Eve Ottenberg

The Unblemished Darlings Eve Ottenberg

When Allwin Snarkle comes up with a preposterous get-rich-quick scheme, he quickly snares the attention of his luckless friend Olympia and a gaggle of other bumblers, all eager to increase their incomes in New York City of the early 1990s. Unfortunately none of these would-be entrepreneurs can seem to do anything right, from the greedy Dr. Jerky, a plastic surgeon who lost his license by mixing up his patients with disastrous results, to Fatty Friendly, the obese and creative accountant jealously guarding the fidelity of his Miss Universe runner-up girlfriend, to the chronically unemployed and gluttonous Mr. Bellybee. It's one disaster after another, as this crew makes its way through Manhattan on a mission to moonlight to millions. The Unblemished Darlings is a comic novel about the absurdity of much of the human enterprise. It is filled with zany characters, human and animal, some of them with unpronounceable names, all of them, the humans that is, out for a buck. It is also a hilariously improbable romance, with a heroine who is definitely not thin, not rich, more than a little addled and somewhat over-the-hill. But her unlikely suitor loves her, if only he could bring himself to let her know and if only he didn't have so much competition! From the moment the first bird droppings land on Snarkle's head, to the pigeon that tries to steal his dessert, to his beloved's tiny but ferocious dog that attacks him at every opportunity, the entire animal world seems to be conspiring against poor Snarkle; and the humans are not making his romantic pursuit any easier either.