I made the mistake of starting to read Mr. Nary in the hospital waiting room. Not a place to be guffawing every ten seconds or so.

The wry sense of humor, the unexpected turns of phrases, the laughable story and story-within story and novel within that story with a romance on the side, the ability to surprise the reader with hilarious word choices and random thinkings of an exceptionally ADHD want-to-be-author, announce the brilliance of Roo Carmichael as a skilled craftsman of delightful reading pleasure.

Hemingway said, “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.”

Grady’s distractedness and discouragement and loss of control of the characters and his unending procrastination…his innocent egotism and belief in fan clubs and best seller lists in his honor…so real it hurt.

Thank you, Roo, for this nonpariel adventure into the realm of the absurd but strangely realistic life of a first-draft writing author.

UPDATE:
My family and I were lucky enough to be able to meet the author. What a blast! We were super-surprised to find that the first few letters in this book were the ACTUAL PRANK on his father Bill Carmichael, author of The Missionary. Can’t wait for the sequel. What novel plans has Grady got up his sleeves? Anxiously waiting for the next installation, Mr. Carmichael!