by Robert Spalding

Created on: January 03, 2009

"Only a rat can win a rat race" is the catch phrase of Rorschach's Ribs, the wonderful novel by Marcus Eder. Escher Smallwater, the primary character, aims to prove that phrase throughout the story. Rorschach's Ribs is as timely a tale as there can be right now. It is the story of Escher and his friends, all nearing thirty years of age and all recently unemployed.

Given these burdens is Escher able to completely reevaluate his life? What are his priorities? Why does he prefer VH1 to Mtv? Can he accept the fact that he will never date a super model? What about that high school reunion that he has coming up? The answer is he can deal with these things but why should he? Escher and his friends are all cast offs from the advertising world now forced to live on unemployment checks and diminishing bank accounts as they go through the "nine stages of unemployment."

The friends all live in the same apartment development and we witness the last of them losing his job and the rest take him to the local strip clubs. He breaches etiquette by blowing all of his money at the first club. So things go as the group of once responsible men return to frat boy mindset of drinking, "smoking up," and sleeping late. Their lives of debauchery and immaturity continue when they inadvertently find themselves the marijuana kingpins of St. Louis.

As in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club the world of Ikea and fine suits crumbles into a world of consumer guerrilism only while Palahniuk had terrorists and psychosis induced friends Eder has the more realistic, and far more amusing, world of lesbian strippers, gold toothed drug dealers, and the dread of impending high school reunions.

It is easy for anyone who has been to college or lost their job or fears losing their job in this economy to relate to the characters in Rorschach's Ribs. These characters are real people, they are not overblown caricatures. They are familiar and in the end it felt like I was leaving college all over again.

Despite the primary focus being unemployment the humor is plentiful, albeit dark, the wit is razor sharp and pop culture is frequently the butt of the joke. Pop culture is such an easy target these days but Eder finds refreshing ways to poke it in the ribs. It is easy to get lost in fantasy or science fiction but to find a book that hits home so accurately and yet can make you laugh the way this book did is rare.

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