Rating: 
Summary: Better than average Kinksta
Review: The last 2 novels from Kinky Friedman have been a bit of a disappointment for me. The characters, while all deliciously amusing and well portrayed, were wearing a little thin like a housepest who's over stayed their welcome. We just needed a break. This book certainly supplies it.Walter Snow is a novelist who hasn't written anything in 10 years. One day while at a bank he meets this beautiful woman who asks to use his safe deposit box. For some reason not understood to him, Snow lets her use it. Soon after, the police visit and the story begins. Snow encounters Clyde and Fox. Clyde is the beautiful woman from the bank. Fox is her closest friend. Snow wants to be Clyde's closest friend and ends up becoming Fox's friend as well. Clyde and Fox take Walter Snow on the ride of a lifetime playing pranks and evoking revenge on all those that in their minds are immoral or unethical in this world. During their encounters, Walter Snow is reminded of how to live and soon he begins to remind himself of how to write. This last bit is the most interesting portion of the novel. Kinky Friedman supplies it with all of his trademark wit and charm. The pace is brisk and the humor is hysterical and outrageous. Occassionally a character mentions a line that, while you could hear the Kinky Friedman character of the past novels state it, you couldn't imagine these characters state it, but those are few. What really makes this novel terrific, however, is following Walter Snow's thoughts as he ruminates on what it means to be a writer and what the art entails. He discusses writer's block and how it has affected him. He ponders how a writer puts together his words, his art and what he does to the friends and family that becomes part of the novel; how he characters on the page that he controls are almost more real than the ones he is writing about. That's where the novel takes on an almost postmodern feel to it. Don't be worried by this last statement. This isn't the great modern novel (or the great Armenian novel, for that matter). It still has Kinky's humor, Kinky's pacing, and the story is right up your alley if you're a fan. But it's those moments when Walter Snow is sitting alone in front of his typewriter trying to draw the words from his pores that provide this novel with the depth and poignancy that the last couple of Friedman novels have been missing. A grand return to form! Thanks, Kinky.
Rating: 
Summary: Fannie Flagg was right!
Review: There is no doubt that I was one of the first to read this new Friedman novel, and it is truly different from any other Friedman detective novels. Characters like Walter Snow (who has the very familiar voice of Kinky Friedman, btw), Clyde and Fox fill the pages instead of the more familiar musician-turned-author-turned-detective "Kinky" that is so familiar to his fans. There are no McGoverns, McCalls or Ratsos, but there is that very familiar Friedman pace and style throughout. Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned is already a collectible, in that it is so far afield for Friedman. It took courage, too. Changing a winning pattern can give many an author the heebie-jeebies. Please check out Fannie Flagg's review in the April 13th New York Times Book Review.
Rating: 
Summary: Kick back and enjoy the ride for what it is.
Review: This is my introduction to the wacky fare of Kinky Friedman. As a result, I had no expectations, no preconceptions. What I found was a funny tale of a struggling writer who ends up entangled in the comic and illegal cons of two runabouts: Clyde Potts, one gorgeous chick, and Fox Harris, one incrutably delirious guy.
Their unusual times together provide the narrator, Walter Snow, the material he needs to write ... and provide us, readers everywhere, with the tease regarding whether the voice and experience are those of a fictional character or Kinky himself. Meanwhile, Walter has fallen hopelessly in love with Clyde and dreams of a romantic relationship, even though he fears she and Fox are linked in ways beyond his understanding.
The comedy is madcap and sometimes over-the-top. Still, Kinky sustains our interest in where this odd threesome will go. Add to this comic fare Kinky's probing asisdes about the elusive nature of writing and you get an oddly romantic and enticing book. While this is not a book that will last, it certainly is one big chuckle of a read, a delight for a rainy or snowy afternoon when one seeks comfort in pure entertainment, smiling and laughing, cozy under the afghan, unconcerned with weighty matters of life, watching a wordsmith (credit to Fannie Flagg) spin a yarn.
No need to look for deep themes or hidden meanings ... just enjoy!
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