Call Me Pomeroy

[Chicapeligrosa1]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Call Me Pomeroy" by James Hanna.]

[rbc=3]id200405-125[/rbc]I should feel ashamed of myself for enjoying [i]Call Me Pomeroy[/i] so much but James Hanna’s hilarious protagonist, is something else. I’m rating it [b]4 out of 4 stars[/b] in spite of its excessive obscenity. If you are sensitive to profanity, don’t even try to read it.



Edward Beasley, a.k.a. Pomeroy, is a high-school drop-out, Vietnam War veteran, ex-con on parole cum poet-musician. He is a paradox: A misogynist who loves women; hates socialists but he’s on the dole; the de facto poster-boy for Occupy Oakland—but of course he hates anarchists. The contradictions are endless. He is sexist, racist and homophobic. He’s optimistic to a fault: he’s going to be a [i]star[/i] in spite of having only one (ninety-seven verse) song in his repertoire. He’s naive, gullible and easily duped. He’s violent and uses his guitar as a weapon to fight off police and resist arrest. And he’s very funny. Even the most hardened feminist will find something between these pages to tickle her. And to be fair, we’re laughing [i]at[/i] him, not [i]with[/i] him.



Thanks to time served in San Quentin as its librarian, Pomeroy is well-read—though his grammar is atrocious—and full of praise for his favourite authors: Milton, Joyce, and Yeats. He has a a special affinity with Jack London (“I [i]believe[/i] in that survival of the fittest sh*t”) and utter disdain for Tolstoy and his [i]morals[/i], which doesn’t prevent him from reading Anna Karenina from cover to cover (looking for the steamy parts) then tossing it aside because “... even a tart what’s broken the rules don’t oughta be crushed by no train. And she oughtn’t be shamed by society dames when she goes to the opera house.”



Although obsessed with sex, Pomeroy never seems to score. Whether he knows it or not, he’s in love with his [i]hot Latina[/i] parole officer, Ms. Jessica Jimenez, and by page 32, I’m getting as tired as she is of his school-boy sexual innuendo. Then suddenly he redeems himself by defending her honour: “You don’t wanna wear that bucket,” he says to a fellow inmate, “you’ll stop talkin’ that way about Miss Jimenez.” And soon we see that he is a special case that she can’t stop caring about. He rescues her from the perils he continually puts her in—along with other very capable women who don’t really need rescuing. (He has a penchant for throwing women over his broad shoulder and dragging them away from danger. And these various women end up rescuing [i]him[/i] in one way or another.) For her part, Ms. Jimenez tries to keep him out of jail because she’s “never had a client quite like you, [i]Head-ward.[/i]” During a riot that lands him in jail, he is filmed knocking down scores of policemen with his guitar while performing [i]Ants in My Pants[/i], “a vulgar little ditty that somehow got on YouTube,” and making the entire Oakland Police Department look like “[i]novicias[/i]”. But the mayor, the governor, and the police chief himself have asked that the charges be dropped because, “Not everyone likes publicity.” Jimenez begs Pomeroy to behave himself and stay out of trouble, but he’s not going to because “[i]Ants in My Pants[/i] is gonna go big.”



An over-educated trust-fund kid who calls himself Charlemagne is the mastermind behind the Occupy movement and the son of Apple Records founder. He recognizes Pomeroy’s gift for grabbing attention and offers to get him a recording contract under nefarious circumstances. But what Pomeroy really wants is for Miss Jimenez to be his manager. What follows is a transatlantic romp to England; a short but chaotic sojourn in Ireland ; a narrow escape to Whales; and finally onto the continent where he gets entangled with a group of “Femen” protesters demonstrating naked in the streets of Paris. Reminiscent of Forest Gump’s travels—the polite banter replaced by filthy language and shocking vulgarities—by the time he returns to San Francisco (after being holed up for a year in Fleury-Mérogis Prison—the biggest damn lockup in Europe), [i]Ants in My Pants[/i] has gone viral and he’s got a hundred and fifty-two verses but still no manager.



Hanna’s writing is witty and sharp. The characters seem [i]real[/i], informed by his work with the San Francisco Probation Department. The pacing is good and his use of simile is right up there with the likes of Tom Robbins: "She wears that skirt like it’s a coat of paint." The ending is perfect. Not another word needs to be said—yet it’s easy to imagine a sequel. At least I hope so!

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Call Me Pomeroy
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