June 5th, 2025
Home | Log in!

On Top Shelf
UNMASK ME MY LOVEUNMASK ME MY LOVE
Fresh Pick
SHIELD OF SPARROWS
SHIELD OF SPARROWS

New Books This Week

Reader Games

🌸 Summer Kick-Off Giveaways


Sunshine, secrets, and swoon-worthy stories—June's featured reads are your perfect summer escape.

Slideshow image


Since your web browser does not support JavaScript, here is a non-JavaScript version of the image slideshow:

slideshow image
He doesn�t need a woman in his life; she knows he can�t live without her.


slideshow image
A promise rekindled. A secret revealed. A second chance at the family they never had.


slideshow image
A cowboy with a second chance. A waitress with a hidden gift. And a small town where love paints a brand-new beginning.


slideshow image
She�s racing for a prize. He�s dodging romance. Together, they might just cross the finish line to love.


slideshow image
She steals from the mob for justice. He�s the FBI agent who could take her down�or fall for her instead.


slideshow image

He�s her only protection. She�s carrying his child. Together, they must outwit a killer before time runs out.


The Funnies by J. Robert Lennon

Purchase

Add to Wish List


Also by J. Robert Lennon:

Buzz Kill, March 2025
Hardcover / e-Book
Hard Girls, February 2024
Hardcover / e-Book
Subdivision, April 2021
Trade Size / e-Book
Let Me Think, April 2021
Trade Size / e-Book
Familiar, October 2012
Paperback / e-Book
Castle, April 2009
Hardcover
Pieces For The Left Hand, January 2005
Paperback
Mailman, October 2004
Paperback
On The Night Plain, August 2001
Paperback
The Funnies, March 2000
Paperback
The Light Of Falling Stars, April 1998
Paperback

The Funnies
J. Robert Lennon

Granta Books
March 2000
On Sale: March 6, 2000
301 pages
ISBN: 1862073163
EAN: 9781862073166
Paperback
Add to Wish List

Fiction

Many much-acclaimed debut novels are spectacular one-shots, with the author unable to come up with something as fresh a second time around. No such problems for Lennon, who has chosen unploughed territory with The Funnies.

Few people realise how important the world of cartoons is to us all: even those who don't take them seriously would be hard put to deny that they're an essential part of our lives. When Carl Mix, the domineering father of five, dies, he leaves his nationally syndicated strip to his son Tim, also an artist. And the novel's delights come from the shifting interface between the strip Family Funnies, in which the Mix family display a relaxed unity, and the reality in which the quality of life of his senile mother and his secretive, schizophrenic brother is considerably less glossy than the strip. Written in the same kind of sharp, conversational style that characterizes Anne Tyler, Lennon is good at taking us on an abrasive but often very funny voyage into the heart of a dysfunctional family (the underground artist Robert Crumb and his family would seem to be a distant inspiration). If Lennon can come up with something equally unusual for his third book, he will be very much a writer to watch. --Barry Forshaw

Comments

No comments posted.

Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!

© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net  all rights reserved Privacy Policy