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Satire

Too much detail, shallow characters swamp satire

Last updated Monday, October 3, 2011 - 12:24pm

"KING OF THE BADGERS." By Philip Hensher. Faber & Faber. $26.

The first thing you notice about "King of the Badgers," the new novel by British writer Philip Hensher, is how sharp its descriptive detail can be. For example: "He was a man fat in rolls about the middle, the top of his bald head wet and beaded. His gingery-white hair shocked out to either side, weeks away from a respectable haircut."

Features, Books, British, Media circus, Satire Read more Comments

Suburbia copes with the Rapture in funny novel

Connie Ogle McClatchy Newspapers

Last updated Monday, September 26, 2011 - 12:42pm

"THE LEFTOVERS." By Tom Perrotta. St. Martin's Press. $25.99.

Satirist Tom Perrotta has had a good time putting suburbia through its paces before, in such wickedly funny novels as "Little Children," "The Abstinence Teacher" and "Election," but the challenge he throws down in his sixth novel is a doozy -- and makes for what may well be his wildest, most entertaining and thought-provoking novel yet.

Features, Apocalypse, Books, Religion, Satire Read more Comments