Millard Fillmore, Mon Amour
John Blumenthal
(Guest Reviewer - Jennifer Colt)
2004 St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 0312323689

Rich & handsome Plato G. Fussell is also certifiably neurotic, & then he falls in love.

Once a gangly teenager in oversized clothes, Plato is now handsome & independently wealthy. But inside he's still a bundle of neuroses & anxieties, with a tendency to engage in moronic word games in the presence of beautiful women.

In the midst of working on his definitive ten-volume biography of President Millard Fillmore, Plato finds himself dodging his vile ex-wife, trying to please his demanding elderly mother by inquiring weekly about the state of her bowels, & attempting to remain verbally coherent while courting a young woman whom he meets after her errant Frisbee connects with his cranium.

Guest Reviewer Jennifer Colt writes:

Plato G. Fussell is ensnarled in a web of compulsions that have him doing everything from starching his Argyle socks to speaking backwards. He keeps his galoshes close, & his Xanax closer. But Plato is a nut you can love (& frighteningly, identify with).

The question is, can he break through his neuroses & take a chance on the ultimate human experience -- a connection with another human being? Or will he forever be consigned to an obsessively ordered bachelorhood, convinced that romantic love is but a practical joke played on us by our wily hormones?

Plato's last hopes of normality were dashed by a failed marriage eight years ago. The sale of his Internet company left him with an impressive fortune & considerable free time: twenty-four hours a day. So he dotes on his odd parents & his dachshund Isabella. He embarks on a lifelong quest to discover the true Millard Fillmore, penning a ten volume biography of history's most forgettable President. He also attends twice-weekly sessions with his psychiatrist, Dr. Alphonso K. Wang.

But when he's hit in the head with a Frisbee at Dr. Wang's patients' picnic, Plato starts to believe in kismet. The culprit is a beautiful woman named Emily Thorndyke, who can match him neurosis for neurosis, & whose own slobbering mutt is providentially named Ferdinand.

Plato falls almost instantly for Emily (of course, they both need affidavits from each other's doctor ensuring a clean bill of health, first). Taking this one brick from the wall of his emotional fortress has hilariously disastrous consequences, as every defense that kept Plato functioning as a somewhat quirky, pseudo-insane person comes tumbling down around his ears.

Millard Fillmore, Mon Amour is romantic comedy of the highest order, a book so funny you will think you're completely laughed out halfway through inured, by that time, to the witty dialog, the devilishly clever story turns, the puns (never intended), & then...

You're in convulsions all over again. It does not let up. It is relentless.

For those who have mourned the demise of Woody Allen's sense of humor, this is the good news: John Blumenthal is in the house. A storyteller of wit, warmth & charm he has picked up the Allen mantle & is out there waving it around like a crazy man.

Another hysterical novel from the author of What's Wrong with Dorfman?

Jennifer Colt is the author of The Butcher of Beverly Hills.
(01/30/05)

Guest Reviewer - Jennifer Colt
2005©Jennifer Colt