Comic and tragic and packed with action. Barney and Bingo Edwards live rather quietly in the hills of LA until they are required to chop down their hedge for fire concerns. They can now look directly down upon their neighbor's house, owned by Hal and Irene Harris. Hal Harris is a psychotherapist who treats his patients by giving them hallucinogenic drugs. He sees his patients in his house and leaves them alone while they are tripping so that he can take care of his plants, which in fact he cares about more than people. The book has dark undercurrents (mothers neglecting their children, hack engineers considering killing junkies with their worthless inventions) but overall it is funny. I believe Johnson, when it was published, said it was "about despair," which I don't see. Oh, the problems of the educated first world! Salon.com describes Johnson's protagonists as "well-meaning but complacent middle-class women of vaguely liberal political inclinations who are jolted out of their comfortable worldviews by disruptive events."

Love is the answer! Most definitely… an incredibly brisk n sharp little satire on the general culture of california and sub/urban america in the 60s. our two protagonists (Barney n Bingo Edwards) play straight man to a cast of hostile, absurd, n tragic characters: hippies, junkies, resigned housewives, unfeeling psychiatrists, bureaucrats, rapey mad scientist inventors. every one of them colorfully imagined, all aching for meaning and clinging to whatever manufactured normalcy and happiness they can eke out of their lil lives.

i went into it expecting something much more comic and light in tone but there were many bits in it that were surprisingly affecting… gave it a 3 but it’s more 3.5. i think it could’ve used a little bit of editing and cleaning up and some of the humor didn’t quite land, but overall I really enjoyed my time with the edwardses. I think the sections of bingo with maxine’s children in particular are perfect. the reviewer here that dismisses everything as “problems of the educated first world!” should feel remiss for neglecting to mention those passages, or any having to do with maxine, really. diane johnson is a lovely writer and I’m glad i gave her a shot despite all the middling reviews she seems to get on here. will probably be picking up more from her soon enough.

[additional bits:
- it’s really funny how much contempt she seems to have for the majority of doctors considering she was married to one at the time of her writing this. idk much about ms johnson but maybe bingo is a self insert character lolololol.
-a much hornier book than expected.
-And what a terrible cover on the reissue! Og is so much cuter and much more fitting.
-where crying of lot 49 does looney tunes shit with the SoCal setting, Diane Johnson’s take on it feels more like a coen brothers flick or a peep show episode]

Better than the last Diane Johnson I read, but not by much. More farcical than comedic. Reminiscent of David Lodge or Tom Sharpe. This novel is about smoldering passions, addictions and madness amidst the dry heat of California just waiting for the spark to set off the conflagration.

Do you have a self?
Is there much to know?

"pretty good"