Rating: 
Summary: Who ever would think parking would be so interesting?!
Review: Murrary Tepper is a pretty normal 60-something year old. He works in the mail order business. He's still married. He dislikes his only daughter's husband. He adores his grandson. Yet, Tepper has one strange habit. He likes to read his newspaper...in his car, on the streets of New York City. He always parks in legal spots, and always pays if there's a meter. He's even perfected ways to get rid of the people asking him "You going out?" Tepper's life gets turned upside down when an innocent article about him is stuck into a small newspaper and the nitpicky mayor decides something MUST be done about him. The book flips from Tepper and his life to of a pollster, who tells the mayor's side. Some might wonder what they have to do with each other, but they do connect. You'll fall in love with Tepper, and the unique story and characters. Guaranteed.
Rating: 
Summary: Parking Woes in the Big Apple
Review: Murray Tapper, a delightful low-key gentleman, has taken up reading his paper in his Chevy Malibu at various metered parking spots. He is impervious to drivers who want him to move on. Murray doesn't move until the meter runs out. (Murray is a very law abiding man.)"Tapper" is what we used to call in English Lit. class, a "slight" novel. It takes a small subject and studies all of its ramifications. It is a credit to Mr. Trillin's deft touch that we willingly follow Murray's trials and triumphs at the meter. Mr. Trillin is fearless in that only a sub-section of New Yorkers (not just "New Yorkers," but New Yorkers who own cars) can really appreciate the ironies of Murray's story. An enjoyable read, but one that is better suited to a short story in "The New Yorker."
Rating: 
Summary: Let Tepper read in peace
Review: Murray Tepper doesn't ask much of life. he has worked for years selling lists, and has a grown daughter and a loving wife. After work, and on weekends he likes to get in the car and find a parking place. A familiar hunt if you have ever been foolish enough to try to park on the streets of New York City. Once he finds the perfect parking place, Murray likes to relax and read the paper...much to the constarnation and puzzlement of others. Not even the threats of others looking for a parking spot can take away from his pleasure. Not even when his wife and daughter and friends question his sanity, does he stop. You see, Tepper isn't going out, he just wants to read and maybe get some really good whitefish. This "odd" behavior seems to pique the curiosity of his felloe New Yorkers, until even the highest levels of city government are invilved and determined to see Tepper behave appropiately. Very funny, with the Mayor Frank Ducavelli wound tighter and tighter as he tries to restore order to the problem...I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing as I sat in my car in the parking garage at work, I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Sorbet
Review: Murray Tepper is either having a highly original late-midlife crisis, or he's just being a New Yorker; whichever, Calvin Trilling has written a highly amusing New York tale that may be the gentlest such to come out of the Big Applesauce. Murray Tepper, moderately successful, devoted to family, easy-going, and easily misunderstood likes to spend his free time sitting in his car reading the paper. A life-long New Yorker, he knows the city's parking regulations, and best spots like the back of his hand. While exercising his right to park where it's legal, and his responsibility to feed the meter he manages to draw a considerable amount of unwanted attention from a host of fellow New Yorkers. Murray becomes a guru to some, a pain to others (especially the spot-on caricature of Mayor Guiliani,) and a puzzlement to friends and family. "Tepper Isn't Going Out," is slight, but that doesn't make it less than delightful. Mr. Trilling is known as a food writer, and I don't think he'd mind someone using "Tepper..." as the sorbet between weightier courses.
Rating:
Summary: 'There's always something'
Review: Murray Tepper is one of the most likeable characters that I've ever come across in a novel. As I was reading this sunny satire by New Yorker Calvin Trillin, I kept smiling to myself and thinking that I wished I could meet Tepper and sit with him in the front seat of his 'legally parked' dark blue Chevy Malibu. I had to keep reminding myself that 'Tepper Isn't Going Out' is fiction - it read like a 'parking' memoir. Parking is a sport in Manhattan, and Murray is a pro. Murray sits in his Malibu late in the day, reading his Post and perfecting his hand flicks that he gives to would-be parkers who ask him if he's going out. One thing leads to another, and Murray winds up being the parking philosopher with a line of people waiting to join him in his car. Next he ends up being declared an 'attractive nuisance' by City Attorney Victor 'Yesboss' Hessbaugh under a 1911 statute. It seems Mayor 'Il Duce' Ducavelli has decided that Tepper has become one of the 'forces of disorder' that are threatening the City. Tepper gets his day in court, represented by ACLU lawyers who have a shopping cart stuffed full of documents. I'm not going to say how Murray's story ends, except to say that there's a delightful twist that I hadn't guessed. 'Tepper Isn't Going Out' is a fun book, and it's a playful poke at a former mayor or two. Put some money in the meter, sit behind the wheel, and enjoy this book! Oh, and I have one question for Murray: How did he manage to get those choice parking spots in the first place?
Rating:
Summary: Let me park in peace!
Review: Murray Tepper isn't asking too much. He just wants to be able to get in his car and find a parking place. Once parked he just wants to read in peace. In New York City, where parking is at a premium, that is not possible. As Murray tries to park and read in peace, he disturbs the balance of things, people cannot imagine that a man would want to just read, he is threatened, an object of curiosity and pity, and worries his wife, daughter and longtime friends. A curious reporter prints an interview with Murray and sets in motion events which invilve the highest of city power. Calvin Trillin has crafted a delightfully dry tale of a man just trying to get a bit of joy in his everyday life, and the commotion it causes. I had to bite my lip so I wpould not laugh at my desk, as I tried to read this book at work (I did not want to put it down).
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: My family complained as I read this book, because I couldn't help but laugh outloud. It was so funny and so full of those poignant little truisms about human nature. The basic story: Tepper likes to sit in his car and read the paper with time on the meter in New York City. Of course, people want him to move it so they can have the space. Does he just like to read? Or does he recall the days of his youth when his skill at finding a good parking place was a great pleasure for him (before he caved and bought a place in a parking garage)? Folks begin to line up to sit in his car for a few minutes with him and get his advice on problems. All of this infuriates a fascist mayor. This is a very nice book (readers will catch the reference to whitefish!).
Rating: 
Summary: Edgeless
Review: Of all modern novels to take place in New York--or in any other major city in the world--this has to be the most edgeless ever written. This book would not have been published if Trillin didn't write for the New Yorker; I dare say no editor would have even finished reading the manuscript. It is not only a book without an edge, it is a book without a point (other than to enhance the author's income). Trillin is a decent (no, much better than decent actually) writer when he's writing about food but that's about it. He should stick to steak, ribs and sauces and forget about minds, souls and emotions. If anybody doubts the veracity of these statements, he or she should read Trillin's portrait of R.W. Apple in the New Yorker, perhaps one of the most uncritical puff pieces ever published. He may as well have been handed money by Apple and the Times.
Yes, I finished this novel but it was solely for the enjoyment of disliking it.
Any bets on whether this book will even be in print in five years?
Rating:
Summary: Join Tepper in the front seat
Review: Tepper is an ordinary, middle aged New York resident who likes nothing more than to source out a good parking spot (always legal and always paid up in full), and quietly sit and read his paper. This quirky but harmless behavior strikes a chord with his fellow New Yorkers who come to see Tepper as a heroic "everyman", a guy who just wants to sit in peace and do his thing. Tepper becomes somewhat of a minor celebrity, in the process raising the ire of the ultra uptight Mayor Ducavelli. Join Tepper for his unlikely adventure in New York, you'll be smiling all the way through.
Rating:
Summary: Tepper Isn't Going Out
Review: Tepper Isn't Going Out is a funny, good hearted book by Calvin Trillin. Tepper enjoys parking; he lives in New York where to him finding the perfect spot is a kind of joy- an amazing victory. When he completes the task he sent out to do and he still has money in the meter not using that money is a waste; so Tepper reads his newspaper and parks. After being introduced to Tepper his conflict arises, the crazy mayor, who is banning stepping into the street to hail a cab (even using one foot), has decided that Tepper is violating some kind of law as he sits in his car with time in his meter. The law that the mayor believes him to be breaking is creating a ruckus- that is because of the New Yorker's belief that this man has some kind of extra wisdom; after a while huge crowds greet him in his typical spaces, just to sit in his car and talk to him. Somehow Tepper begins to solve people's problems- some sort of street physiatrist. His case is brought to court and fought out, and Tepper has to stop parking for a while, the outcome of the story is slightly disappointing, bus satisfying.
Humorously the author is quite similar to Tepper and writes in the same parking magazine as the one mentioned his story. When asked "Do you park on the street?" he replied, "I have a garage, like Tepper. But I drive a lot, particularly at night. I live in the Village, and if I'm going to dinner, say, at Seventy First and Madison, I drive. My spot-hunting is usually not for a spot that's good for tomorrow, as alternate-side parkers say. In fact, there are times when I find a spot that is good for tomorrow and think about the guys who are circling the block after a really hard day at the office - they just want to go home, hug their kids, and have a martini - and I feel it really should be their spot, not mine. When I get through feeling that way, I have generally by that time locked the car and walked away. It's a tough business. You can't be soft about it."
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