Crazy: A Novel
3/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Bestselling author William Peter Blatty warms our hearts with a funny yet deeply moving nostalgic tale of memory, mystery . . . and miracles.
New York, 1941: Joey El Bueno is just a smart-aleck kid, confounding the nuns and bullies at St. Stephen's school on East 28th Street when he first meets Jane Bent, a freckle-faced girl with red pigtails and yellow smiley-face barrettes who seems to know him better than he knows himself. A magical afternoon at the movies, watching Cary Grant in Gunga Din, is the beginning of a puzzling friendship that soon leaves Joey baffled and bewildered.
Jane is like nobody he has ever met. She comes and goes at will, nobody else seems to have heard of her, and is it true that she once levitated six feet off the ground at the refreshment counter of the old Superior movie house on Third Avenue? Joey, an avid reader of pulp magazines and comic books, is no stranger to amazing stories, but Jane is a bewitching enigma that keeps him guessing for the rest of his life—until, finally, it all makes sense.
Rich with the warmth of a bygone era, Crazy captures both the giddy craziness of youth—and the sublime possibilities of existence.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
William Peter Blatty
William Peter Blatty (1928-2017) is best known for his mega-bestselling novel The Exorcist. Blatty also cowrote the screenplay of the hilarious Inspector Clouseau film, A Shot in the Dark. Known for his early comic novels, the New York Times proclaimed that "nobody can write funnier lines than William Peter Blatty," describing him as "a gifted virtuoso who writes like S. J. Perelman."
Related to Crazy
Related ebooks
The Monster Maker Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Return Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Irritated People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFour Kinds of Rain Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Blackboard Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Outcast of the Islands Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5At The Mountains Of Madness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWeb of Mystery Issue 26 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJustice for NeKeisha: A Father's Pain Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stark Raving Elvis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Peter: A True Story of the Hand of Providence and Evidence of Life after Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wyoming: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Scarlet Plague Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlind Alley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Birds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lotus Crew Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeart of Darkness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Upstairs And Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Garden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bram Stoker Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLoser's Town: A David Spandau Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArthur Machen: The Complete Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe League of Anubis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoors of Darkness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn a Glass Darkly Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStone City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Turn of the Screw Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Humor & Satire For You
101 Fun Personality Quizzes: Who Are You . . . Really?! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mindful As F*ck: 100 Simple Exercises to Let That Sh*t Go! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Book of Riddles: 250 Magnificent Riddles, Puzzles and Brain Teasers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Hacks: Over 100 Tricks, Shortcuts, and Secrets to Set Your Sex Life on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best F*cking Activity Book Ever: Irreverent (and Slightly Vulgar) Activities for Adults Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Love and Other Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 2,320 Funniest Quotes: The Most Hilarious Quips and One-Liners from allgreatquotes.com Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soulmate Equation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yes Please Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 2,548 Wittiest Things Anybody Ever Said Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Go the F**k to Sleep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Screwtape Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swamp Story: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Swiss: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Crazy
26 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This just isn't my cup of tea, so I didn't finish it. It was boring and sounded like a spoiled brat adult telling the story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unlike some of the others who have reviewed this book, I really enjoyed it. It was quirky, but having read a nonfiction work Blatty wrote about his mother years ago, I feel I have a better understanding of why he wrote this.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Short, quirky, occasionally funny and often touching, but not to the extent that it really deserves this cover endorsement: " 'Crazy is terrific! A wonderful novel! It's funny, touching and so full of love!' --Julie Andrews, legendary star and bestselling author." Unless, of course, that endorsement itself is meant to be part of the crazy quirky concept of this odd little novella. Why Julie Andrews would ever read it is beyond me. Who knew Blatty was known for being funny? (He wrote the screenplay for "A Shot in the Dark". Again, who knew?) I associate him only with The Exorcist which was hard to put down but had no humor in it at all, as I remember. Which brings me back to Crazy, in which I did not find much humor either. Maybe you have to have been an adolescent boy once to get it. The narrator, Joey El Bueno, tells us about his childhood from the perspective of an old man in an assisted living facility. It was a good childhood, despite being motherless. Joey had a loving, caring father, who he loved and respected in return. And he had Jane, the elusive girl who gives him spiritual guidance at unexpected moments through what he calls "time jumps" for several years during his youth. Who is she? Does anyone else ever see her? What's it all about? Well, you'll soon figure Jane out---sooner than Joey does, for sure. But beyond that slight exercise there isn't much to this story. I found it episodic, stylistically awkward and not particularly engaging.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Definitely not The Exorcist and much more my type of story. With Crazy, Blatty returns to his comic roots - Yes, he wrote comedy and humor before his world-renowned excursion into horror - with his 82-year-old former screen writer (the Joey El Bueno of the story) busy at work in a Belleville hospital bed, writing his memoirs. With time warps into the past, Blatty brings to life a bygone era of growing up in the immigrant community of Manhattan's Lower East Side, the rough and tumble nature of boys and the magic of Coney Island. I am not going to go into details as this story is one that should be experienced - kind of like one 'experiences' a Garrison Keillor book - which is also why I highly recommend listening to the audiobook version. The humour is a bit off beat and made even quirkier by Jane, Joey's mysterious friend, when she puts in her appearances. My favorite character is Nurse Bloor, the elderly Joey's diminutive 4 foot tall, stiletto wearing and wise cracking nurse. She is awesome! Given the time warps, this story tends to jump around an awful lot and left me in a bit of a muddle at certain points in the story. Overall, a fun slice of life fictional memoir with a wonderful ending that made up for the earlier, muddled bits and always nice to see a book cover that perfectly fits the story!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I have no idea what this book is about. I can't even remember why I downloaded a copy in the first place. The premise is fairly obvious from the opening chapters, but the stream of consciousness style waffling and references to 1940s New York completely obfuscated the story for me. I caught the rhythm of Joey's reminiscing/ranting occasionally, but mostly I was just willing him to shut up. Glad it's a short book. Also, the ending was slightly too saccharine for me. On a side note, I am tempted to watch Ray Milland in The Uninvited now. The film, described in passing, sounds better than this book!
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Someone gave me this because she said it was a kid's book. It's not a kid's book. It is definitely a book for adults. I think I'd have enjoyed it more if the sentences were shorter and the paragraphs not quite so long.