Couch

This book was such a joy to read. It was unlike anything else I have ever read. I’m not much of a person to read about quests, but this tale of three roommates who felt compelled to take their orange couch to its ultimate destination was so quirky, creative, and funny.

The story began when those three roommates, who did not know each other before and who were vastly different from each other, tried to get rid of their couch after a flood in their apartment caused by the leakage of an upstairs water bed. However, the couch had other ideas! By its weight and through some sort of reckoning by the hippie-like roommate Tree, the couch pressured the other two roommates, Thom and Erik, into having the three return it to its predestined show more spot.

If this sounds absurd, it is. However this is a rollicking good story and so delightful to read. The end of the book was riveting. As I got closer to the conclusion, I felt myself reading faster and faster. My only regret about this book at all is that I waited so long to read it. What an incredible debut novel it was! show less

COUCH, by Benjamin Parzybok, starts out as an oddly compelling novel. Parzybok is involved with www.ideacog.net, which has lots of cool stuff you should check out. After you read this review.
The couch in question may or may not be somehow magical. Three roommates in Portland, Oregon (in my own neighborhood, no less!) need to dispose of the couch. In bizarro fashion, they end up carrying it down 23rd Avenue, and to points beyond. In fact, VERY beyond.
The writing is somewhat brilliant at times. Unfortunately, I can’t quote anything, because the book hasn’t been released yet (Pub date is November 2008). There are great descriptions and interesting facts scattered throughout.
Two thirds of the way into the novel, the tone shifts from show more humorous to serious. I really loved the first part, but without giving anything away, I can see why the last part was needed.
This novel made me think, laugh, cringe, and question. It doesn’t get much better than that in what I look for in a book! Highly recommended!
~Stephanie show less

It won me over. Couch starts off as a typically Northwestern tale of woe: three underemployed guys - a laid-off programmer, a fey pie-baking hippie boy, and a smooth-talking con artist - share a dismal Portland apartment, down on their luck and starting to feel desperation creeping in around the edges. When they are forced out of their den of lethargy by a flood, they discover that their perniciously comfortable couch may, in fact, be evil, and certainly possesses a mind of its own. As they try to figure out what exactly the couch wants, they are drawn into an epic road trip involving secret societies, hobos, lost civilizations, space aliens, drunken fishermen, revolutionaries, and girls, lugging the couch the whole way. Awesomely show more ridiculous and strangely profound, a thoroughly worthwhile read. show less

A sneaky little book, it tricks you with its early depiction of roommates in Portland, skirting along the edges of poverty, but slowly grows into something stranger and more wonderful. The fantasy aspects of the story are grounded by well-observed details, so that the fantasy elements always seem to have something relatable in them.

Parzybok's debut novel starts as an offbeat and humorous story about three young men, somewhat in the slacker line, who are having a bad day as their apartment is flooded and the local thrift centers refuse to take their old couch. The book remains offbeat to the end and humor continues to well up at regular intervals, but the overall story gradually morphs into a mythic tale as the roommates realize that there is somewhere that the couch needs to be taken. Their simple trip to Goodwill becomes a journey around the world, full of adventure and self discovery.

I really enjoyed the author's language and writing style. They made up for a few holes in the story line and a few awkward moments. I'm not sure if I'd call this book fantasy or show more magical realism, but it's definitely the type of thing one might expect from Small Beer Press. Recommended. show less

You can pretty much guarantee that when you read a book published by Small Beer Press, you will be reading something different. Three Portland roommates, soon to be evicted due to a neighbors water damage, attempt to discard their couch at the local Goodwill. Only the thrift stores won’t take it. And, mo re interestingly, the couch will only let them take it certain directions. So begins Tree, Erik and Thom’s quest.

A strong debut novel, and worth reading. Bring an appreciation for the absurd, cause you’ll need it.

(Full review at my blog)

Three roomates loose their apartment when a waterbed on an upper floor floods everything below it. They're forced to move out, and to take the odd orange couch with them. They quickly realize they're unable to get rid of the couch, and then strangers try to buy it for outlandish sums, or take it by force, and the roomates end up on a quest. They don't know where they're going until they get there, and they don't know why, but it definitely involves the magical, possibly evil, orange couch.

This novel walks the line between humor and philosophy. The events in the story tend toward the engaging and amusing, but only one description actually made me laugh. Most of the time it's a wry, wink-wink sensibility, and the reader is left with show more trying to catalogue the numerous little references slung hither and fro. Although the book's tone doesn't change, by the end, it's become mired deep into current popular philosophy--leaving me feeling rather more like I just spent a couple hours with the smartest teenage geeks I knew where they were deliberately trying to mind-twist everything just for fun, and maybe because they hope their outlandish concepts could be true--but it leaves a slightly sour-milk taste because you can't really stand that kind of brain-teasing for long.

The author also seemed to like to seriously imperil his main characters, and half the time the tone of the book made you think nothing bad was going to happen. Then later the reader is somewhat betrayed by this tone.

A last observation: early on in the book, one of the characters makes a pie. A gluten-free pie. But even with the pie making carrying on several pages, the reader never finds out what *kind* of pie it is. (Apple? Cherry? Quiche?) And that's like this book. It's a pie, but you never can figure out exactly what sort. show less