Early Review: Happy Hour Is for Amateurs

As a LibraryThing member, I not only get to catalog my books in a manner that makes my inner OCD feel calm and satiated, but I also get to, through their Early Reviewers program, read books prior to their publication date and offer my own candid views on these works.

I recently finished my review of the upcoming Happy Hour Is for Amateurs: A Lost Decade in the World's Worst Profession, by an anonymous first-time author who goes by the handle of The Philadelphia Lawyer. For the benefit of those who don't typically look at my LibraryThing profile, I've reprinted the review I've written below, so that it might get a bit more exposure for those interested in the novel.

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The Philadelphia Lawyer wants to be the next Tucker Max. The reigning king of "fratire," unsurprisingly, even makes a cameo appearance at the end of Happy Hour Is for Amateurs, as if an obvious gesture towards the Lawyer's inspiration and aspirations. This book, however, is not nearly as evenly-developed as Max's, though its strengths do make it worth a read if this type of book is your cup of tea.

The book takes the reader through three years of law school and then a decade of employment in almost every facet of law practice. The chronological construction of the book is fairly obviously pointed out at first, but many of the early chapters, like in Max's book, seem to emphasize not the progression of time but the quality of the tale. By the end of the book, when chronology becomes much more important, the lack of cohesion becomes more obviously a weakness. It's not exactly clear whether the Lawyer just wants to share awesome stories or wants to tell the larger narrative of how he became disenchanted with law, which can be frustrating.

Strangely, the ultimate narrative of his move away from law is the most redemptive part of the book. The final 50 or so pages, as he slips into the meta-narrative of his foray onto his website and, finally, publication, is well-written and suspenseful, and since we identify with his character as something more than a narrator, we root for his success despite the book itself proving it to us. Sure, he makes several really bad decisions, but unlike Max, he's not a complete jerk, and this is the book's greatest strength.

Unfortunately, the book's greatest weakness is the content of his various tales, particularly those that take place after law school. The format of the stories becomes excessively familiar -- place a teaser at the start, develop the set-up, and then resolve the teaser at the end -- and the stories themselves become wearisome because of their general lack of interesting content. An early story about his attempt to bed three girls in one weekend, for instance, has no payoff save for the fact that he had sex with them all, and some were better than others.

In a bar (and a few drinks deep), one might be engrossed by such an escapade, but the types of stories that are bar-worthy typically involve some gross or humorous payoff, and far too many of the Lawyer's stories lack them. It also doesn't help that the most amusing of these stories are the ones involving sexual escapades, which tail off substantially when he meets his future wife. This leaves us with stories of office boredom -- which are fascinating forays into the underbelly of law, but as workplace satire fall far short of, say, Office Space -- and escapades with exotic drugs -- which likewise fall far short of, say, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Ultimately, the Philadelphia Lawyer does have some interesting things to say, but the book in its entirety is too touch-and-go to convey that interest. He is unafraid to wear his influences on his sleeve but finds himself struggling to live up to their examples. He has a few funny things to say but not nearly as many as he thinks he does. And yet, even in mediocrity, he finds a marginal amount of success. All of which adds up to a book that is not exactly memorable, but not exactly regrettable either -- though how great a compliment that is will depend on the reader.

An Open Letter to the State of Maryland

Dear Maryland,

Yes, that's right. I'm taking this straight to you. I've had my incidents with you before, and though I've neglected to document them in this forum, let's face it: I've failed to document lots of things in this forum. But after today's debacle, I find I can maintain my stoic silence no more.

You are, without a doubt, the worst state in the union when it comes to driving.

Caveat: I know I have, time and time again, stated for the record that my least favorite road in the entire country is the Washington, D.C. Beltway. And that, given the orientation of the District amongst and betwixt both Virginia and Maryland, you can only be held accountable for approximately 50% of the shitty driving that occurs on that road. Consider this concession made, but know that my current displeasure stems from an incident that did not occur on the brief stretch of the notorious I-495 on which I traversed today, but rather on the more lamentably awful 80-mile stretch of I-95 that connects Washingtonians to the border of that "small wonder," Delaware.

I departed from my friend Alicia's residence in Arlington, VA at approximately 3:00pm today. Traveling northward through many a brief but fascinating stretch of parkways and interstates that cut a fairly straightforward swath through the southeast corner of Washington, I found myself merging onto I-95 just shy of exit 29 near Laurel. I filled my gas tank -- at $3.65 a gallon for Shell, no less! -- at exit 33, and returned to the highway a mere 20 miles south of downtown Baltimore and approximately 75 miles from Delaware.

Time now for a little math. I departed the gas station, according to my receipt, at 3:36pm. At 65 miles per hour, and accounting for the unavoidable attraction of my foot to the accelerator, I should have entered Delaware somewhere in the vicinity of 4:45pm, right? And with Delaware being such a brief, 10-mile stretch, I should have almost certainly been back in my wonderful home state of New Jersey by approximately 5:00pm, yes?

If so, then why the hell did I not get into New Jersey until after 6:30pm?

The answer, for your information, is because just north of Baltimore, and for the twenty-odd miles beyond it, I-95 was practically a parking lot. A four-lane parking lot. I've never seen such a large road be so completely at a standstill, plodding along at a pace not to dissimilar from that of Peter Gibbons when he spies an old man with a walker proceeding much faster than he.

I found out much later that this was the likely the result of traffic being diverted away from the Bay Bridge, where a tractor trailer tumbled off the span and into the Bay. Certainly, this is a very reasonable explanation, but I find it astonishing that I never once saw a significant influx of people enter the highway at any point, nor did I discover any reason for the snail's-pace traffic to suddenly dissipate and give way to vehicles that rediscovered suddenly, as if escaping from some mechanical hypnotism, that they could drive at the speed limit again.

I tend to want to seek out reasons for stupidity when I see it, but there was none to be found here, and in between bouts of screaming and cursing -- which the new Margot & the Nuclear So and So's disc, The Daytrotter Sessions EP, was only marginally effective at tempering -- my mind was rankled by that awful, stomach-churning feeling known as déjà vu. I've seen driving like this before -- yes, yes, on that god-awful Beltway that you thought we'd finished talking about, but seriously, when five lanes of drivers are doing the same goddamn speed, it bears repeating -- and my experiences with it are almost always localized in the Chesapeake area. Go figure.

Now, I know you'll protest that I'm being unfair, that I'm attributing this awful experience to a set of circumstances that are extraordinary and over which you had no control. But there is another gripe I have about you, Maryland, and your stretch of I-95 that is simply diabolical and wholly inexplicable.

Somehow, within a 55-mile stretch, you charge a staggering ELEVEN DOLLARS in tolls. How could this be?

And yes, I know, the last toll is technically a mile into Delaware (believe me, the First State's gonna be hearing from me too). But even if you except that absurd $4.00 toll -- which, apparently, much be based on time and not distance, considering that the southbound lanes in Delaware were a parking lot -- how do you justify asking folks to cough up $2.00 at the Fort McHenry tunnel in Baltimore, only to demand a whopping $5.00 less than 40 miles later for a tall but otherwise pissant crossing of the Susquehanna River?

It's the fucking Susquehanna River. It costs me just a dollar more to cross the Hudson, and at least there's something useful and entertaining on the other side of that river. At least my state has the courtesy of only charging you when you try to get out.

So in short, Maryland, the nearly-three hours I spent trying to traverse your green fields today have convinced me that there must be some kind of pall cast by your drivers that make it utterly miserable for the rest of us out-of-staters. I don't quite know what the problem is, but if you figure it out, please swing by me and bring it to my attention so that we can begin to rectify this little problem.

I'll even comp your tolls on the way back home.

Sincerely,
Me