Everything Changes

I think this is a guy's book (the first hint is the cover illustration) but I can't really imagine any guy I know reading it and I enjoyed it just fine myself. I've read two other books by Jonathan Tropper. He wrote The Book of Joe, about a successful writer who goes back to his hometown and faces the wrath of all his thinly-disguised real life characters. He also wrote How to Talk to a Widower which must have been forgettable because I have since done so. Still, I liked it enough to pick up Everything Changes.

The protagonist of this one, Zachary King, is at loose ends, though he shouldn't be. He's got a dull, but fairly lucrative job, a gorgeous and nice fiancee and he lives rent-free with his, um, eccentric best friend. Well, actually, there's the problem. His real best friend died beside him in a particularly gory car accident and Zachary finds himself pining for Rael's widow and adorable daughter, and hating the pettiness of his job and life, and getting cold feet for the upcoming wedding. Also, his absentee father shows up (demonstrably on viagra), trying to make amends. OR is he?

So, yeah, it's a book about a kind of mid-life crisis. Tropper's not as good as Nick Hornby at doing vaguely-adolescent-man-grows-up, but his characters and plots are likeable and the observations about the world in general are kind of fun. I really appreciated how realistic Tropper makes his children characters. That must be incredibly hard to do, even if you--the author--have models in your own home. Two-year-old Sophie is never painfully cute or painfully precocious (although she does watch Annie) and the late addition of a five-year-old rings true as well.


In the end, you want things to work out for everyone. I liked all the characters and was a bit anxious that it was necessary for someone somewhere to suffer, but I guess Tropper gets that all out of the way with the wrecked childhood (due to publicly philandering father) and death of best friend. After that, anything that had the potential to be awful, either rights itself or is comic, as in this scene with the briefly reunited nuclear family trying to resolve a conflict with a local bully. That's us. The Fighting Kings. What we lack in brawn we make up for in bizarre diversion, the strategically placed erection here, the surprise bald head there, and while your focus is shattered by the freak show that we are, we'll use the opportunity to bash your head in.


Did I mention that this is a guy's book?


Oh yeah, and Zachary thinks he has cancer because of blood in urine (did I mention...?) He finally goes in to get checked and has this exchange with his doctor:
"Everything okay?"
"Hmmm," he says.
You never, under any circumstances, want to hear your doctor say "hmm." "Hmmm" being the medical jargon for "Holy shit."

But remember, this is essentially a funny book, so don't fret too much for Zachary King. And Tropper does throw a few "other-gender-friendly" gifts, as in this exchange between Zachary and Rael's widow.
"You're doing okay, " I say.
"I'm a shitty mother."
"It's pronounced 'single.' You're a single mother."


Love it. So don't be too embarrassed if female (or introverted male or person who still lives with conservative relatives), to carry around a book with a tight-rope walking umbrella chastely(?)covering the nether regions of a penciled outline of a nude woman. You might just have a good laugh in the process. Besides, the paperback may have a different cover.