Wild Thing

Witty, funny, highly footnoted, and a fresh take on cryptozoology. I have not read Bazell's first novel, but that didn't at all harm my enjoyment of this book. Lionel Azimuth's journey to find a mysterious lake monster takes all sorts of clever twists and turns, complete with plenty of strange characters. I will say that I don't think Bazell understands women very well, or at least can't write them in any realistic way, but if you ignore that and just read for the kooky small town and cryptozoological antics, this is a quick, enjoyable read.

Wild Thing: A Novel by Josh Bazell (Little, Brown, and Company, 2012. 388 pp) Originally Posted at wherepenmeetspaper.blogspot.com

Josh Bazell has a B.A. in writing from Brown University and an M.D. from Colombia University. His first book is an international bestseller entitled Beat the Reaper, which has been published in thirty-two languages, and was one of Time’s ten best novels of 2009.

Hit-man Turned Doctor/Investigator

In 2009, author Josh Bazell introduced the world to Pietro Brnwa/Peter Brown/Dr. Lionel Azimuth, a mafia hit-man/doctor/bodyguard in his widely acclaimed novel, Beat the Reaper. When I opened it, I don’t know what I expected, but definitely not what I picked up. It was a thriller, with some amazing commentary and show more comedy interlaced within. So I picked up Wild Thing, the next novel starring Peter Brown. It has received positive and negative reviews for various reasons, but I think the reasons Beat the Reaper was so successful are still very much present in his newest offering. It still is an amazingly humorous novel, with even more hilarious footnotes, and an intriguing storyline as well.

Dr. Lionel Azimuth (our protagonist) is in the witness protection program due to his work with the mob as a hit-man, and the book is written as if it were his journal, with many witty asides to the reader. Now a doctor on a cruise ship, his life is both comfortable and easy. He’s not the most educated doctor in the world, as he was rejected by American universities, and was forced to get his medical degree from a university in Mexico.

Azimuth is then called into a reclusive billionaire's employ. The wealthy man, Rec Bill, offers Azimuth an exorbitant amount of money to go searching along with a catastrophic paleontologist named Violet Hurst for a fabled lake monster (think Loch Ness) in the bottom of White Lake.

“What Violet Hurst describes as a catastrophic paleontology is primarily the mix of sociology, anthropology, and ecology...sometimes called either environmental sociology or human ecology” (352-353).

The White Lake Monster

The theories behind this fabled monster of White Lake are numerous. Bazell organizes the novel into sections exploring the theories, from murder to hoax. As far as the theory of a hoax goes, there are a couple stories presented (presented in the succeeding quotations) that are a little hard to believe.

“As Autumn starts to breaststroke back toward the south end of the lake, Benjy explodes out of the water in front of her, visible to mid-chest and vomiting a dark rope of blood that slaps her like something from a bucket. Then he gets yanked back under. He’s gone. The heat of his blood is gone too. It’s like Autumn imagined the whole thing. But Autumn knows she didn’t imagine it. That what she’s just seen is something terrible and permanent—and which might be about to happen to her. She turns and sprint-swims for the rocky beach at the base of the cliff. Full-out crawl, no breathing allowed. Swim or die” (5).

Two children swimming in a lake get pulled under by some creature. The greater likelihood is that they were killed somehow. But, the people of White Lake are both tired of the stories, and scared of the creature. One to survive the attack is named Brisson,

“Brisson wakes up with a strong urge to twitch his left leg. Breathes in air that’s pure hot rotten fish, and chokes. Looks down. His left leg, to mid-thigh, is in the mouth of a gigantic black snake stretching out of White Lake. The snake’s rocky head is shaped like a piece of pie, with its eyes on the sides of the wedge like on an eagle’s. The pupils are vertical slits. The snake’s teeth don’t look like snake teeth, though. They’re serrated triangles, with just their tips pressing into his flesh...The snake doesn’t let him go. It raises its body partly out of the water to gain leverage. It’s no snake. It’s got shoulders” (32).

Because of all these stories, a local man named Reggie sets up a lengthy expedition where he takes rich people wanting to have a chance to see the monster on a tour. Violet and Lionel sign up for the tour, and an intriguing story of epic proportions ensues.

Research and Footnotes

Ultimately what makes the book interesting isn’t the plot itself, but rather the copious amounts of research (there’s a lengthy appendix and sources section at the end of the novel) and footnotes that go into the novel. Since the novel is written as a journal of Dr. Azimuth, the footnotes are many, and frankly hilarious. For those of us (like myself) that have trained ourselves to skip over the footnotes, I’d say the whole point of the novel is actually to read them. They’re more hilarious and entertaining than the plot itself. An example,

“The singular of ‘triceps’ is ‘triceps,’ because ‘triceps’ means ‘three heads,’ referring to how the muscle splits at one end into oh, shit, I drifted off there. ‘Biceps’ and ‘quadriceps’ are similar” (76).

Since the investigation of the lake monster is as close to a plot as the book gets, the whole point of the novel is really to get the humor in the footnotes section and laugh out loud at the randomness it provides.

Beat the Reaper

Wild Thing is a fantastic novel, but Lionel Azimuth/Pietro Brnwa isn’t actually in any danger in this novel. So, for me, the “thrill” is missing. I do really recommend this novel, as it’s hilarious and intriguing, and the investigation of a lake monster is fascinating. Its extremely vulgar language (I counted upwards of fourteen f-bombs on a single page) is a novelty, but it frankly lacks the finesse and thrill of its predecessor Beat the Reaper. I still thoroughly recommend the book, but I think you should pick up Bazell’s first novel before you get going on this one.

Originally Posted at wherepenmeetspaper.blogspot.com show less

Wild Thing, by author and physician Josh Bazell, is a sequel to his thrilling debut Beat The Reaper, which introduced former mob hitman Pietro Brwna as he tried to make up for his crimes by working as a doctor. Beat The Reaper was essentially Brwna's origin story, and spent much of its time flashing back over his life up to that point. It was simultaneously an intensely personal story and a breakneck thriller full of black-as-night gallows humor. For example, in one particularly nerve-wracking scene, Brwna uses one of his own bones as a weapon. As soon as I finished reading it, I wanted more, but I also couldn't quite picture where the story might go next. Beat The Reaper would be a hard act to follow for any author, and I'm glad that show more Bazell took up the challenge even if I don't think the results quite hit the mark.

We catch up with Brwna on a cruise ship three years after the events of the first book. Now he is going by the name Lionel Azimuth and pulling rotting teeth for crew members as part of his catch-all position as ship's doctor. Brwna hates life on the boat, so when his old mentor hooks him up with a job working for a reclusive billionaire (referred to only as Rec Bill), he jumps at the chance. At least, he does until he finds out that the job involves going to Minnesota and hunting for a mythological lake monster as part of what may or may not be a scam or criminal operation. Softening the blow is the fact that his companion for the trip will be Violet Hearst, a paleontologist who is both a knockout beauty and a firm believer in the inevitable apocalypse due to ecological catastrophes. Much to Brwna's surprise, Rec Bill is willing to pony up a steep payment for his cooperation in the trip, and soon enough he gives in despite his misgivings and Violet are on their way.

A lot of Wild Thing's reviews focus on the fact that the subject matter is so different from the first book that it feels strange that it has the same main character. However, I don't agree with the argument that this doesn't feel like a Pietro Brwna book; I think Bazell just does as good a job with Brwna's voice and sense of humor in Wild Thing, and I couldn't picture any other character taking the lead. I love the character, and definitely laughed out loud more than once. I also don't necessarily think that the cryptozoological angle doesn't fit with a story about Brwna, although I could see how hints of possible fantastic elements might raise the hackles of people who like things to stay "realistic".

What I do think is that Bazell actually wrote himself into a corner with Beat The Reaper. As good as it was, how do you write another book about the same character when you've a) revealed his entire backstory and b) established that he can't keep working in a big public hospital? Any kind of follow-up would have to shake things up. I think the real reason people say that Wild Thing doesn't feel like a Pietro Brwna book is that it isn't actually about him as a person. Beat The Reaper was entirely focused on Brwna's fall and redemption. All of the action and tension in the first book originated from events in his life both past and present, which meant that the stakes were exceedingly high and very personal.

In Wild Thing, the personal connections are more tenuous, although they are still present to some degree. Brwna has a fear of open water and sharks because the only woman he ever loved was killed in a shark tank, and he also has a fear of intimacy for much the same reason. Naturally, being in close quarters with a beautiful woman as they search for a lake monster means that some of his issues are going to come to the forefront. However, the stakes never feel very high in Wild Thing - either they find the lake monster or they don't, and Brwna can probably get on with his life either way. Maybe he goes back to the cruise ship, maybe he makes enough money to take care of his problem with mobsters trying to kill him. Compare that to Beat The Reaper, where Brwna is fighting for his life and for personal redemption all while trying to save patient's lives and barely sleeping, and it just doesn't sound quite as compelling.

However, my biggest problem with Wild Thing is that the plot basically unravels near the end of the book. A lot of time is spent building up to the camping trip and search for the monster, but when it finally gets to that point, the monster's reveal is over and done with in no time flat, and it feels very anticlimactic. It doesn't help that the camping trip feels vague and unmotivated once the characters are actually in the middle of the wilderness; after so much time spent discussing the dangers of the trip, very little time is actually spent on the trip itself.

There are also several characters introduced early on that never end up amounting to much. A fundamentalist couple show up at the lodge before the camping trip only to have a one-sided argument about religion with Violet Hearst before storming off-stage and never returning in any meaningful fashion. A Las Vegas magician is mentioned and then subsequently forgotten about until the end of the book as an offhand explanation for a plot point. Bazell misses a great opportunity to have these characters interact with each other and Brwna on the trip, and it's a damn shame.

It's frustrating that the book ends up basically trailing off at the end, because until that point I was definitely enjoying it. I actually liked it more when I first finished it than I did after thinking about it for a few minutes, which is always particularly disappointing. To me it's a sign of a great writer who perhaps bit off more than he could chew; once I was no longer distracted by his fantastic main character, the holes in the plot were far too easy to see.

However, the end of the book very clearly sets up a sequel that could end up bringing the focus back to Brwna's life; rather than continuing to live in hiding, Brwna decides to go on the offensive and strike back against the mob and his former employer. I'm definitely looking forward to it despite my misgivings about this book. Everything I liked about Wild Thing tells me that Bazell is a great author to watch. The problems I had may just be the symptoms of the dreaded sophomore slump that seems to affect so many great artists. show less

Pietro Brnwa, a former hit man, is now practicing medicine as Dr. Lionel Azimuth. When he fails to get fired from his gig as a cruise ship doctor, he accepts a job from a reclusive billionaire (Rec Bill) to go on an expedition to find a lake monster in Minnesota. He's hired for his combination of body guard skills (to protect Rec Bill's lovely paleontologist) and his skepticism (if Azimuth can prove the monster is a hoax, Rec Bill saves $2 million). His medical knowledge also comes in handy because, naturally, people get hurt in a variety of bloody and appalling ways.

While this is the second book about Pietro Brnwa, in a lot of ways this is not a sequel to Beat the Reaper. Wild Thing continues with Pietro's darkly funny, acerbic, show more violent narrative style. However, Wild Thing is more linear and reads more like a thriller because the expedition drives the plot.

Additionally, there's an element of political satire. There are debates about evolution, rants about global warming, and a caricature of a famous Republican. I don't necessarily agree with all of Bazell's political views, but there's so much going on that they don't really detract from the plot. A famous politician is no more out of place on a monster hunt than the Vegas magician, pop sensation, and Chinese tycoon who are also along for the ride. I saw the satire of the surprise political guest kind of like the gore and gratuitous sexual references: so over the top and ridiculous that they're no longer offensive.

Bazell obviously had fun writing Wild Thing (this is a book about a quest to find a ferocious water monster and it starts with "'Ishmael -- Call me' is all the telegram says."). I had a lot of fun reading it, too.

Kindle Note: Love the footnotes -- they're an integral part of the book. HATE them on the Kindle. It's awkward and takes a lot of time away from reading. I'd recommend buying the hard copy. show less

This is a stunner of a book. It grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't set me down until the last pages. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, to believe it or not half the time. Josh Bazell is an amazing wizard of the imaginary, and he has a thing or two to say about the world around us and those who are pulling the strings...along with the string theory, I might add. This is a nest-of-eggs book that uncovers a plethora of interesting things. I found it compulsively readable.
First of all, do you believe in monsters in lakes in Minnesota? Or, that we could be cannibals in the streets within the next 30 years because of the oil crisis? What about global warming and whether we can now do anything about it? What's happening to our old, show more small towns and neighborhoods across the heartlands of America? Who's running the world, anyway???

This novel is fraught with dialog by a cynical and craggy-minded former mofia hitman. He is fun and freaky. I loved him.

This is a perfectly enjoyable read this Spring! show less

Note: Both JAF and JAB read the book, so we have included our separate evaluations after the review.

Lev Grossman says here of Josh Bazell, "Reading him is like being able to monopolize the attention of the most interesting person at a party." So true! The guy is a polymath.

As I see it, this second book of his is an example of the literary practice one might sophisticatedly label "smooshing": i.e., writing two books and combining them into one. In this Era of the Trilogy (otherwise known as: Gaah! It ends in a cliffhanger!), one would think I might be favorably disposed toward the opposite tendency, but alas, I think it just didn’t work as well as it should.

On the one hand, Bazell wants to write "The Continuing Adventures of Dr. Pietro show more Brnwa," featuring the hero of his first book Beat the Reaper . On the other, he has a liberal/pro-science agenda he not only wants to push but seems compelled to push in light of the apathy and ignorance of large segments of the American public. (As a disclaimer I must note that I agree 5000% with every single issue he takes on, and I applaud how well he articulates the facts and takes apart the opponents. I even xeroxed quite a few pages to use as “hand-outs” to those who are the usual recipients of my own less erudite harangues.) But. Should this be such a huge part of Pietro’s story?

I love Josh Bazell’s writing. [Disclosure: he bought me a soy latte at the 2010 Tucson Festival of Books, but I loved him before that.] But. I do not love his use of the “p” word for the female sex organ. In an informal e-mail survey of fellow female bloggers, there was no agreement on a substitute, except for the general sentiment that the more indirect (and less objectifying) the better. (As an example, we would prefer something vague but still obvious like “he put his hand between her legs.”) (My husband, who also loves the author [Disclosure: he shared the latte with me], defends Bazell on the grounds that “that’s how Mafia-type guys talk,” although he refuses to say how exactly he might know this.)

More to the point, often this word is included when there is no plot-related reason why it should be, and I think that causes unnecessary alienation from his work. But, this is a digression.

So what’s the book about already? Pietro Brhwa, former hit man for the mob and now on the run from them, currently works as Junior Physician on a cruise ship, where he is going by the name Lionel Azimuth. His old contact from the Federal Witness Protection Program calls him about a one-week job checking out rumors of a sea monster in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. The money is very good, and Azimuth agrees to take a vacation from the cruise. As a secondary objective, he is also supposed to protect a paleontologist going on the trip, sexy Violet Hurst, who is under the private employ of the billionaire who hired both of them.

Violet serves a number of purposes in the story. One is that she gives Bazell numerous additional excuses to use the “p” word. She also gives Lionel numerous opportunities to talk about his ongoing “boner.” And as a scientist, she provides a ready-made excuse for Bazell to have a character expound on evolution, science versus religion, destruction of the climate and biosphere, and the political corruption enabling these deleterious outcomes. There is even a rather extensive Appendix, ostensibly written by Violet, that gives a timeline for some of the more outrageous acts of destructiveness that are delineated by Violet in the book. An equally extensive section on Resources follows.

Discussion: Personally, I loved all the science stuff, and marked down several books from the Resource section that I want to read. But I think it watered down the thriller aspect of the book. One could argue that Bazell thought the climate arguments and political points were more important, and saw no better way to promulgate them than to wrap them up in a thriller. I could see his thinking that, but if I were his editor I would have pushed for two separate books. The way it stands, each part kind of waters down the other.

Evaluation by JAF: I still love Josh Bazell’s style of writing. I love the footnotes interspersed in the text, I love the medical components (not enough in this book!), and I love his style. He’s bright and witty and talented. However, he should let me run his life and change a few things.

Evaluation by JAB: I would not change the book. So what if it is an amalgam of a thriller and a political disquisition? Books don’t have to fit into easily classified genres. Besides, as a thriller, this one is only average at best. It needs Bazell’s quirky footnotes and asides to be entertaining.

And how do I know how mobsters talk? One of my college classmates was a Patriarcha of the then notorious Rhode Island mafia family of that name. Also, my cousins lived next door to an Italian family that kept a gun in the glove compartment of their black sedan. And when it comes to “p” words, those guys would never refer to the pudenda as anything but a p---- unless it began with a “c.”

Wild Thing is a page turner because it is laugh out loud funny. The story is pretty far-fetched and not very realistic, but who cares? Bazell’s retired-hit-man/physician in the federal witness protection program leaves more maimed and dead bodies in his wake than Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. His wry and mordant observations are what provide most of the entertainment.

I too agree with most of his political observations. His fictional dispute between Violet and Mr. Fick, a religious fundamentalist, about the theory of evolution is efficient and well-argued (by Violet, the atheist, at any rate). Bazell is pushing a political (and religious) agenda, but he does it with humor. He would feel very comfortable on The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart.

Our Consensus: JAB and JAF both agree this would make an excellent choice for a book club, what with all the religious and political assertions. We both enjoyed this book quite a bit. show less

What an odd follow-up to Bazell's sensational 2009 debut novel, Beat the Reaper.

Much of the edgy dialogue and action I expect from Bazell still delivers, and you gotta love the footnotes, but the tonal direction seems off. Our tough-guy protagonist, Pietro Brwna (now with the alias Lionel Azimuth), travels to northern Minnesota to investigate a series of bizarre deaths caused by what is thought to be a Loch Ness-type monster living in a remote lake. I'll admit when I first read this plot synopsis I thought it was a joke. It's like Pietro's story took a timeout from evading the mob in order to solve an X-Files mystery.

Fortunately, the book holds together and by the end we're left with the promise that our hero's woes are far from over.