Sneaky People: A Novel

The publication of Thomas Berger's ¨Sneaky People¨ in Kindle Format is a welcome event, just as the snail's pace with which his catalog as a whole is being reissued is nothing short of criminal. After all, Berger is the author of such celebrated and stylistically diverse books as ¨Little Big Man,¨¨Arthur Rex,¨and the ¨Rheinhardt¨trilogy, not to mention the book being reviewed here, as well as¨Neighbors,¨¨The Feud,¨ and many more. Well, it is by no means a perfect world, as Berger would be the first to acknowlege. Spleen vented, let's move on to the book at hand.¨Sneaky People¨ is one of several Berger novels, including ¨The Feud¨and ¨Neighbors,¨ which takes the reader on a Cook's Tour of of the mid-20th Century American middle class. He reveals his characters in all their mendacity, mediocrity, unintentional hilarity, and in many instances their tenderness and basic goodness. They are often as well-intentioned as others are reprehensible. That these redeeming qualities frequently are the products of their ignorance or misapprehensions about the world in which they live in no way diminishes them in Berger's view. In fact, their very dunderheadedness, as it were, contributes to our empathy for them. And the banality of the evil that inhabits the hearts of many of the characters is often as hilarious in the telling as it is horrifying in the contemplation.Buddy Sandlor is the owner of a used car lot. In Berger's world, Buddy's profession alone would, in any just world, qualify him for the electric chair, or at least a long stretch in prison. Of course it doesn't, but Buddy, with his sharpster's misplaced self-confidence and dim-witted arrogance, does his level best to balance the scales of justice. With no more consideration, moral or practical, than he would give to fleecing a customer unfortunate enough to wander onto his car lot, Buddy decides to have his wife murdered so that he can marry his mistress. It's not that Buddy loves his somewhat dim but decent paramour. He simply decides that all things considered it's the best, and more importantly the easiest, way to stop his side dish from constantly nagging him about his promise to get a divorce. That in his hubris and basic lack of intelligence he gives the execution of this execution about as much thought as what he plans to have for lunch, leads to serious and extremely comic complications for Buddy and most of those who happen to cross his path.On the other side of the moral universe we have Buddy's adolescent son, Buddy's mistress, and Buddy's wife. Each in his or her own way is just trying to get through life with no more pain than necessary. By turns innocent of the ways of the world, hardened but not hard, and, in the case of Buddy's wife, more shrewd than most suppose, they careen off Buddy's grand plan like bumper cars at a carnival. Some suffer less unpredictable redirection than others, but all are effected to varying degrees.That Berger can render these three characters as multi-dimensional, with deep flaws and sometimes unflattering personalities, while at the same time allowing us to feel for them, is a tribute to his understanding that most people are some mixture of angel and schmuck. They are full of contradictions that can hurt like hell, but that can also, at least in a novel, be hilariously funny.Highly recommended.

Drawing from nostalgic middle America in the 1930s, Berger writes about a rogue car salesman Buddy Sandifer who plots to kill his skinny wife so he can marry his sumptuous lover Laverne. As foul as Buddy is and as important his scheme is to the plot, he is not really the focus of the novel. The real focus is Buddy's son Ralph, a sympathetic adolescent overwrought by natural lusts and in possession of an honesty and integrity that his father lacks. It is those chapters told from Ralph's POV where the novel really shines for at its heart Sneaky People is, for all its lusty rogues and ironic twists and turns, a sweet and tender novel about a wholesome boy awakening to his sexuality and connecting that sexuality to a gallant form of manhood that his father, sadly, never showed him.Only Berger, a true original, could pull off a novel like this: Part seedy, malicious plotline, part perverted, unctuous characters, and part tender loss of innocence story--told with the sneaky, ironic syntax that Berger is so famous for.One last point: The childhood friendship between Ralph and his vulgar, bullying neighbor Hauser seems to have been used for a later novel, when they've reached middle-age, in what for me is Berger's best novel, titled Best Friends.

Entertaining book about Buddy Sandifer and his family and friends. The author set the story in the 1930's. The story moved along, it has great description, but did he set the story in the time period just so he could use derogatory slang? no race escaped his ethnic slurs. I read this book because I read a review that said it was the funniest book the person had ever read. I would now guess that person hasn't read many books. The description of events and characters is wonderful, the author did keep my interest.

Excellent, however, the print copy I received is misprinted. Thus, the apostrophes and quotes are missing. This makes reading very tiresome to the point I've given up. Amazon sent another copy, but the same problem exists thus I thought I'd write a review to notify future buyers. I would hope Simon & Shuster has been made aware of this issue. I'm on the lookout for a copy at a bookstore (not that there are many of those anymore) since I'd love to finish it.

I don't know what happened here, but this is the worst edited book of all time. Supposedly Simon and Schuster. Either the editor or the writer did not have an apostrophe on their typewriter. So every single contraction turned into a weirdness that was very distracting: hell,shell, well, dont, Ive, wed, and on and on. And often the space that an apostrophe might occupy was between the wrong letters.Berger's story and writing are interesting, and might have rated a 3 or 4. But, man, this read was surreal

I am a fan of Berger and tho this may not be one of his best, it still a very good read with lots of "sneaky people" and a enjoyable read. The ending could have been better, but I did like it and would recommend it.

I found the characters missing depth and ultimately my full book club send out a text to stop reading. We have been reading books front to cover for 18 years and this is the first time this happened.

This is a very funny book about quirky people, a sort of hyperbole of deception. None of the characters are really bad, just self-serving, like humans. The Writing is clever and entertaining.

Not normally my style, but interesting. Ending was weird, but fitting. Would I recommend it? Who knows. It all depends on the reader's sense of humour?

Plot hard to follow, no sense of direction.

I've read just three of Berger's other novels - Neighbours, Best Friends and Meeting Evil - and have enjoyed them all greatly. This one i did not enjoy nearly so much. I think the issue is not so much the historical setting of the 1930s - though the casual racism and sexism of the era appals - but the lack of attractive characters here. Buddy, the central male character, is a cold psychopath; his wife is an enigma and the adolescents are just that, adolesccent. The plot is certainly inventive and it did raise a smile from time to time - but I found it simply far less involving than any of the other Berger novels I've read.

This was recommended as I have previously enjoyed similar books. It started quite slow and I didn't much enjoy the style of writing- racist and sexist, but I put that aside considering when and where the book was set. Half way through the book just got interesting but then it came to an abrupt end as if the writer got bored and gave up. It's not a long read and if you like old fashioned American writing I guess it would be OK.

Great book. My favourite by Thomas Berger. Beautifully written and still makes me laugh despite many readings. I ordered this as had lost old copy.