Jonas Johnston’s seminal work ‘Between a Rock and a Rock’ is no doubt the most acclaimed, influential, and successful novel of the decade that has ever made me want to claw my eyes out. By the end of it, I am sad to find that the words, despite wounding my humanity deeply, also failed to manage this task.

The phrase ‘seminal work’ has never sounded more apt, as the book contains little else aside from the author’s semen.

J. Johnston’s semi-ghostwritten, possibly autobiographical work is a story of a young boy growing up in a small, out-of-the-way town in Alabama. By a stroke of luck, which the author calls his genius, he is whisked away to California where he proceeds to fill his life with depravity, while his brother, a thinly caricatured strawman, is left to tend to the family farm. In the anticlimactic ending the boy, now a grown man, returns, like the prodigal son, and is welcomed to the farm which, by then, his brother has had to sell. The man repurchases the farm, and the brothers reconcile.

The actually quite controversial story has been lauded for its faux-subversion of tropes, features of unconventional unmagical elements in a real-world setting, and its uncanny ability to sell like the Bible. Critics may be divided, but the ones that have graduated college seem immune to the story's heart-throb and glam, and unanimously trash it, and with good reason:

The prose is awkward and clunky at places, hinting that it might have mostly been ghost-written by someone much, much more capable and well-read. The story itself doesn’t bother taking its message seriously, yet its humor falls horribly flat. The bacchanalian revelry, and the narcissistic action, are gone into in great detail, but with very little of substance beneath. The main character is petty and acts dishonorably with the way he cheats his only living family member of his inheritance.

The ending is implausible, to say the least, though it does hold out for a hint of hope and is the story’s best part. That isn’t to say much, however.

In short: 'Between a Rock and a Rock' is vulgar, dark and grotesque and, as such, managed to top the NY best-seller list for a whopping two weeks before being completely dropped off by stories that are actually good. 

There is little doubt about the novel’s impact, however. The book has already broken several sales records, and, to my knowledge, is presently being made into a feature film. Barring that Johnston [i]isn’t [/i]anything like his namesake in the story, he will most likely be crying his way to the bank and back, and die sad and alone, forsaken by his destitute brother to whom he maybe should have remembered to return the favor.

Author J. Johnston couldn’t be contacted for a comment.

[quote]- Reviewed by:

    Samael Johnston
    Author, Critic
    Littleton, Alabama
[/quote] 

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