From Booklist
In his fifth novel, the droll and gifted Johnston departs from his historical novels to offer a highly amusing take on the early days of television. Substitute teachers Audrey and Peter Prendergast are struggling to get by in Toronto in the 1950s when Audrey's idea for a TV show for preschoolers becomes a runaway success. She goes on to write a series starring their son, Henry, as Philo Farnsworth, the teenage inventor of the television set. It becomes a huge cult favorite, inspiring fanatical followers dubbed Philosophers who reenact the episodes. Peter, struggling to complete a novel he has been working on for 15 years, offers caustic running commentary on popular culture, with especially vitriolic remarks reserved for the role of television, and amuses himself by staging mock fights with Henry for the tabloids. As the eccentric Prendergasts seem about to collapse under the weight of their enormous success, they each take drastic action to preserve their family. Johnston brings both high jinks and humanity to his highly original portrait of a more innocent era. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Wise, funny, touching.”— The Globe & Mail
“Funny, eccentric, and touching . . . [Human Amusements] leaves us nostalgic for a kinder, gentler, mediascape, and the life that went with it.”—The Toronto Star
“Wayne Johnston’s books are beautifully written, among the funniest I’ve ever read, yet somehow at the same time among the most poignant and moving.”—Annie Dillard
“This bittersweet novel touches the funny bone and the heart.”—The Edmonton Journal
“Charles Dickens would have greatly admired Johnston's style and humor–And the old master would have envied the vivid scenes Johnston draws.” –Houston Chronicle
“[Johnston is] a master plotter whose wise words sting and stab.”–Entertainment Weekly
“Wayne Johnston is a brilliant and accomplished writer.” –Annie Proulx
“One of our continent’s best writers.” –Kirkus Reviews
“Johnston is an accomplished storyteller, with a gift for both description and character, which he uses masterfully.”–Booklist (starred)
“Johnston [is] capable of fine psychological observation.…His backers ultimately get their money’s worth.”–Atlantic Monthly
“Johnston is an authentic comic genius.... His timing and pacing are impeccable. He knows how to...create laughter out of a wonderful mixture of emotions.” –The Gazette (Montreal)
“A prodigiously talented author.” –The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Review
?His books are?among the funniest I?ve ever read, yet somehow at the same time among the most poignant and moving.? ?Annie Dillard
?Why I love reading Wayne Johnston: The reader goes skittering through [his] novels, driven inexorably forward on the force of his characters, on the power of his wit.? ?Mary Walsh
Praise for The Divine Ryans
?Johnston is an authentic comic genius.... His timing and pacing are impeccable. He knows how to...create laughter out of a wonderful mixture of emotions.? ?The Gazette (Montreal)
?Divine reading indeed.... A work of art in its powerful handling of everyday humour and sublime tragedy.? ?St. John?s Sunday Express
Praise for Baltimore?s Mansion
?A splendid memoir.... Wayne Johnston is one of a kind. A major Canadian talent.? ?Mordecai Richler
?A prodigiously talented author.... Baltimore?s Mansion ought to win a wide readership, especially among those of us grasping after the meaning of our own fathers? lives.? ?The Globe and Mail, A Best Book of ?99
Praise for The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
?A capacious, old-fashioned summer hammock of a book ? the kind you fall into, enchanted, and hate to leave.? ?Newsday
?As beautiful as imaginative writing gets.? ?David Macfarlane, The Globe and Mail
Human Amusements FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The author of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York crafts a paean to the dawn of the television age. Henry Prendergast grew up on television - not merely watching it, but starring in the wildly popular children's show "Rumpus Room." Cast in the roles of Bee Good and Bee Bad by his mother, Audrey, the show's creator, Henry came of age along with the new medium - one that would soon propel his family out of Toronto's middle-class life and into the tabloids." Henry's father, Peter, a would-be novelist, refuses to have any part in his wife's burgeoning television empire, but commits himself instead to the task of being a walking, talking - mostly scathing - reminder of the family's "humble beginnings." Then, on the heels of "Rumpus Room," Audrey dreams up "The Philo Farnsworth Show," loosely based on the life story of the young teen credited with inventing the tube and starring Henry in the lead role. Rapidly amassing a cultlike following of "Philosophers," the show challenges the Prendergasts anew. Forced into increasing isolation by a fervent media, they must work harder than ever to not let success get the best of them.
SYNOPSIS
Offering further evidence of his astounding range as a novelist, the bestselling author of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York crafts a hilarious and moving paean to the dawn of the television age. Henry Prendergast grew up on television—not merely watching it, but starring in the wildly popular children’s show “Rumpus Room.” Cast in the roles of Bee Good and Bee Bad by his mother Audrey, the show’s creator, Henry came of age along with the new medium—one that would soon propel his family out Toronto’s middle-class life and into the tabloids.
Henry’s father Peter, a would-be novelist, refuses to have any part in his wife’s burgeoning television empire, but commits himself instead to the task of being a walking, talking—mostly scathing—reminder of the family’s “humble beginnings.” Then, on the heels of Rumpus Room, Audrey dreams up The Philo Farnsworth Show, loosely based on the life story of the young teen credited with inventing the tube and starring Henry in the lead role. Rapidly amassing a cult-like following of “Philosophers,” the show challenges the Prendergasts anew. Forced into increasing isolation by a fervent media, they must work harder than ever to not let success get the best of them.
FROM THE CRITICS
Kirkus Reviews
A comic coming-of-age story with a pronounced sting in its tail: the Canadian author's fourth novel, first published in 1994 immediately preceding his international success,The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Narrated in retrospect by Torontonian Henry Prendergast, it's a chronicle of Henry's career as a child TV actor, begun in 1967 with his enactment of the morally contrasting apian presences "Bee Good" and "Bee Bad" on the instantly popular kiddies' show Rumpus Room, conceived, written, and produced by Henry's take-charge mom Audrey. Johnston's genius for understated deadpan hilarity works wonderfully in reactive descriptions of Rumpus Room's inane preachiness-especially those spoken by Henry's saturnine father Peter, a would-be serious novelist who maintains an amused distance from his wife's busy conquest of the upstart medium. For example, his caution that Henry as "Bee Bad" is "a role model for evil people everywhere . . . [and that should Henry commit] any act of decency or kindness, . . . those who looked down to me would be forever disillusioned." Celebrity, modest fortune, and sheer misery at Henry's school follow-as does further success when Audrey maneuvers 13-year-old Henry into starring on the Philo Farnsworth Show, which imagines the youthful adventures of the eponymous inventor of the first television set. Audrey's manipulations extend to Peter's stalled career, and give the increasingly unhappy Henry "this fleeting notion of my mother fixing everything, staging my entire life without my knowing it." Still, this is a comic novel: rifts in the Prendergast family fabric are mended, and Henry achieves a kind of liberation in a weird climax at Maple Leaf Gardens, attended bydisciple-like Philo admirers who have named themselves "Philosophers." It wraps things up neatly, and it's a hoot. A bit overlong, but, still, another beguiling display of the varied wares of one of the most entertaining and likable of contemporary writers.
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