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

Rause, Vince

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671032844 ISBN 13: 9780671032845

Publisher: Atria, 1999

Synopsis

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

About this title

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.

Reviews

Clever in theory but clunky in execution, this patently contrived tale of an ill-fated amateur Mr. Fix-It could use some repair work of its own. Unemployed (but apparently fiscally secure), Vinnie Agita is an obsessive-compulsive stay-at-home with an expensive "handyman" habit. Attempting to improve a pneumatic nail gun, he instead demolishes a neighbor's treasured legion of concrete garden gnomes. His wife, Angie, resorts to tough love in an attempt to cure Vinnie's handymania. Banned from the hardware store, banished from the bedroom and sworn not to even think of fixing anything but the disfigured gnomes now in his basement, Vinnie seeks the help of psychotherapist Nicholas J. Ruffalfalo. But when Vinnie cons the doctor into letting him repair a small water stain on his office ceiling, his addiction goes out of control. The hijinks accumulate: Vinnie loses his memory and is captured by Robert Bly-esque "wild men of the woods," while his well-intentioned shrink takes refuge with the Superegomaniacs, a biker gang composed entirely of "renegade analysts." From power washers to belt sanders to the chemical arsenal of a termite exterminator, Rause's would-be burlesque seems designed to incorporate everything in the tool section of the Sears catalogue. Vinnie's first-person narration includes the nervously jokey guy-talk, and the gouts of mechanical detail, one expects of a real-life hardware boor. Straining for laughs, and obsessed with modern, middle-class, masculine foibles, these exploits include flashes of thigh-slapping brilliance, but most are no funnier than Hints from Heloise. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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.

This strange little book opens like an extended episode of Home Improvement, with the narrator, Vinnie Agita, in the Tim Taylor role. Vinnie is a handyman who hasn't a clue about planning, safety, or much of anything else. He decapitates his neighbor's garden gnomes with a high-powered nail gun and uses the ashes of a revered monk to spackle the wall in a New Age bookstore. His long suffering wife finally insists he see a therapist; Vinnie proceeds to demolish the therapist's home office. Throughout the book, Vinnie takes lengthy digressions to explain, in perfectly rational terms, how to repair a squeaky floor or diagnose electrical problems. He also gives step-by-step instructions on how to break into a house. Lacking Taylor's basic humanity, Vinnie is mostly pathetic and more than a little scary. Still, this offbeat portrait of a misguided handyman will appeal to anyone who has ever endured a disaster after a roommate or significant other said, "Don't call a plumber, I'll fix it myself." George Needham

Edition details

• Publisher: Atria
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671032844
• ISBN 13: 9780671032845
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288