Promotion: Review of The Joke's on Me -- The Midwest Book Review

posted by Vivian Zabel

          Appearing on "Katherine' Bookshelf" in The Midwest Book Review for September, The Joke's on Me! by Laurie Boris.

Review by Katherine Boyer:

The Joke's on Me
Laurie Boris
4RV Publishing LLC
PO Box 6482, Edmond OK 73083
9780982642399 $18.99

Laurie Boris has written a comical book with her first novel, The Joke's on Me. Humor is entwined throughout this book about former actress/comic, Francine Goldberg, Frankie to family and friends, who returns home when she feels that she has been a failure.

"The cherry-red convertible and I bounced down the excuse for a road leading to my mother's bed and breakfast. This was not the most pleasant car trip I'd ever taken, and by the time I got to Woodstock, "bed" and "breakfast" were the only two things I wanted to see, besides a bathroom with a locking door. Unfortunately, when I pulled into the gravel parking lot, there was no room at the inn. The lot overflowed with old Volvos wearing rust spots and bumper stickers like "Free Tibet" and "My Other Car is a Broom".

The catalyst for her return to Woodstock was when the house she was living in rolled down into the Pacific Ocean with all of her worldly belongings, except the cherry red convertible given to her by her former boss. Then the actress she was working for decided to take a hiatus from her work as a famous, well-known actress and didn't need her help. And her mother had a stroke that brought on memory loss.

When she reached her childhood home, she found that her older sister, Jude, had put their mother in a nursing home and started running the family B & B as a holistic health retreat for 'over-the-hill' hippies. She also has ideas for the future of the B & B that will get them back in the black.

Frankie decides to stay and help her sister for the summer. She finds satisfaction in working to save the family business. You will be fascinated by the changes that Frankie undergoes as she sorts out her life.

Some old mysteries, that Frankie was not aware of, pop up as she reflects on her past life and her future. As you read through her memories and the amusing happenings of her former and new life, you will become fascinated with her and her family and friends.

Throughout the summer, Frankie struggles with her future. Should she stay in Woodstock and restore the business her parents had nurtured for so many years or should she head back to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood life? Her decision will be life-changing either way.

Laurie Boris is an award winning freelance writer with a background in advertising and marketing. She has written editorial copy, web articles, press releases, and other marketing materials. She is living in upstate New York working on her next novel.

Katherine Boyer
Reviewer

          The Joke's on Me! is on sale for the holidays: 4RV Bookstore.

4RV Publishing website

A Character by Any Other Name

by Laurie Boris

Along with their physical descriptions, speech patterns, and those quirky gestures however irritating or endearing, your characters' names can speak volumes about their personalities.

Consider Cruella de Vil from A Thousand And One Dalmatians. Would she inspire the same fear if she were named Becky Jones? Would Hannibal Lecter be as menacing if he were Sheldon Greenblatt? What about “Call me Fred.”? Doesn't have quite the same je ne sais quoi, does it?

But how do you come up with just the right name for your character? Here are a few things to think about:

1. Choose something age-appropriate. If I'm writing an American, middle-class character about my age, I think back to high school. Kathy, Lisa, Donna, Mary, and Karen were very popular names for girls, and there were a lot of guys named David, Steven, and Mike. Not that you wouldn't find something more unusual floating about, but in fiction, readers are more likely to go with the probable than the possible. If my character is in her thirties, he or she may have a spunkier name like Jason, Jennifer, Stephanie, or Stacy. (My thirty-something protagonist of The Joke's on Me is named Frankie.) A teenager may have been named after his or her mother's favorite pop culture star. Hence the number of Ashleys, Olivias, Justins, and Britneys floating around.

2. Choose something regionally, ethnically, or culturally appropriate. This is a dicier area, because you don't want to offend your readers by using a cultural or ethnic stereotype. If you have a character in your story who comes from an ethnic or cultural group different from your own, do some research. In some countries, babies are given very specific names based on their meanings. In some cultures or religions, it's considered bad luck to name a child after a dead relative, while in others, this is done frequently and almost expected. What has helped me is a directory of worldwide baby names with their meanings. And my good friend, Google.

3. Consider your character's role in the story. An unlikely hero (or heroine) may have an unassuming name, like David Copperfield or The Grapes of Wrath's Tom Joad. Or, a timid character saddled with a heroic name (or a larger-than-life relative's name) may struggle to fill those big shoes.

4. Avoid making a name into a reading bump if possible. I loved the name Lisbeth for one of my characters, but my writing group's feedback convinced me to change it to something simpler because they kept getting stuck on it and feeling distracted from the story. She's now Liz. No harm, no foul, no reading bumps.

5. Unless you're writing comedy or a funny children's book, avoid any name that rhymes with said. I never thought about this until I wrote a contemporary novel in which I'd named the husband Ted. Imagine page after page of “Ted said” and all those readers laughing to themselves because of the unintentional rhyme. I actually considered putting the whole thing in present tense so I wouldn't have to deal with that particular issue! It was much easier, and better for the story, to change the husband's name.

6. If your character cries out for an unusual name (think Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye or Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces), he or she will most likely pay the consequences, just as in real life. But this is rich material for character development. These consequences (teasing, bullying, even scorn for being named after an infamous figure) may end up shaping the character.

7. Still stumped? Open the phone book, peruse baby-naming books, or scan popular culture for an interesting, appropriate name.

How do you name your characters? What are some of your favorite character names from the books you've read? Any that you felt didn't fit the character? Or fit him or her exceptionally well? Any name you're really tired of hearing? Let's talk about it!

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Laurie Boris is the author of The Joke's on Me, due out from 4RV Publishing this summer. She also blogs about writing, books, and the language of popular culture at http://laurieboris.com.