203. Spoonbenders
Rating: ☆☆☆1/2
Author: Daryl Gregory
Genre: Fiction, Humor
416 pages, published June 27, 2017
Reading Format: Audiobook
Summary
Spoonbenders tells the story of the Telemachus family. Teddy Telemachus is a charming con man with a gift for sleight of hand and some shady underground associates. In need of money, Teddy tricks his way into a classified government study about telekinesis and its possible role in intelligence gathering. There he meets the lovely Maureen McKinnon, a genuine psychic with enormous power. The two marry, have three gifted children, and become the Amazing Telemachus Family, performing astounding feats across the country. Irene is a human lie detector. Frankie can move objects with his mind. And Buddy, the youngest, can see the future. Decades later, the Telemachuses are not so amazing. Irene is a single mom ability always discern whether someone is telling the truth makes it hard to hold down a job, let alone have a relationship. Frankie’s in serious debt to his dad’s old mob associates. Buddy has completely withdrawn into himself and inexplicably begun digging a hole in the backyard. Irene’s son Matty has just had his first out-of-body experience. The problems are resolved with some twists, turns, affection and humor.
Quotes
“The problem with getting old was that each day had to compete with the thousands of others gone by. How wonderful would a day have to be to win such a beauty contest? To even make it into the finals? Never mind that memory rigged the game, airbrushed the flaws from its contestants, while the present had to shuffle into the spotlight unaided, all pockmarked with mundanities and baggy with annoyances.”
“Then they were off again, across the unbroken sprawl of Chicagoland, a single city made up of interlocking strip malls, decorated at random intervals by WELCOME TO signs with defiantly rural names—River Forest, Forest Glen, Glenview—and enough dales and groves and elms and oaks to populate Middle Earth. The flatlanders had been especially determined to tag every bump of land with a “Heights” or “Ridge.” Pity the poor hobbit trying to find anything to climb in the town of Mount Prospect.”
“They piled into Irene’s Festiva, a car that won the award for most ironic distance between name and driving experience.”
“Smocks were the official uniform of those hanging on to the bottom rungs of the economic ladder; a parachute that would never open.”
“Belief that one was hard to fool was the one quality shared by all suckers.”
“Broke up. With Led, her almost husband and with other boyfriends, the phrase felt right; she broke them off from her, let them fall away like the spent stage of an Apollo rocket. She was stronger without them and never looked back.”
“Duty eats free will for breakfast.”
“Everything he knows about the whirlpool of past and future tells him that the universe does not owe you anything, and even if it did, it would never pay up.”
“I can’t believe this is allowed by state law. You can’t just put a pile of shaved beef—” “Italian beef,” she said. “Italian beef on top of a sausage—” “Italian sausage.” “Right, and then they just let you eat it?” “In Chicago,” she said, “meat is a condiment.”
“You know why I’m raising you kids to be Cubs fans?” Buddy shakes his head. “Any mook can be a fan of a winning team,” Dad says. “It takes character to root for the doomed. You show up, you watch your boys take their swings, and you watch ’em go down in flames—every damn day. You think Jack Brickhouse is an optimist? No-siree. He may sound happy, but he’s dying inside. There’s no seat in Wrigley Field for a God damn Pollyanna. You root-root-root for the home team, and they lose anyway. It teaches you how the world works, kid. Sure, start every spring with your hopes and dreams, but in the universe in which we live, you will be mathematically eliminated by Labor Day. Count on it.”
“The thing about skeletons was, you never knew how much space they were taking up in the closet until you got rid of them.”
“She’d discovered a fact of modern life by standing at a cash register for hours: mindless work could nevertheless fill up your mind, like radio static. If she stayed busy—pushing canned goods down the chute with her left hand while busily ten-keying the prices with her right, making small talk, sorting cash—then she didn’t have to think about what day it was, what time certain flights landed, or how she was going to die alone.”
“He lit the cigarette and inhaled gratefully.
“You want one?”
“No thanks. Had a touch of the cancer a few years ago.”
“What kind?”
“Prostate.”
“I’m not asking you to smoke it in your ass.”
My Take
I found Spoonbenders to be a very enjoyable audiobook. Author Daryl Gregory has a great writing style and has created a rag tag family, some with psychic powers and some without, of eccentrics. Their ups and downs and quests for love and acceptance hold your attention in this pleasant and humorous diversion.
