her childhood home’s backyard, a monogrammed alpaca blanket, a monthly cheese subscription, and an exercise bike.” Think about it. What kind of mind would create such gifts, each one more ridiculous than the last? Answer: Jen Spyra’s. You have to laugh. Have to.
In the book’s final story, titled “Big Time,” the protagonist is Ruby Russell, a starlet under contract to a Hollywood studio in the 1940s. She is starting to make a name for herself when she miraculously time travels to today and winds up as one of the prospective fiancées on the TV series “The Bachelor.” (Are you with me so far? Navigating one of Spyra’s creations takes a bit of effort — but it’s worth it.) Ruby finds herself one of 30 women vying for the affections of the bachelor. Twenty-seven of them are named some spelling of Kaylee — Kayleigh B., Kaylee C., K-Li W., Kaeli T., Kayli B., ad infinitum. The bio of one Kayleigh S. notes that she “is Lee Harvey Oswald’s great-niece;” after she exercises, “she rewards herself with a homebaked protein bar,” and she “does not look away when she gets her blood drawn.” As if any of that matters. But to Spyra, it all adds up to hilarity.
Do read this book. You’ll come to ignore the profanity and sexual events. You’ll be too busy laughing. I’m sure she’ll scrub clean her Jewish Book Festival presentation via Zoom on Thursday, Dec. 15, at 7 p.m. For tickets, go to Jewish Book Festival (jewishnaples. org) and scroll to the date.
