Before The Means really gets going, Shelly Means seems destined to be added to the list of characters readers love to hate. Shelly, an at-home mom who lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children, has one all-consuming ambition: to own a beach house in the Hamptons with a Japanese toilet that plays music "to cover up your activities," among other selling points. But as Amy Fusselman's debut novel gathers steam, narrator Shelly emerges as a quasi-sympathetic character with enough depth to entertain a moral dilemma or two--and she's damn funny while she's at it.
As the novel opens, Shelly and George Means have just purchased land in East Hampton. Aware that her clients are on a budget, their architect has designed a house for them that's to be constructed from shipping containers. But whether the building's plans will make it past the Home Aesthetics Committee seems a moot point after George, a voice-over artist, loses a job narrating a chicken sandwich commercial. Now how will Shelly afford her dream house?
Throughout The Means, Shelly is forced to examine issues stirred up by her acquisitiveness, among them environmental fallout and wealth inequality. Fusselman (Savage Park; Idiophone) presents a hilariously heightened reality full of consumer bait (a book called The Ethical Guide to Becoming a Gazillionaire and a real estate broker who doubles as a therapist), meant to reassure well-to-do people that they aren't shallow--yes, even when they're obsessed with owning a singing toilet. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer