Girls, You Have Simply GOT To Read This!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                Originally, before finishing this most remarkable novel, I was going to do a post about some points of reference in it.  But I realized none would make sense being out of context, without mentioning the book itself.

                                                     For instance, did you know that Jacqueline Bouvier (who became Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) was told by nuns at her convent school, when young, that smoking was the worst thing a virgin could do?  I guess the nuns then were so shut out from the world it never occurred to them that young ladies then might deign to have sex?????????????????

                                                       Or that Joan Didion learned her prose style by retyping, herself, the entire text of "The Sun Also Rises," by Ernest Hemingway?  It is a great literary myth, but is it actually true?  Joan was Joan from the time she emerged from the womb?  What did she need Hemingway for??????????

                                                         And how about Pooh, one of JFK's trollops, who was so taken with him, she wanted to "suck his Catholic cock."  As opposed to sucking what other kind of cock, darling?????????  And how does it differ?

                                                  Let me begin by saying that, while it is not altogether impossible for a Book Of The Year to appear this early in the year itself, it has happened.  My senses were heightened when I read this novel, but I don't want to jump the gun too soon.  So, I will say that while "Big Bang" may very well turn out to be my Book Of The Year, it is too soon to tell.  But it is definitely a contender, and one that will remain in place on my Shelf Of Kept Books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                      The introductory essay, by Jonathan Lethem, is worth reading, as it chronicles a touching but troubled friendship between he and David Bowman.  The genius of this novel demonstrates that, had Bowman lived, he might have gone on to be the next David Foster Wallace.  Unfortunately, like Wallace, Bowman had health and emotional problems, which culminated, in 2012, of death at 54, from an aneurysm.  So, this novel is posthumously published.

                                                        Every member of the Baby Boomer generation should read it, because it calls into play, as fiction, every mover, shaker or event that shaped our generation between 1950 and 1963.  Kennedy's Assassination, on November 22, 1963, is used as a framing device to open and close the novel.  And everyone you can think of is here.  The Kennedys, Jackie and Lee, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Joan Didion.....you name it.  Imagine if E.L, Doctorow had written a "Ragtime" about the Sixties.  Then remove The Family POV, and have the actual players speak for themselves.  This is the genius of "Big Bang," and I was enthralled from first page to last.

                                                          Bowman, born in 1958, so a Baby Boomer himself, gets it right, points to how things evolved from the Sixties and beyond.  Comprehensive, beyond scope for someone I have read or heard so little of, this is a stand out book, and I will be surprised if I am not singing its praises again, by year's end.  Something considerable would have to come along to top this act.

                                                              Which does not mean I am giving up.  Hardly.  I never stop reading.  But I want all Baby Boomers to read this.  And those who are not to understand why  we are the way we are today, and what shaped us to make us that way.

                                                                  It is a masterwork which could bridge all generation gaps!

                                                                  Read it, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!