Carousel Court

A Novel

By: Joe McGinniss Jr.

Narrated by: Joy Osmanski, Corey Brill

Joe McGinniss Jr., who is “poised to become one of our sharpest observers of life in America at the start of the twenty-first century” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), returns with a gripping, psychologically intense literary thriller about the unraveling of a modern marriage in the midst of economic collapse.

Nick and Phoebe Maguire are a young couple seeking a fresh start in Southern California after a personal tragedy. But they arrive just as the Great Recession takes hold, settling in a foreclosed suburban neighborhood on the brink of ruin. Surrounded by abandoned homes, neighbors in debt, and families falling apart, Nick and Phoebe are soon caught in a spiral of desperation, secrecy, and betrayal.

Trapped in toxic suburbia and struggling with the pressures of parenting, debt, and disillusionment, each spouse hatches a plan to reclaim their place in the American middle class—plans that will ultimately collide with devastating consequences.

Described as “fearless…harrowing but, against all odds, ultimately tender” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Carousel Court is a haunting portrait of marriage under pressure, and of a society grappling with psychotropic drugs, digital infidelity, financial insecurity, and fractured dreams. It’s an unforgettable novel for fans of Tom Perrotta, Richard Yates, and gritty, emotional fiction rooted in real-world tension.

“Fast…Foreboding…Joe McGinniss spins an edgy tale, often laced with a reporter’s eye for the little details that make characters pop” (The Washington Post). Carousel Court will leave readers riveted—and reconsidering what it means to love, trust, and survive in 21st-century America.

Meh

Overall tone just so depressing. Kind of a Gone Girl light. Cared nothing about these characters.

Descent into urban apocalypse

Before I polish my thoughts...who slipped me the hallucinogenic? [Listening to] This book feels like coming out of a drugged dream state, running barefoot over crushed glass just a half step ahead of snarling demons. Reality is a hazy scene on the other side of a veil of graffiti, smoke and flames. Is this reality somewhere? Have I just been sitting with Alex and his droogs at the Korova Milkbar ?

Carousel Court reads like a dystopian action film more than the story of a young couple trying to make it through the financial crisis of 2000/2001. Lucky Nick and Phoebe got the last ticket on the final boat to Pleasure Island, took their dreams and bet high on their sudden good fortune and the phenomenal rise of the financial climate. When the bottom falls out and the jobs dissolve, the couple is sucked down, financially trapped in the lavish dream home they built to flip.

The neighborhood is riddled with similar dreamers, foreclosure signs and looters, swimming pools choked with green slime. An armed neighbor sleeps in a tent in his yard to ward off the bank-sanctioned home invasions, keeping a raging bonfire fueled with furniture and electronic equipment; aggressive coyotes prowl the half-vacant cul-de-sacs silhouetted by the blazing California canyon fires; mothers pack loaded pink pistols; swarms of cicadas seem to have crawled out of their hibernation to witness the urban apocalypse. Helicopters flying low overhead, the whirring and chirp of cicadas, the crackling of fires, gun shots and coyote howls...the soundtrack of Carousel Court. Inside their breathless home, Phoebe spirals into a self-medicating routine of fistfuls of Klonopin gulped down with bottles of booze. It's Escape from LA -- or at least some part of the Southern California dreamscape turned nightmare. It's Eurydice and Orpheus descending into Hell.

McGinniss Jr. keeps it on a low-burn for a good portion of the book taking you through this wreckage of the American Dream at a rubbernecker's pace. The stress poisons the marriage, as you would expect. Arguments between the couple are as frequent as collection calls, escalating in toxicity and actions. But tangled in the degradation, drugs and adultery, McGinniss Jr. gives us moments of tenderness that hover just below the tension. The moments are like a life-saving breath of fresh oxygen in a toxic cloud.

Almost battered by the abuse and depravity, and the slow build up created by the author, I wondered if I could finish the book. [I've been known to toss aside a read 400 pages in with only 25 pgs. to go.] I had to go on. One of the author's father's [Joe McGinniss Sr.] students was Bret Easton Ellis, an author whose style several critics mention when reviewing McGinniss Jr. Carousel Court had that same dark surreal sense as Less Than Zero, a book I loved, but it was a painful read. You almost surrender yourself to finish -- that's the power contained in this novel. If I see 1 * reviews, I'll understand as well as I do the 5* reviews. A rough but intriguing and very original novel superbly written. I'd recommend...to a limited audience.

Excellent

The wife Phoebe Maguire is a great character, one of my favorites in a long time. Anyone with addiction issues will totally get the focus of her life around her prescription pills. She's loopy on anxiety meds but still trying to be a good mom. She's totally dependent on their superstar Vietnamese nanny which is why they keep her even though they can't afford it's like the only thing she knows she can do right. Like many moms, Phoebe is struggling to do it all but she actually ends up doing really, really terribly - you can tell throughout that  someone is going to lose.


In the marriage though, Phoebe has all the power. For all her faults, she's strong, beautiful, trying to do it all, failing and trying again, and coming up with big (albeit farfetched) plans to save team Maguire. Meanwhile, her husband Nick has always looked up to her, even when she had an affair with a wealthy guy who keeps rearing his head on their marriage. I laughed when Phoebe sends Nick an email and he asks why she doesn't cc the other guy. The book is darkly funny. Nothing puts more pressure on a couple then money and house problems and McGinniss captures in brilliant prose the impact of the Great recession on the Maguires. We also meet the neighbors on carousel court who have their problems. A crazy guy across the street from them has started living in an orange tent in the front lawn as a self proclaimed, armed, neighborhood watch. Russian neighbors Kostya and Marina have a funny relationship and a tough as nails attitude about all the fear and worry everyone has.


The overall reading and accents were really well done. If you want to read about a complex, failing, yet trying hard wife in Phoebe Maguire then get this book. Phoebe is a character that stays with you. It reads a bit like a thriller but more like the story of a messy marriage.

I did not enjoy the book!

struggled to finish. the story was boring and too strange for my taste. the audio was done nicely though

Gone Girl ripoff

...down to the husband named "Nick". Really wanted to like this but it was so slow-moving and so obviously attempting to be the next "Gone Girl".