The Mackerel Plaza

The Mackerel Plaza

Rating

7.5

The Pequod Review:

The Mackerel Plaza is a humorous novel that imagines a recently widowed pastor (Reverend Andrew Mackerel of the People's Liberal Church) who finds it difficult to escape the judgment of his congregation when he seeks to date again. Mackerel is a fairly well-developed character and the book has some good lines:

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

[...]

She was about twenty-five, and naked except for a green skirt and sweater, heavy brown tweed coat, shoes, stockings, and so forth, a scarf knotted at her throat and a brown beret. I regarded her breasts with melancholy, then my eyes began their ordained journey downward.

[...]

One dreams of the goddess Fame and winds up with the bitch Publicity.

Recommended.