Handy As I Wanna Be: A Novel With Tools - Hardcover

Rause, Vince

9780671032845: Handy As I Wanna Be: A Novel With Tools

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671032844 ISBN 13: 9780671032845

Publisher: Atria, 1999

Misfit handyman Vinnie Agita finds his marriage to the perfect woman, Angela, unraveling because of his insatiable need to tackle any and all home-repair projects, often with less than excellent results

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About the Author:

Vince Rause is a freelance writer whose stories have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Philadelphia Magazine, and Discovery Online, the internet magazine of the Discovery Channel. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Christine, his daughter Carmela, and three tool-phobic felines. This is his first book.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A first novel about obsessive household handyman who drives his wife to distraction. Most women have to nag their husbands to fix the doorbell or replace a worn washer in the bathtub faucet, but there are sins of commission, tooand Vinnie Agita provides a casebook study of them. An all-weather tinkerer with his brains in his fingers, Vinnies head has room for only two obsessions: his love for his wife Angie, and his never-ending improvement schemes. It can certainly make life easier to live with someone who knows how to stop a toilet tank from sweating, but now Vinnies schemes are getting more and more grandiose, prompting him to tear up the entire back yard, for example, to see how far down the ugly concrete patio installed by the previous owner really goes. Later, he decides to test the security of his home in the most natural way he can imagineby trying to break into it in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, he keeps his brainstorm a secret from Angie, who calls the cops and has him booked for prowling. Once she realizes her mistake, of course, she straightens things out with the lawbut only on the condition that Vinnie seek professional help (and not for his carpentry, either). How can a real man like Vinnie be expected to get on a couch for 50 minutes a week without fixing the upholstery? Vinnies shrink Nick Ruffalfalo quickly sees the shape of things and works out a novel scheme: he and Vinnie will renovate Nicks house together. Between wiring, plastering, painting, and sanding, Nick comes to know Vinnie pretty well, and by the time theyre done Vinnie has traced the roots of his obsession as clearly as a circuit diagram. Will everything hold up once theyve finished their work together? Well, theres no guarantee like good workmanship. Good-natured fun, but a bit too cute for comfort: a clever idea that gets played out way before storys end. -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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