Tom Bradley's
Lemur may not score points with LGBT activists,
but it's entertaining nonetheless.
What must happen
at the end of all comedies? On the last page of this
novel Spencer Sproul stands in fond reverie on the front
stoop of his newly successful restaurant
(significantly, a family-style establishment). At
Spencer's side is his favorite employee, his
"special-best busboy," Spud.
What is this
place, other than a chapel? And what is the seven-foot tall
fiberglass effigy of Lemmy, the restaurant's Lemur logo,
other than a god, presiding over this sacrament? What
color is Spud's busboy apron but bridal white? And as
for the wedding party, who are they but the hundreds
of morbidly obese customers queued up for the brunch buffet?
Like all
comedies, Lemur is the story of a fragmented
self becoming whole. And the wedding at the end is
requisite, the bringing together of the conflicting
elements of the protagonist's nature.
Spud is not
exactly the most attractive character in the annals of
fiction, yet Tom Bradley has cast him as the successfully
won love-object. The fact that it's a gay marriage and
that the bride is a compulsive nose-picker
and borderline mentally challenged might seem
calculated to anger activists. Tom Bradley has never been
loath to anger folks with his writing.
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