Two Similarly Strange and Entertaining Novels

The Unknown Knowns by Jeffrey Rotter and The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno are both stories of characters pursuing equally strange obsessions in unsuccessful attempts to ignore the complexities of their everyday lives. Jim Rath, the protagonist in The Unknown Knowns, dreams of building a museum dedicated to the Aquatic Ape Theory of Human Evolution. While performing underwater experiments at a hotel pool, Jim mistakes a low level Homeland Security agent for an emissary from a lost aquatic race known as Nautikons. Knowing that a living Nautikon would be a great attraction at his museum, Jim follows the agent from hotel to hotel until the story climaxes with an absurd showdown at a dilapidated water park.

In a similar tale of underwater obsession, The Great Perhaps tells the story of Jonathan Casper, head of the odd and crumbling Casper family. While focusing all his energy on searching in vain for a prehistoric giant squid, Jonathan effectively ignores the dysfunction surrounding him, which includes his wife’s failing academic career, his oldest daughter’s first attempts at becoming a teenage revolutionary and his youngest daughter’s wayward search for God. Like The Unknown Knowns, Joe Meno’s The Great Perhaps deftly mixes the absurd with the everyday to create a compelling and humorous novel.

-- Joe, Main Library