The Organ Grinders by Bill Fitzhugh

The Organ Grinders Reviews

• 
  Nefariousbig

  The year was 1998: (1) “The Organ Grinders” by Bill Fitzhugh was first published; and (2) Viagra was approved (for its current pharmaceutical use) by the FDA. Coincidence? I think not! Fitzhugh researched the biotech industry so thoroughly it seems prophetic, even today.
  
  For me, Bill Fitzhugh is the visionary ring-leader of the latently belligerent, vehemently passive-aggressive activists he has sneaking around in this book. With a cast full of Guerrillas, hillbillies, baboons, vegans, weenies (sorry Paul), vegetarians, orphans, kind-hearted organ donors, and morally depraved organ-harvesters, how can you go wrong? Fitzhugh’s writing eco/bio-terrorizes the reader into action: read faster, laugh louder, cry harder, and when you’re finished, DO something, anything, and do it with conviction.
  
  I’d like to thank Fitzhugh for stabbing my right eye open with a celery stalk and pouring blood-warm pink slime in it. I see now that I should be thinking with two or more eyeballs, at the very least, at the same time, all the time. This book is a poignant reminder that we need to have a social conscience, moral discipline, and most importantly, a sense of humor.
  
  Fitzhugh is not for everyone, but he gives the right reader a great show.
• 
  Pseudonymous d'Elder

  __________________________________
  We. . .[have] a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure
  --Hernando Cortez.
  __________________________________
  
  This is a comic novel about Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Medicine, Big Money, and Big Baboons. It’s a book about mild-mannered-but-inept conservationists, sadistic eco-terrorists, sociopathic billionaires, rude drivers, vile vivisectionists, and Really Big Baboons.
  
  I started reading Bill Fitzhugh’s books about 10 years ago, but I have run out them now and am forced to start over again.
  
  When I read Organ Grinders the first time, my main take-away was:Wow, that was a funny book. But now, 10 years later, the novel seems awfully prescient. I’m not a tree hugger. (I have allergies.) But the American government now seems more concerned about the right of mega-billionaires to obtain piles of money to roll around in like Scrooge McDuck than it is in protecting the rights of the rest of us to life, liberty, and pursuit of drinking water that doesn’t melt our brains. Yes, I know, I should have saved up enough money in my youth so that I could have rented a congressman or two of my own, but its too late now, and I am bitter.
  
  That being said, Fitzhugh expertly skewers all sides in this novel. So whether you are pro-air or pro-laissez faire, you should be able to find plenty to laugh at here, even if you are a sociopathic billionaire (although, in that case, your guffaws will probably sound something like Wa-ha-ha-ha.)
• 
  Donni Hakanson

  This is a book I have read now two or three times!
  
  Pure comedy with intelligence, a thriller of sorts, twists and turns, megalomania and poignant sorrow, laugh out loud moments and the mental imagery is enough to curl any vegan tree-hugging bookaholic! I LOVE this novel!
  
  
  My second time romp through the pages of this tome had me just as enthralled as the first time experience. It appeases the intellect's need for information and cognitive coherence, as much as it does the mystery behind the bizarre murders (the landfill manager buried in his own soiled dump, complete with dirty diaper in his mouth) and just how the whole sit com can resolve itself... vivisection, cross-species implants, environmental concerns, greed, revenge, the quest for immortal life, and so many more human conditions and issues are addressed through Bill's lighthearted yet twisted view on the world...
  
  
  I can't forget Arty, the guy who severs his limbs for the insurance and sells his body organs for huge profit, reduced to just a torso being carted around in a backpack by his biker bud... and I will never shake the scrotal imagery evoked by the description of Mr Landis' testicles when he gets the third one implanted (courtesy of Arty.)
  
  
  Read this novel - it's funny, thought provoking, and twisted! Highly entertaining escapism!
• 
  Sean

  Bill Fitzhugh is a funny-as-heck writer, who bares his (baboon) fangs in this satiric and hilarious mystery/big biz/sci-fi/environmental/thriller. You can read reviews on Amazon, so I'll just give you a couple examples of his writing, one a toss-away joke, the other a wonderful image:
  
  "'Have you ever considered the liver, Dr. Gibbs?'" Jerry Landis started to to count on his fingers. 'Hepatitis. Billiary obstruction. Hepatoma. Cirrhosis. Gilbert's disease. Metastatic cancer. Blunt force trauma. Penetrating trauma. Parasitic infection, and on and on. Hell, there must be fifty ways to leave your liver.'" Ba-dum-dum.
  
  And from a tear-jerking scene, to show that Fitzhugh didn't write this just for yucks: "As they held one another against the sorrow a shaft of sunlight reached through the blinds and slowly began working its way up the wall above the bed like a golden spider."
  
  Last note: Fitzhugh puts to good effect a technique for making a villain seem more threatening, namely, give the bad guy a weird sound effect. Think Darth Vader, or Bane from the most recent Batman movie. Here, the villain is Jerry Landis, who has a left ventrical assist device (L-VAD), which makes a whir-pffft noise. Whir-pffft. Whir-pffft. Whir-pffft.
  
  If you like this book, try out Pest Control, Fitzhugh's first novel--which might be even funnier.
• 
  Mykle

  I don't recall who recommended this one, I think some friend from Bizarro Central. Sorry, friend ...
  
  This book is well-researched and traverses fertile, fertile ground for some kind of story about human weirdness. But the characters are two-dimensional and severely clichéd, the language is mostly flat -- occasionally inspired, sure, but just as often hackneyed -- and the brief efforts to comment on the problems of environmentalism are sabotaged by the wacky-screenplay feeling of the rest of it. This guy, I kept thinking, has been in LA too long. I kept getting pulled in, then annoyed, then pulled in, then annoyed ... but at the end I was just annoyed.
  
  (More annoying than all the rest was the author's need to keep slipping Paul Simon references in everywhere, starting with the male lead's name -- "Paul Symon" -- and continuing on with lyric snippets from all the top-ten hits. Yes, we've all heard them -- so what? I just don't see what the author is communicating there besides fanboyness. Maybe he's saying "look what a better writer Paul Simon is than I!" Maybe someone told him that references made literature deep. I have no idea what he was thinking -- it's exactly the sort of thing his editor should have made him take out.)
• 
  BadReetReviews

  "Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the Earth." Albert Schweitzer
  This book's main character was so much like me, it was amazing. "He didn't seem to see the same world that others did. He saw a place desperately in need of help and which seemed to be getting worse by the minute. And no one appeared the least bit concerned about the state of things...the simple physical state of the planet where they lived." (p.277)
  This book was deeply satisfying in parts where capitalists who are especially into destroying the planet for their gain are tortured, dismembered or other satisfying ways of being hurt and/or terminated, and done so in particularly fitting manners.
  The only thing holding me back from giving this 5stars was the strange attitude towards vegans/vegetarians. The Fitzhugh seems to think that they are deeply undernourished and weak. Obviously not a vegan/vegetarian himself, he is a strange sort of ecology-friendly writer.
• 
  Janet

  I've had this one on my shelf for a long time. Finally got around to reading it, and thought it was a decent book.
• 
  Misanthropic Hermit

  Very entertaining, although I don't consider it "hilarious", as some critics do.
  It provides very real numbers and information based on actual studies to support the idea that the root cause of all problems today (pollution, hunger, disease, etc) is the overpopulation.
  I wish everyone would read it, but those who need it most are those who procreate, but those don't have time to read because they have progenies to feed.
  
• 
  Jon Koebrick

  Organ Grinders is a light Carl Hiassenesque tale. It takes some time for the story to come together with lots of characters and it moves a little slowly in the first half of the book. The second half of the book moves faster and has more absurd humorous situations. This is not as good as Fitzhugh's Pest Control but still an entertaining read.
• 
  Holly

  I really liked this story. The characters were good (and some very silly.. Arty) and the story was interesting. It was a good balance of humour and truth about companies only caring about profit and not taking care of the planet.
• 
  Blorengia

  Never read anything else by BF, picked this up in a charity shop because the cover's amusing. I nearly put it down several times but once I'd got over halfway through I thought I'd persevere to the end. I didn't feel any connection with the characters and I found it absurd rather than funny.
• 
  Level3GrassWitch

  I loved this book. Initially, I was skeptical that it would be worth my time.
  
  But I was proven wrong!
  
  It was witty, clever, humorous, and a tad scary. All these things I thoroughly enjoy. I purchased it from Thriftbooks and glad I did. It’s on my keeper shelf.
  
  5 out of 5 stars.
• 
  Gilberto Tevreden

  Lekker absurd verhaal met veel wetenschappelijke tekst die ook uitgelegd wordt.
  
  Goede humor en dito tempo in het verhaal. Ik heb genoten.👍🏾
• 
  Katie Hamilton

  This book was really good but I also found it depressing. It touches so much on humanity's inability to think beyond profit and the now and how we're destroying our own planet. But Bill Fitzhugh is a fantastic writer and keeps it light hearted even when talking about this pretty serious subject.
• 
  Muneer Uddin

  Pest Control was a thoroughly enjoyable book. This was not.
  
  There was a fundamental problem with this book. I found it hard to care about any of the characters. I thought the evil businessman was too over the top, and the environmental activist to be a whiny and self-loathing wimp. For everyone's info, I could not finish the book.
  
  The story itself was also pretty bad. There was no sense of pacing. There would be pages upon pages in which the main character is describing the woes of his childhood, and then suddenly he goes to collect signatures for a petition. It really hurt the continuity, and as a result, the readability of this book.
  
  I cannot recommend this book. If you want to read something by Fitzhugh, go read Pest Control.
• 
  Tracey

  I found out about this book & Bill Fitzhugh in general in an SDMB message board thread about Christopher Moore. While I can see the comparison, this novel felt more like
  Tom Holt crossed with
  Carl Hiaasen; the dry humor & clever phrasing of the former and the activism and violence/brutality of the latter. Arty and Bonedigger in particular would have fit right into the Florida of Hiaasen's novels.
  
  It was an enjoyable read, if a bit gruesome at times, and I think I'll be checking out more of Fitzhugh's novels, assuming the same level of black humour.
• 
  Jackie Weger

  Bill Fitzhugh's Organ Grinder is funny, but a little spacey for me. However--I love his style and he redeemed himself in Cross Dressing. I loved the story, the plot and Oh! could only feel funny-bone pity for Dan Steele who finally discovers his way. You know you're in for a great read the instant you learn Dan's mother is holding hostage a nursing home with a paint-ball gun. So, five stars for Cross Dressing.
• 
  Anne Earney

  While this book did not make me laugh, not even once, I found it interesting for the interplay between the over-the-top (or not?) environmental concern pitted against the extreme opposite, with both ends also playing out on the personal level. The characters were okay, two-dimensional in a way I find typical of books that are supposed to be funny.
• 
  Dan

  I ordinarily slog through mediocre books to see if they get better, but this one bogs down very quickly and stays there. I enjoyed Pest Control so was glad to pick this up at a sale but was quickly disappointed. The plot and cardboard caricatures are tiresome and I found myself starting to skim after 45 pages. It's time to move on to something better.
• 
  Dorkgod

  This book gives an hysterical glimpse inside the pharmaceutical business. It also has one of my favorite characters ever created. A dying millionaire who has a third testicle attached to raise his sperm count and give him a better chance of spawning.
• 
  Rashida

  Absolutely laugh out loud funny. Many embarrassing moments on the train as I couldn't keep it to myself. The scene with the vegetarian/vegan/fruitatarian war by itself is worth the price of admission.
• 
  Lorelei

  The writing is excellent, which made it harder to put down a book about people I didn't like, subject matter I didn't at all care for, with nothing to look forward to but more of the same. I actually read about a hundred pages. I'm so glad I gave myself permission to not finish this book.
• 
  Lee

  This is a fascinating mix of medical science/environmentalism blended with superb skill into a very funny novel. Not for the faint of heart as some of the medical descriptions are most graphic. Nevertheless an excellent and successful effort by Mr. Fitzhugh.
• 
  Krista

  also very funny while still packing a real wallop of a message about environmental responsibility.
• 
  Erica

  funny writing, a quick read. fluffy crime/medical mystery similar to Carl Hiaasen or Robin Cook's writing