Ron SingerCritiques

The seventies remain several years away for me, but I know each and every one of these wonderful folks living in their "Gravy" years. They are in my church, I see them in the grocery store, and "wow!" have I seen each of them in the "gravy boat" of Florida where the snow birds gather. The narrator and threads of the book wander and ramble a lot, but so does my Uncle Charlie. Get Charlie together with his friend Ted -- they would feature prominently in Singer's Gravy.

Some might knock the lack of narrative highs and lows of an adventure novel, but what makes Gravy a gem is the ways it depicts the actual lives of older adults. I want them to be just as they are at the barber shop, in the diner, at the Thanksgiving table, and at the funeral home honoring the lives of others who have tasted the Gravy.

A humorous and quirky way of looking at the different nuances of life. The author tackles the following subjects: Accountancy, Books, Activism, Families: Surrogate, Families: Actual. You won't get bored reading this book.

Review for Gravy by Ron Singer
I wanted to like this book, I really did. But I couldn’t decide what kind of book it was: was it autobiographical, as some of it was in first person? A family history, in part? Was it a series of sketches, as all the parts were unrelated? Was it a set of short stories? Each shared sort of a similar background, with a New York City or Brooklyn vibe. And the Jewish slant; I got that.
Somehow I did find Gravy overall unremarkable and most of it easily forgotten, I am sorry to say. A few of the chapters did stand out, e.g., the first one with the two friends of a certain (seasoned) age going to the Coney Island boardwalk, the story of the actuary in the insurance company, the story of the surrogate parents. They were each very original and amusing. But a lot of the remainder left me unengaged. Perhaps it was the e-book format without chapter dividers that confused me, or my unfamiliarity with similar works.

Book was received on the basis of an early review, BTW.

I received this e-book through Early Reviewers. Not my cup of tea. Sorry...

Disclosure: An electronic copy of this book was provided for review by Unsolicited Press, via LibraryThing.

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File this one under “be careful what you ask for”. I requested Ron Singer's 'Gravy' for review because it was supposed to be an amusing look at the foibles of life over 70 – a point after which, asccording to the author, “everything is gravy”. Gravy, in my experience, is supposed to be smooth, rich, and savory, and to add a bit of zest to the meal. This particular batch, however, isn’t any of those. It’s pasty, lumpy, overcooked, and loaded with unnecessary spices, apparently because the author wants you to know he has cardamom, saffron, and amchoor in his pantry and isn’t afraid to use them.

This collection of vignettes, short-shorts, and observations, is over-written, condescending, and utterly devoid of humor. The tales – which sound interesting in summary – include a talking muffin, revenge-bent employees fired for being too old, and a married couple who attempt to purchase surrogate parents, among others.

Unfortunately, they are rendered in such opaque language and in such a supercilious tone, that the only thing the reader will feel is annoyance at being served up such a pile of tripe. A couple of random paragraphs here will serve to demonstrate:

“For most risk-management estimates, there is a set of parameters such that a combination of values produces a degree of actuarial soundness, as estimated by a valid actuarial model, that exceeds a specified level less than one.”

And, lest you think I am cherry-picking:

“The principle of revenge in ‘Inferno’, the first of the three books that comprise the ‘Commedia’, is called contrapassor, i.e., the punishment mirrors the crime. Yet the actual punishments that are meted out are often harsher, or less harsh, than the sinners would appear to deserve, even by the standards of early Fourteenth Century Italy. In many cases, Dante’s own loyalties, passions, and quirks richly dye the contrapassi, as do the sinners’ motives, virtues, and emotions.”

And it goes on like this for 216 pages in the ebook edition.

Do yourself a favor – take a pass on this gravy, and load your literary plate up with something more digestible.½

NOTE: I won a free eBook copy of this book in PDF format from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers (November 2019).

This collection of short stories offers multiple takes on the experience of aging somewhat gracefully. Though I felt as if all of the stories came from the same persona (i.e., a white, male, middle-class, hetero, East Coast point of view), Singer's choice of subject matter varies widely from story to story. Here one will find depictions of wrestling matches, travel vignettes, and even some international intrigue. The sequencing of stories by overarching theme (middle age, old age, and the afterlife) gives Singer the opportunity to pull the reader further into his literary prose. Frequently, the outcomes are not quite what one would expect, and "The Promised End" explores just a few of the possible implications of the afterlife, leaving the reader to ponder which predictions will come true.

There is in fiction a dearth of texts presented from the perspective of those of us past late middle age and so I quickly volunteered to review this book that promised an elder's perspective and experience. Hats off to Ron Singer both for doing it and also for doing it well.
A series of shortish episodes (think longish short story length) gives Mr Singer enough space to stretch his writing muscle and develop a full fledged narrator with a convincing voice. I found regular resonances throughout these episodes and was nodding here and there. He brings out the differences between the recently retired, relatively secure (financially and psychologically) protagonist and the more usual fare of fiction.
A welcome addition to a sparse canon of elder fiction and I congratulate the publisher for taking a chance on this text and the author for his excellent work. Let us have more of this kind of stuff and less of the misery memoir.½