Pickle’s Progress by Marcia Butler
ARC courtesy of Century Avenue Publishing in exchange for an honest review
Book Blurb:
Over the course of five weeks, identical twin brothers, one wife, a dog, and a bereaved young woman collide against each other to hilarious and sometimes horrifying effect. Everything is questioned and tested as they jockey for position and try to maintain the status quo. Love is the poison, the antidote, the devil and, ultimately, the hero.
My Review: 3.5 stars
I picked up Pickle’s Progress because it had a title that caught my eye and it happened to be by wonderful memoirist Marcia Bulter. This book, pure fiction, is gritty and has a lot of dark humor in it. It’s a slice out of life with identical twins in a crazy situation.
Oddly enough, I felt this book read like a soap opera. Things happened that just didn’t seem real enough to actually happen, yet their presentation made them seem plausible. Who’s sleeping with who, abundant lies and in this case, taking in a woman that was about to commit suicide. The twin brothers, one of which is Pickle, are identical to a fault. Their mother was a whack job and yes…I’d like a book about her. What made her this way? The twin-ship leads to competition, devotion and at times disgust. The two female characters balanced out the twins while adding tension and interest.
As immersed as I was in the first three quarters of the book, the last quarter was just too fast a wrap up. The epilogue was predictably tidy. I will definitely read what Butler comes up with next as I really enjoyed her twisted sensibility with these characters.
Quotes I liked:
Guilt is a pretty bad house to live in.”
“The river held a camouflaged power, and he admired the costume.”
“Pickle had always been seen as the normal twin, and by extension, the lesser twin.”
“Never take everything from somebody, because when you gut them out, they have nothing left to lose.”
