Settings & Atmosphere - Fiction, Women's Fiction, Politics & Social Issues - Fiction, Humorous Fiction

Rattled

Name: Rattled
Author: Debra Galant
ISBN: 9780312366582

by Debra Galant

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Overview

Set in the fictional subdivision of Galapagoes Estates,” Rattled is a very funny look at what happens when soccer moms, animal rights activists, dishonest real estate developers and, of course, rattlesnakes get together and fight for ascendancy in the rapidly developing New Jersey exurbs. Heather Peters is anxious to move to the newly minted development.

All she wants there is a nice house. Well, a nice house and a nice piece of land. And of course a basement gym, a master bath with radiant heat, Jacuzzi and his-and-her toilets. She could make do without a media room if she had to. After all, the pioneers hadn’t had plasma TV, and they’d survived. Heather is not your average suburban housewife—or maybe she is. Her fortuitous meeting with a endangered species of rattlesnake sets this first novel in motion. You may find yourself feeling sorry for the snake.

Synopsis

Heather Peters is anxious to move to the newly minted development. All she wants there is a nice house. Well, a nice house and a nice piece of land. And of course a basement gym, a master bath with radiant heat, Jacuzzi and his-and-her toilets. She could make do without a media room if she had to. After all, the pioneers hadn’t had plasma TV, and they’d survived. Heather is not your average suburban housewife—or maybe she is. Her fortuitous meeting with a endangered species of rattlesnake sets this first novel in motion. You may find yourself feeling sorry for the snake.

— The Washington Post - Susan Adams

Galant skewers everything that's awful about exurbia: striving yuppies blinded by acquisitive mania, greedy developers who bulldoze pristine terrain, strident enviros toiling to protect venomous snakes at all costs. A gumshoe journalist is the only player who doesn't come out smelling rotten. By the time her satisfyingly serpentine story ends, Galant figures out how to give all her characters a measure of what they deserve.

About the Author, Debra Galant

Debra Galant is the author of Fear and Yoga in New Jersey. She is also the creator of the popular blog Baristanet.com. She lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

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Editorials

Susan Adams

Publishers Weekly

Galant skewers the shallow, striving, McMansion-dwelling suburbanites in this engaging satire. Heather Peters is staring 35 in the face-though "depending on the light, [she could] still pass for a high school cheerleader"; her husband, Kevin, can barely stand her half the time, and her son, Conner, is a complete misfit-but at least they've just landed their dream home in Galapagos Estates, a new development in New Jersey. Galant follows their comic trials and those of two longtime area residents: Agnes, an animal lover and PETA sympathizer, and egg farmer Harlan White, who freelances as a handyman and makes a "fortune off those suckers." Which is how Harlan finds himself smashing the head of an endangered rattlesnake on Heather's back porch... and how Heather gets arrested after Agnes fingers her as the murderer of an endangered species... and how Galapagos Estates becomes the center of a media firestorm. Heather's rise to fame as a "rattlesnake killer" makes a handy metaphor about urban sprawl and the battle of new residents versus old ones, and pokes fun at the oversize egos of slimy developers and yuppies alike. Galant shows a keen knowledge of the real estate turf war and its soldiers in this wincingly funny book-but craft sympathetic characters she does not. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Burlington County, NJ, beware! Hell-on-wheels Heather Peters has arrived, cell phone and Gucci handbag at the ready, to decorate her new McMansion to the hilt, become the ultimate class mom, and propel her lawyer husband toward making partner. Then, face to face with a timber rattler in her backyard, she commands Harlan White, the local handyman, to kill it, a felony in a state where the snakes are considered an endangered species. Taking the blame, she gets hauled off from back-to-school night to spend an evening in jail, then basks in the national media circus that follows. It's only when an animal rights group unleashes 1500 lab rats "liberated" from a nearby testing facility that things really get ugly, and Heather swings into high gear. Add a greedy, libidinous developer, squeamish neighbors, and a cutthroat Halloween costume party for a zany poke at suburbia. Galant, whose witty and topical social commentary has graced the pages of the New York Times, nails it with her first novel. Fun for all popular fiction collections.-Christine Perkins, Burlington P.L., WA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Snakes, super-moms and nervous social climbers star in this broad satire of the nouveau riche suburbs of New Jersey. While there is little about Galant's critique that is subversive, her intimate knowledge of her subject-for five years she wrote a column about suburban living for the New York Times-allows for a few devastatingly telling details, and an undercurrent of disaffection and anxiety that gives her portrait a bit of bite. For the most part, though, she paints the semi-fictional Hebron Township in strokes broad enough to cover the side of a newly renovated multimillion-dollar barn/loft. Evolution and Eden figure heavily: Law student Kevin Peters and his wife Heather make their way up the class ladder into the Galapagos Estates, and the dream house, a lakefront McMansion called "Walden." But there are literal and figural snakes in their little piece of paradise: There's a den of legally protected rattlesnakes near the property, for one, and then there's the Peters's son Connor, the overweight, oversexed terror of the third grade. Though Heather's efforts to control and manipulate her world are nothing short of amazing, chaos, nature and eventually love, win out. Along the way we meet a witch-like environmentalist crone, a crusty old egg farmer, a sleazy developer and his mistresses (respectively serpentine and bovine) and a somewhat heroic local reporter. Heather is the wicked-Eve star of the show, a narcissist whose voracious ambition and hysterical efforts to keep up with the neighborhood's Stepford Wives drive the seemingly innocent Kevin to distraction. The cartoon-like characters and the mostly happy ending are the stuff of a Hollywood-ready screenplay. Entertaining comedicdebut with a mild sting.