P.G. Wodehouse Meets Monty Python

To say the least, in Andy Tilley's brash novel "Recycling Jimmy", antihero Jimmy's judgment is suspect. He's foolish, irreverent, and passive; just what you'd expect from a bloke whose emotional development got euthanized sometime during his teens. In the opening scene Jimmy dangles from a bridge, eighty feet above ground. Even then, he's hard pressed to do anything, anything at all, right. Still, somehow, he's just likeable enough and the situation just foolish enough, we begin to have our hopes...
Whatever the roots of author Tilley's eccentric humor, he delivers the goods with elan despite a narrative laden with passive form. It works, but repetition of some verb forms might irritate some readers. Fortunately, in the opening he's just getting his dark funnybone warm and before long at all prose issues recede. It's while in hospital after the bungled suicide attempt, after Jimmy encounters kindred spirit Kevin, that the full effect of the author's special form of humor comes to bear. Suffice it to say, in Recycling Jimmy, the unusual is commonplace, the incredible comfy as an afternoon pint at the local pub, and the unthinkable...why of course, the unthinkable is central to the plot.

Will Jimmy change his ways? Will he learn how to take responsibility for his acts? I'm not tipping over the crumpets. You'll have to read to find out. Warning: the laughs get you by surprise. If no one in the family is trained in the Heimlich Maneuver, don't get caught with a mouthful of chips.

Art Tirrell is the author of the 2007 adventure novel, "The Secret Ever Keeps", of which reviewer Joan A. said, "The first book...my significant other...and I have agreed on since 'Kafka on the Beach'." See all the reviews on Amazon at /product/1601640048