In Bottle Grove, Daniel Handler's seventh novel for adults, love buzzes in the air like a diseased cricket. Padgett, a drunk with local family wealth (and a knack for being fired from menial labor), meets barkeep Martin Icke at a wedding in a San Francisco forest. The story follows the pair, as well as the fleetingly happy married couple, Ben and Rachel Nickels. Then there's the Vic, a hip moniker for a local tech tycoon who invented some majorly invasive software.
Handler's (All the Dirty Parts) story isn't so much a romantic comedy as it is a reckoning for romantic delusion. The tune may be perfect, but everyone keeps hearing it differently. Once again, his dialogue serves as a driving force for the story. Padgett and Martin share playful whispers over a stolen barrel of booze when they first meet in the frigid woods behind Ben and Rachel's wedding. And the prankster spirit Reynard (a shapeshifter, naturally) offers otherworldly wisdom. These and more turn every syllable into whimsical perfection.
The setting for Bottle Grove--a modern San Francisco in the throes of immense (and largely unwanted) change--also adds to the strange yet familiar version of the city that Handler has returned to throughout his career, stretching back to 1998's The Basic Eight. Taken together, these elements turn Handler's novel into a timely satire of love, wealth and the meaning of home. --Zack Ruskin, freelance reviewer