| Title | : | Amazing Disgrace (Gerald Samper #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1933372192 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781933372198 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 332 |
| Publication | : | First published November 1, 2006 |
Set both in Tuscany and in the trendy haunts of London, this is the hilarious sequel to Cooking with Fernet Branca . The inimitable Gerald Samper is back, with his musings on the absurdities of modern life and his entertaining asides during which he comments on everything from publishing to penile implants, celebrity sportswomen to Australian media moguls. Plus his marvelously eccentric recipes. A smart literary romp featuring a cavalcade of misadventures and memorable characters.
Amazing Disgrace (Gerald Samper #2) Reviews
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In the name of science …
Prosecco has by now replaced Fernet Branca, and we who believe Fernet Branca to be the upholder of universal balance, the safe-keeper of everything good, have a premonition that before long accidents are going to happen, coming down on you avalanche-style.
When everything gets embarrassingly awkward, remember it is for science.
Who are more deserving of a fantastic autobiography than our one-armed sailor granny Millie, she who singlehandedly(!) crossed the oceans and inspired so many to embark on fruit-de-mer-less voyages to save crustaceans and sea snails from the hot pots and pans of master chefs.
Not taking the job quite seriously, Gerald teams up with British oceanographers and soon learn that our beloved Millie is not quite the heroine she claims. A wee bit of collateral damage occurred while taking a shortcut between vessels carrying trawls with sensitive measuring equipment – now we shall never know if the Teutonic plates southwest of Gran Canary will collide and cause a tsunami which will destroy most of southern Europe. Thank you, Millie.
Thus encouraged, Gerald decides to contribute his best to the downfall of Millie (a downfall which will highly stimulate the book sale of course).
But there are other fish to fry.
Being a bit of an academic, it is far too tempting to respond to a kind email from a small family run biotech somewhere in Asia. While Gerald considers himself adequately hung, a solemn promise of growing into a really well-hung stud flames Gerald´s scientific interest of natural remedies, as in Asian medicine. A 30-day dosage of one small pill can´t possibly do any harm, and remember, it is for the sake of science.
Swallow pill, wait a couple of days, pick up measuring tape. Repeat.
The effect is … unprecedented …
While digging a grave for dear Millie does take up some of Gerald´s valuable time, he also positions himself as the would-be biographer of Max Christ, the famous conductor.
The introduction at Max´s country mansion goes well, that is until Gerald makes a mistake in a dark room. Mental note, local plumbers are not to be trusted!
More disgraceful events are awaiting the faithful reader before the almost downfall of Gerald Samper.
Highlighting cooking with mice, a visit to a doctor specializing in “Men´s Health”, the return of the neighbor, and the final downfall of Millie – who ends up quite well-hung, so to speak –
Witty and well written and not in any sense literary art.
3½ for entertainment value and writing style, which will be a solid 3 goodreads star. -
Totally revolting recipes are described as Samper writes biographies of people he despises.
Snippets
I reply, offering them a disarming plate of scrumptious deep-fried mole crickets from the Philippines, but it’s not that easy.
Jennifer Jestico was a young violinist good enough not to have to pose in a wet T-shirt on the front of her first CD or peer from behind a curtain of blonde hair with slightly parted glossed lips as though auditioning for a garage calendar.
Emergency Cuisine
I find I’m in the mood for culinary adventure and drop by the butcher for some calves’ brains. Last night before falling asleep I dipped into one of my favourite bedside books, Emmeline Tyrwhitt-Glamis’s Emergency Cuisine, written in the dark days of 1942 when heavily rationed Londoners had accustomed themselves to an unusual diet, and stray cats and dogs had all but vanished from the city’s streets. These dumb chums were pressed into service as extras in the general drama of the war effort, passing through a thousand trusty Radiation gas ovens while acting out their selfless, unauditioned parts which might accuratelyI find I’m in the mood for culinary adventure and drop by the butcher for some calves’ brains. Last night before falling asleep I dipped into one of my favourite bedside books, Emmeline Tyrwhitt-Glamis’s Emergency Cuisine, written in the dark days of 1942 when heavily rationed Londoners had accustomed themselves to an unusual diet, and stray cats and dogs had all but vanished from the city’s streets. These dumb chums were pressed into service as extras in the general drama of the war effort, passing through a thousand trusty Radiation gas ovens while acting out their selfless, unauditioned parts which might accuratelyI find I’m in the mood for culinary adventure and drop by the butcher for some calves’ brains. Last night before falling asleep I dipped into one of my favourite bedside books, Emmeline Tyrwhitt-Glamis’s Emergency Cuisine, written in the dark days of 1942 when heavily rationed Londoners had accustomed themselves to an unusual diet, and stray cats and dogs had all but vanished from the city’s streets. These dumb chums were pressed into service as extras in the general drama of the war effort, passing through a thousand trusty Radiation gas ovens while acting out their selfless, unauditioned parts which might accurately be described as casserole-playing. Dame Emmeline (as she later became in recognition of her bravery while working in the resistance to Woolton Pie) believed that austerity could be taken too far. From her house in Berkeley Square a stream of recipes poured forth, the less eccentric often being espoused by the Women’s Institute and published in popular magazines. She regularly netted the gardens in the middle of the square to produce, according to season, owl tartlets, pigeon strudel, a fudge of robins, blackbird pâté and, on one notable occasion, nightingale fritters. She discovered that the anti-aircraft battery gunners in Hyde Park were attracting rats with their National Loaf sandwiches and latrine pits, and it wasn’t long before she was trapping the rodents in sufficient quantities to bake the celebrated Pied Piper pies she then sold to Fortnum & Mason, donating the revenue to the Red Cross.
Paradise was just not for Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve, the world’s first householders, had their lease on Eden rudely foreclosed and were obliged to relocate to one of Mesopotamia’s less fashionable parts, of which – then as now – there was no shortage. Eve later remarked that aside from the occasional snake Eden hadn’t been a bad place to live. ‘The fruit was fabulous. Basically, though, just too many trees. We weren’t that sorry to leave, actually. If you wanted any sort of social life, well, forget it, the place was dead. But dead. We couldn’t throw even the smallest dinner party for a few friends because we simply didn’t have any. There was literally no one else to invite apart from some old gardener with no conversation who turned nasty at the end.’
As a biographical writer of people with strange personalities Gerald Samper can balance these against his truly revolting cooking.
Enjoy! -
For those who told me that Amazing Disgrace wasn't as funny as Cooking With Fernet Branca: OMG, wrong. Other than the cover image / design (which, sadly, is ugly and stupid), this book was every bit as awesome as the first one. And I srsly can't wait to read Rancid Pansies!
This is vol 2 in the Gerald Samper story. Gerald lives in relative isolation in the remote Italian countryside, where he spends his time ghostwriting autobiographies for famous sports figures (whom he despises) and concocting horrifying "delicacies" in the kitchen. He's smart and snarky and witty and mean, and so so so much fun to read about. This volume has him much gayer (literally; I'm not being a dick) than the first one, which seems much more in character to me. Though Disgrace doesn't have much of Marta, his neighbor and nemesis in Cooking, we are treated to a handful of new characters who are just as awesome and fun. There's Millie, the one-armed granny who sails solo around the world in her yacht – she's also Gerald's latest ghostwriting subject, and he hates her with such fervent vitriol, it nearly melts the letters off the page. We also meet Adrian, a sexy government scientist and Gerald's sometimes lover; Dereck, Gerald's old pal (and maybe ex?), who's a hairdresser to the stars and painfully obvious gold-digger; plus some composers, some New Age hangers-on, a child obsessed with feces, Mr. and Mrs. Pro-Wang, and more and more. Terrific characters, all.
In addition to all this, of course, we get to spend another three hundred pages in Gerald's head, listening to him riff on myriad ludicrous topics, like penile enlargement, the inexcusability of puns, anagrams, ancient cheeses, panda labia, a nationwide weep-a-thon, and oh who knows what else. The best thing I can do to recommend these books is to give a sample, so here's Gerald pondering how young lovers managed to neck in the back of horse-drawn carriages in the pre-car era:
How carnal could they have become in the lee of a looming equine backside, the black purse of its anus periodically discharging hot wet mulch and its velvet ears swivelling back against the starlit sky like furry radar dishes? Surely they would have felt too much surveilled by that great brute witness? The close presence of a living, breathing creature periodically gusting ammonia and methane would hardly have been less inhibiting than the peeping Thomism of the parish priest himself.
Ah ha ha ha. If you don't think that's charming and dryly hilarious, than these books are probably not for you. -
In places absolutely hilarious and wickedly clever/nasty, this book was challenging for me because for the most part nothing happens, with the pent up plot exploding in the last 25 pages, where lots happens. But Gerry is an great companion and narrator. He is Bertie Wooster, if Bertie were gay (which he might have been) and quite vicious towards most of his fellow men, with a gift for cooking atrocious food.
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it's simple. just read james hamilton-paterson novels. he has 3 about a character names gerald samper that are very funny, erudite, AND have recipes for things like badger wellington and gun-dog pate. his other novels are just as rewarding.
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The Gerald Samper saga continues. The ghostwriter of
Cooking with Fernet Branca is back to his campy shenanigans. This time he is outed by Hamilton-Paterson whereas in his first book his homosexuality was not as apparent (even though he was into cooking, design, and devastating Queer Eye judgments).
His mission this time is to sabotage the fame of his latest subject, Millie the one-armed granny who set a record sailing around the world. Apparently Millie was a pillie (sorry) whose fame did not do good things to her personality. Even worse, Millie wrecked a major oceanographic mission that Gerald's boyfriend worked on. Much hilarity ensues as Gerald traps Millie into going whole hog (not in aspic or a Wellington- but other things are) on a New Age jag that she is one with the Ocean goddess by foisting upon Millie a sonar image of a huge "face" and undersea recordings of babble.
The book suffers in comparison to Fernet Brance in that we don't have an appropriate foil to Gerald that Marta was in that book. We know that Gerald is unreliable, but it was a better narrative decision to have that unreliability discovered by another character. -
The second installment of the Gerald Samper stories is just as hilarious as the first. It's like the TV series Frasier in that it features highfalutin character(s) finding themselves in severely embarrassingly low-brow situations. Gerry is absolutely sure of himself and completely unforgiving in his judgments, and his occasional failures never poke holes in his confidence. It could be infuriating if you weren't laughing so hard.
I liked the first book,
Cooking with Fernet Branca, a little more because Gerry had a foil in his neighbor, Marta. Their alternating narration provided a break from Gerry's relentless commentary, plus there was the added bonus of their impressions of each other, widely differing from their self images.
This book ended rather shockingly, and I'm not sure if I liked that. I'll definitely read the third book,
Rancid Pansies, probably starting tonight on my way home from work.
Addendum 5/13/14:
Plus, a few quotes that didn't make it into my status updates:
"...when nature takes away with one hand she sometimes gives back with the other, to the irritation of the majority from whom she only ever takes away with both."
"...eating things you dislike because you've been told they're good for you is about as silly as collecting things you're not interested in because you've heard they're a good investment." -
This is the second book, probably in years, that has made me laugh out loud while reading. Highly recommended. It is like P.G. Wodehouse crossed with John Walters.
The first one that made me laugh in a while was the first book in the series,
Cooking with Fernet Branca. -
Gerald Samper is a ghost writer specializing in autobiographies of overrated sports people. Samper lives in a stunning house he built himself high in the Tuscan Hills. He makes mad dashes back to London to take care of business.
His current client is Millie Cleat, a senior sailor who crosses the globe and is adored worldwide. She’s quite dodgy and not above ‘retelling’ tales of her adventures so that she’s cast in a heroic light. Having only one arm has not hampered her vaunting ambitions.
Despite being married, Millie is funded by her lover, an Australian multimillionaire. Her yacht is equipped with the best engineering money can buy. Millie’s multimillionaire speaks like someone from a corny 1960’s Australian TV tourist advertisement. Initially I incorrectly assumed this was because the novel was published in that era. Not so, it was published in 2006.
The author, Hamilton-Paterson, creates compelling male characters but his female characters tend to be dreary, one dimensional or caricatures. Gerald Samper on the other hand is a complex man who often finds himself in unfortunate situations to great comedic effect.
Samper’s cooking adventures are documented in detail and frequently contain unusual ingredients. A few recipes appear in the novel and his ‘Badger Wellington’ goes down a treat.
I appreciated Samper and enjoyed his humorous world view. He’s an opiniated man with broad cultural knowledge and a wonderful turn of phrase. I laughed out loud on a few occasions. I just wish the women in the novel had been more rounded and vibrant. -
Moins drôle que le premier, mais j'ai apprécié retrouver le personnage principal. Beaucoup moins de recettes hilarantes par contre.
Une perle où le personnage se fâche contre tous les auteurs innefficaces qui passent des pages à raconter n'importe quoi alors que lui pourrait résumer l'histoire de l'humanité en 2 phrases:
"The human race made itself King of the Beasts until there were no beasts left in the kingdom. Then one day in a fit of boredom it fought itself to the death, and won."
Nailed it! -
Blissfully blithe, Gerald Samper has a laser eye with regard to others’ foibles, but a lazy eye when he turns it upon himself. This a cheerfully unreliable narrator worth writing a shambolic trilogy about. Book two feels a bit shaggier than the first, but also slightly more plotty? I don’t know, it’s all a bit tipsy.
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A very, very funny book.
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I absolutely could not muscle through this one. It has none of the charm of the first book. The interplay between Gerald & Marta was what made the first book great. This one is a flop.
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Amazing Disgrace by James Hamilton-Paterson is the second in the series that begins with Cooking with Fernet Branca. Hamilton-Paterson is still funny in this book but with a harder, more depressive edge. I liked the first book better for its pure adult silliness.
Once again Gerald Samper is earning his daily bread by ghostwriting autobiographies of sports celebrities. He may earn his daily bread this way, but he would never do anything so pedestrian as to actually eat plain bread. He makes his life enjoyable by concocting (his definition of) gourmet recipes and singing made-up Italian opera arias. His life is made more enjoyable by these activities, but those activities frequently make life less enjoyable for those in his near vicinity.
This book picks up a couple of years after Cooking with Fernet Branca leaves off. Neighbor and frenenemy Marta plays less of a role this time. She exists mostly in the thoughts of “Gerree!”
Samper does make some progress though in his goal of eventually ghostwriting for serious musicians. Meanwhile, his current effort is a ghostwritten autobiography of a one-armed, grandmother, solo around-the-world sailor.
Having now read two of the three books in this trilogy, I’m inclined to read the final installment: Rancid Pansies. The reviews of that book lead me to think I will not enjoy it as much as the first, but I do want to know what happens to Gerald. Plus, since the opinions of others have lowered my expectations, I might enjoy it more. However, knowing that I might enjoy it more due to lowered expectations may in fact be raising my expectations, which will negatively affect my reading pleasure. Enough heavy thinking. Moving on.
Amazing Disgrace has laugh out loud moments and delves further into Samper’s life. He enjoys living in Italy with the occasional trip back to England. His career is going well and his analysis of life brings a smile to my face. -
In the library a while back I picked up "Cooking With Fernet Branca" on a whim, without realising the genius I was about to discover. It was wonderfully well-written with a farcical plot and some truly awful puns (the best kind of course) and I loved it. I was delighted to discover the sequel, Amazing Disgrace, especially as it's even better than the first one. I felt "Fernet Branca" got more into it's stride as the book progressed; the sequel picks up where the first installment left off meaning it's little surprise that it's a hugely enjoyable read, one of those books you can't wait to pick up and don't want to end. I would recommend starting with "Fernet Branca" though as the two are inseperable.
I shall, naturally, be searching out the next installment, "Rancid Pansies" at the first available opportunity. Considering the breadth of Mr Hamilton-Paterson's output (poetry, aeronautical history, oceanography)I shall probably end up reading most of it at some point. -
Very witty follow-up to Cooking with Fernet Branca. A lot less discussion of food, but the meals are just as weird. The main character, Gerry, is more fully developed in this book and he is one cynical, snarky, sick and wickedly funny guy.
Gerry is sick of his career as a biographer to sports stars, mostly due to his disdain for his sports star clients. In this book, his main client is a one-armed, grandmother yachtswoman eager to be famous. She is an excellent target for Gerry's cynicism and wit and through his work with her, he meets other characters that allow him to show more of his personality.
The situations he gets himself into are laugh out loud funny. I'm not typically into bathroom humor, but Hamilton-Paterson manages to make it a bit more cerebral. And what's with the PowRTabs, Gerry?
I am looking forward to the third book in this series. -
A much anticipated novel, this is the sequel to the wonderfully irreverent Cooking with Fernet Branca. Once again Gerald Samper is back, demeaning his talent (as he would say) by ghosting the biography of a one-armed, record-breaking yachtswoman, the ruthlessly ambitious Millie Cleat. Unfortunately a lot of the magic of the first novel is lacking here; the inspired lunacy of the first book resulted from the combative relationship between Gerald and his neighbour Marta; here, there's too much stage setting, and not enough time given to the odious Millie or to the comedic set pieces that worked so successfully first time around. For someone coming to this book first, you may still enjoy it, but my recommendation is to start with Fernet Branca.
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Effete snob Gerald Samper is back again. A writer and loner (are those 2 really different..), he somehow manages to get himself into hilarious scrapes despite trying to hole himself away in his Italian mountain eyrie. In "Amazing Disgrace," a follow-up of Hamilton-Paterson's delightful "Cooking with Fernet Branca," I found there was something missing. Perhaps I wanted more recipes of Samper's outrageous culinary attempts, or maybe it was because Samper's pretentiousness was less funny, and much more aggravating. Nevertheless, H-P writes with a zest I'm hard-pressed to find elsewhere. It's just this particular breed of English sarcasm that I can't get enough of.
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Good sequel but ... does not stand alone! Those who try reading this one before
Cooking with Fernet Branca are in trouble. Gerry acquires a boyfriend, but Marta is absent through almost the entire book. -
I loved the first book,
Cooking with Fernet Branca. This one was highly anticipated, but disappointing. Marta's absence removed the narrational counterpoint that was so much a part of the fun. Still had moments of lovely snarky British humor. -
Great fun in parts and a great story, but the narrators overly pretentious and 'witty' language and constant referring to himself in third person, which was humorous for the first 20-30 pages, made the reading harder and harder. Luckily, the book is short, so I got to find out how it ended.
