Androgynous Murder House Party

I just finished Androgynous Murder House Party by Steven Rigolosi. It's a different book. We do not know the gender of the narrator and all the rest of the main characters. They have names like Robin (the narrator), Chris, Pat, Lee, etc. The party takes place at the Long Island home of the narrator and moves to Manhattan. The world is the world of the rich and their hanger-ons, full of sex and prescription drugs. The author has done well to write the book so that the fact that gender is not specified isn't obvious.

Robin is a middle-aged, wealthy, pill-popping person. He/she is a lesbian or a gay man or a bisexual. His/her tone is arch and that of a wealthy socialite lady or queen. He/she is very class conscious and has no idea what people really think of him/herself. He/she misses much of what is happening and misinterprets many actions, but finally figures out most the crimes.

At the beginning, the book seems light and funny. The gender-bending roles are fun. The arch tone is fresh and new. Robin's misinterpretations are wonderful to read about. But it all started to grate on me after a while. Robin would be unpleasant to be around in real life and eventually felt unpleasant in a book.

Rigolosi has written a unique book with a unique set of characters. He pays tribute to Agatha Christie and Sarah Caudwell both explicitly and implicitly throughout. I enjoyed the book but I wanted to like it a lot more than I did.