FROM HUFFINGTON POST by IRA ISRAEL , 10/6/2016

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“Suburban Stew:” Book Review
 

Along with their teenage daughter Chelsea, Sam and Diane Kramer are apparently living the suburban American dream. And loving it.  Sam commutes to Manhattan every morning, Diane tends the ideal household while running a small catering business on the side, and Chelsea skips through school with an effervescent smile.

But behind the facades lurk extremely disparate double-lives that the three Kramers keep hidden from each other: Sam is embezzling small amounts of money from work in order to finance his Brazilian prostitute habit; Diane is running a “Weeds” type marijuana dealing business; and Chelsea is her high school’s resident meth-head - a hobby that she pays for in trade.  As long as their double-lives remain clandestine, everything is going along swimmingly at the Kramer residence.
 

Behind all of the Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Lexapro, Ambien and other pharmaceuticals sold in suburban drugstores - as well as the self-medication through alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, over-eating - across America, the facade could be reality.

Or could it?
 

Within the span of a single day, Sam’s latest prostitute decides to extort money from him, Diane and her partner expand their business from marijuana to cocaine, and Chelsea discovers that she is pregnant.  But growing a business from marijuana to cocaine has risks and punishments that housewives may be unfamiliar with… and Chelsea’s dealer/boyfriend denies paternity… and Sam cannot figure out how to talk his way out of this extortion mess.  In less than twenty-four hours each member of the Kramer family confronts the people endangering their secrets and accidentally kills those people along with their threats of exposure. 
 

The immediate dangers may be gone but back behind the white picket fence the three Kramers now face the not-so-suburban challenges of disposing of corpses, keeping their crimes secret from each other and everyone else, and dealing with the repercussions of three separate murder investigations.  This becomes increasingly difficult as a vengeful guidance counselor begins suspecting Chelsea, the head of security at Sam’s job also begins blackmailing him, and a local detective becomes suspicious of Diane. Frightened and desperate, the Kramers decide to be proactive in resolving their problems. And thereafter “Suburban Stew” becomes a fast-paced blood-soaked romp. 

Irving Schwartz writes about dark subjects with a light and fluid style. The novel is funny and extremely easy to read. I enjoyed the pacing as well as learning more and more about each of the characters’ real selves behind their outer personas. The novel is an astute commentary - albeit hyperbolic - on the problem of authenticity in America.  Freud posited that whatever primal impulses are repressed would return with a vengeance; that is often what is revealed when the veil is lifted from the glitzy exterior of the suburban artifice. 

I loved the book and film “A Simple Plan” because it used found treasure like a flame under a petrie dish to distill the pure essences of its three main characters.  Like “A Simple Plan,” “Suburban Stew” is a great read and very funny - especially if you appreciate twisted, dark humor. And also “Suburban Stew” serves as a modern allegory for the hardened dark underbelly of what is considered to be the American dream. 

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