The means

Shelly Means is easy to relate to. All she wants is a beach house--in the Hamptons, with a heated pool, a Japanese toilet, and a bunch of other amazing things that she's curated on a vision board. When reality sets in, Shelly pares down her vision to match her actual life, which includes therapist bills for some anger-management issues and a voice-over artist husband who is suddenly having trouble finding work. So what if the beach house is built from shipping containers, on a tick-infested lot in a less desirable neighborhood? In the Means family (as for most of us), the financial means don't always match the vision. But Shelly forges forward, buoyed by her adventurous spirit and Twix, her (hilarious) talking dog who provides wise commentary on issues of class, wealth, and the value of stay-at-home parenting. Fusselman (Idiophone, 2018) delivers a well-paced story with gentle humor, compassion, and a sparkling, original look at the absurdities of everyday life in a world filled with inequities, financial and otherwise.

DEBUT In Fusselman's entertaining debut, Shelly Means is a stay-at-home mom, resentful that her job is not considered "real" work. She spends a lot of money but only on discounted products and services. (She even bought their dog on sale.) She's just too busy to take on a paying job. Fortunately, her husband, George, has a great job, which allows them to live in Manhattan. But Shelly wants a beach house, too, so they buy a piece of property in affluent East Hampton and begin planning an economy-conscious house. Trouble arises when George loses his job and the East Hampton housing committee objects to their proposal, but a host of quirky and hilarious advisors push Shelly to move ahead with her plan. VERDICT With Shelly, Fusselman creates a character determined to see her vision to completion without regard for impediments of any kind, and the supporting roles (like a therapist who's also a real estate broker and party planner) will leave readers laughing. Recommended to anyone who enjoys humorous fiction.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

You, too, can have a beach house in the Hamptons...sort of. "I used to think aliveness was a binary: a person was either alive or dead. But now I know that aliveness is more like something on a continuum, like the pain scale. And I want to be more alive. I want to be as alive as possible. My beach house would help me do that." Shelly Means, nonworking mother of two, wife of a struggling voice-over narrator, denizen of a part of Manhattan she calls the "discount caftan and incense district," is obsessed. Lucky for her, the woman who is providing online cognitive behavior therapy for her anger issues (Shelly threw her water bottle at the school board president) is also a real estate broker and knows just the tick-infested, nonwaterfront piece of land in a part of the Hamptons she and George can afford, once they sell their raccoon-infested lake house. And if they construct the house out of used shipping containers, give up all but the most basic amenities, and take out a loan, they may even be able to build on it. With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose, and moral je ne sais quoi, Fusselman's latest will appeal to fans of Marcy Dermansky. With its sapient talking dog, readers of Susan Coll. And with its satire of the particular hypocrisy of the Hamptons, including homeowners associations, graft, and garbage and recycling practices, Maria Semple. Running jokes abound, involving, among other things, raccoons, Japanese toilets, nutrition bars called Generosity, Vulnerability, and Caring, and seltzer called Loving. We may be entering a golden age of the comic novel, surely one of the best possible outcomes of this desperate moment in history. Take it from Shelly's teenage son: "If you need money, you should write fiction. That's what Roberto Bolaño did after he had a family and wanted to make money: he turned to fiction." A trenchant comedy of class and the way we live now. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.