Cloudy With a Chance of Marriage

Judging from its title, this critic was led to believe that Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage would be an adult version of the critically acclaimed children’s novel—letting “meatballs” take on a divinely wicked new twist. After all, Kieran Kramer is one of the greatest writers out of the bevy of talents in the romantic fiction genre. According to the book’s back cover, not only is she a former CIA employee, game show veteran, and karaoke enthusiast, she also claims to live her life according to the old adage: “Life rewards action.”

And certainly, Cloudy is a fitting bedtime reward after the children have Gone the Fuck to Sleep. But it is also a cerebral look into the moral and philosophical quandaries of modern romance. I’m not sure if even the most erudite reviewers will fully grasp its complexity; then again, I’m not sure “getting it” is the point here, really. You see, this writer’s genius is the main point: her vision is the sum of parts, what she’s saying about the world, about reality. Kramer is scrambling the paths explored by Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, and her post-modern plotline shows their traces through the cracks of her incandescent writing.

The novel begins with the amorous travails of Jilly Jones, who Kramer tells us “might be a wanton, but was, first and foremost, a bookseller.” The dusty bookshelves of Hodgepodge Books (perhaps a reference to Shakespeare and Co?) quickly become the hot seat of a romantic dalliance between this “bedazzled virgin” and Captain Stephen Arrow, an “impossible bachelor” and expert breast-suckler (he does so thrice). Arrow’s gentility is matched only by his intellect, as he spouts luminescent lines such as “a man’s character is not measured by the depth of his pockets or his bloodlines but by the reach of his heart.”

A central conceit prevents the two from consummating their attraction: both are promised to their distant cousins. Jones is married to a BDSM enthusiast named Hector, who is impotent but threatens to rape her via his manservant. Captain Arrow is engaged to his quasi-retarded, stuttering cousin Miranda, who brushes off accusations of incest saying, “We’re your family, but dith-tant of course, on your father’s th-ide.”

As these two villains plot to prevent their pleasure, Jones and Arrow indulge in steamy affairs, and their sex scenes ascend to near apocalyptic explosion. One scene in particular rings with tonal and thematic registers.

“You’re more luscious than any tropical fruit,” he whispered. His torture was exquisite. She wrapped her leg around his, and he took her nipple in his mouth then, suckling her breast. She felt feral, right, pressed to the earth, to Stephen’s skin—To Life.”

The uneven punctuation, capitalization, and references to equatorial produce are the results of Kramer’s darkly witty aesthetic. Readers either drop out or push on, lured by the idiosyncratic prose, but also by some fundamental incredulity.

Think Beckett. Think Pynchon. Think Gaddis. Think.

To say that the novel resolves itself too easily is not the point (turns out Jones’ husband is already married, thus annulling their own union. Stuttering Miranda falls in love with someone else). Kramer is clearly devoted to taking the next step in romantic fiction. Cloudy With A Chance of Marriage is brilliant, yes, in myriad ways. But it is also life-affirming, intelligent, unique, and, most importantly, extremely arousing. Those who stay with it will find themselves entertained—with a chance of enlightenment.

Rating: 5 dildos. Surprise! This book fucking sucked. But somehow, its shittiness warped the Good-Bad continuum and wormholed it back to being Awesome—thus occupying the same haloed space as When Justin Met Kelly and Alien vs Predator. By far the most hilarious character was Miranda, who stutters her way through every scene. It reminded me of how this one time my friend decided to fuck a genuine retard she met at a bar because his “great bod” and incoherent grunts would make the sex truly “special.” Awkward.

Previously: A Werewolf in Manhattan