What a wild, weird romp award-winning poet and memoirist Michael Ryan pulls off in his debut fiction, “Guy Novel.” Fast-mouth Robert Wilder, a stand-up comic in L.A. is just hours away from getting married, when he stops off at a bank to get money for his honeymoon in Baja. Waiting in line, he spies a gorgeous young woman teller, and, on impulse, offers to drive her home when a raging rainstorm forces the bank to close. He never makes it to his wedding, but he does make it to Baja – with the woman, Sabine. After the most exciting time he’s ever had in bed, she suddenly disappears, leaving a note that she’s sorry, she really likes him, but had to go. She took with her a large purse that Robert had opened, without her knowing it, curious about who she was. What he saw inside was a bunch of crisp bills totaling over $200,000. From this point on, the narrative spins out fast. Robert sneaks back to L.A. to avoid his former fiancée, and to find something out about the mysterious Sabine. He finally hires a high-priced lawyer who farms out the job to an elite private investigation firm. And within hours, Robert is given a file that shows that Sabine is really Angela; that she never worked in a bank; and that at this very minute she was in Turkmenistan. He stays put, but he can’t get over her.
The novel covers only one month, August 1996, but what a month! The Taliban is on the move in Afghanistan, President Clinton is about to face reelection, and terrorist strikes are on the increase. But there’s a rogue Mujahideen unit, opposed to Osama Bin Laden, and Angela knows the leader. Robert can’t believe it, but he gets sucked into the Bond-like lunacy which turns out to be a black ops offensive orchestrated by President Clinton. Money talks. But so does Robert, who manages, in the midst of all the international intrigue to rehearse his comedy routines in preparation for upcoming gigs including an HBO special, courtesy of his ex-fiancée who’s now seeing his former agent. The plot gets increasingly frenzied, but the author invests Robert with such intelligence, wit and self-deprecating charm that he becomes heroic, in his own reluctant way.
Ryan has a grand time pulling together odd and discordant elements. “Guy Novel” is a sensual love story and also a nutty adventure tale that bops across continents. It’s serious, until it’s not, and then it becomes farcical and satiric. It also nods to cultural criticism as it takes aim at the entertainment industry in California, its high powered and expensive agents and lawyers, its stars and wannabes, and its upscale restaurants, where deals are made and unmade. It’s no spoiler to note that in “Guy Novel” the guy gets girl, after losing her a couple of times, but what a girl, what a guy and what a lark Michael Ryan’s contrived. And some of the jokes are a hoot.