This fictional memoir is alternately satirical, humorous, witty, bold, irreverent, offensive, sometimes undefinable, and even outrageous. Elias Deane Grimm Lohr, AKA Grimm Lohr, narrates the lengthy but absorbing biographical details of his grandfather's and father's lives before tackling his own. He begins with his British-German grandfather's service as a physician in World War I, then moves on to his father's service as an assistant to the official translator in Hitler's Third Reich.

Articulate to a fault, Grimm Lohr's tales sometimes ramble but never fail to entertain. At times, the narrative feels a bit distant because Grimm Lohr tells his father's and grandfather's stories rather than showing them through their personal points of view. That said, the undeniably hilarious antics of the characters, contrasted with the deadpan yet articulate narration, more than make up for the POV oddities and lengthy backstory in Part I. The bizarre scatological interests of grandfather Dr. Ernst Grimm Lohr and the jaw-dropping exploits of father Irving Lohr's involvement with the Third Reich grease the reading banister for an interesting slide into Grimm Lohr's reminisces of his screenwriting and acting aspirations in Hollywood in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by his work on a device inspired by his grandfather's work with flatulence.

The book contains well-crafted gems of literary writing that display Potter's love of words (or perhaps his endearing love of purple prose): "The eloquent symphony continued as the groaning toiler boldly trumpeted out grand statements accompanied by smaller, more intimate squeals and phrases that were subtly serenaded by gentle, rumbling surges of intestinal borborygmus…." Lively pacing and the adventure of discovery keep chapters dropping like the fecal matter Dr. Lohr studied. This oddball historical novel is at once quaint and yet timely in its familiar patterns of life in the twentieth century.

RECOMMENDED by the US Review

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