03.04.10: Kirk Farber - Postcards from a Dead Girl

Sid Higgins, the appealing, self-deprecating narrator of Farber's poignant, funny debut, has been receiving postcards from his old girlfriend Zoe. Unfortunately, the whimsical Zoe has disappeared, and the postmarks on the cards are more than a year old. Though he doesn't really expect to find her, Sid travels to Europe in search of Zoe. Since Sid works for a travel agency, a slick telephone operation that uses the amusingly named Randomizer to dial potential clients, the trip is easy to arrange. Sid plaintively and self-mockingly relates his interactions with his boss, Steve; his neighbor, Gerald the Post Office Guy; and, most of all, his dog, Zero, whose deftly described postures convey so much, though perhaps not quite as much as Sid reads into them. Sid's older sister, Natalie, a doctor who provides welcome perspective on Sid, is by turns affectionate, irritated, supportive, and occasionally fed up. The reader is likely to feel the same.

Kirk Farber has a style very similar to Chuck Palahniuk, with offbeat observations, a view of our world through a slightly distorted lens, and a tone that's quite fun and sometimes hilarious and tragic at the same time. I love the voice and irreverence and humor. --Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain