The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 15 September 1998
by Jay Cantor
This book has been described as postmodern, a term that is as loose as one would want to make it. Cantor tells the story of Krazy, very depressed after abandoning her career in entertainment, and her former partner, who employs every device he can to bring her back to the stage. The author has chosen George Herriman's comic strip characters Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse to act out his perverse plot. Krazy, whose gender was ambiguous in the comic strip, is the female character, depressed and lonely, years after abandoning the comics. Ignatz is anxious to get back in the spotlight. Ignatz, however, carries out such severely abusive tactics against Krazy that the book was very difficult to read. He forces her to witness the Trinity atomic blast, to undergo his own brand of psychoanalysis, and kidnaps her in a Patty Hearst style kidnapping plot. These abuses, difficult enough to endure, seem to be preparation for the reader to read the final section, which depicts Krazy and Ignatz imagining themselves as human. They go on to carry out a pornographic affair (this section was originally published in Playboy), again abusive in some respects, only to redeem themselves as torch singers. Krazy and Ignatz only slightly resemble their characters in the comic strip. Any consideration given to them is slight. Here, they are merely used in service of a plot designed, it seems, to deconstruct some of the more twisted aspects of the American psyche. If you have any affection for Krazy and Ignatz from the popular comic strip, do not read this book. Quite possibly the worst book I've read in many years.