Joe Keenan: Putting on the Ritz

By PETER WELLS

This is a perfectly delightful read. It concerns the openly ridiculous carryings-on of a zany trio, Philip, Gilbert and Claire.

These modern-day Tintin characters were established in Keenan's previous novel, Blue Heaven. They knock around New York as latter-day innocents, getting involved in absurd situations, running from one carefully poised emergency to the next.

One of the real delights in reading this reprint of a 1991 cult hit is working out who the thinly veiled subsidiary characters are. Who on earth could be a tasteless NY property developer whose favourite building style is called "Albert Speer goes to Las Vegas"? Or the novelist whose snow-drenched book is called I am a Nostril?

This is the kind of book you read, hoping desperately that you remember the witticisms so you can introduce them effortlessly into your next conversation.

There are laugh-out-loud moments. The zany trio are persuaded to infiltrate the Trump-like household. Philip and Claire are meant to help the talentless Mrs Champion's singing debut. It is all totally ridiculous and delightful, the literary equivalent of eating a fresh chocolate eclair, followed by a short black, followed by a rather tart, exquisitely chilled Martini.

The author of the novel comes highly recommended. He has won five Emmys as a writer/producer for Frazier, is a much praised composer, and is clearly a very talented light comic novelist.

People mention Coward and Woodhouse in the same breath. Certainly Putting on the Ritz is exquisitely plotted, so you keep turning the pages, chuckling away while accepting happily the paper-thin plot.

As for perceptions about the human condition or anything profound, forget it. This is the novel as vehicle of pleasure.

Think of it as a circus ride, perfectly adjusted to give delight, render forgetfulness and fill in a vacant afternoon. After reading this novel, you'll never think of it again - except perhaps as a faintly caramel-flavoured vacancy, a suspension of time in which you enjoyed yourself, um, reading a fundamentally silly, really enjoyable book.

Random House

$26.95

* Peter Wells won this year's Montana Award for Long Loop Home.