Novel - Reviews

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​            HOLLYWOOD POP NOVEL: A TRUTH                          
                                STRANGER THAN FICTION
               (Scorpio Men on Prozac & Their Oil Changes)
                     LA WEEKLY - REVIEWED BY JOEY ALKES

On first picking up a novel called 'SCORPIO MEN ON PROZAC,' an XLIBRIS paperback, this very Cancer male and skeptic is presented with a reasonable 'Why should I read a novel about Scorpio men or Prozac, for that matter. Especially since, I reserve talk of the anti-depressant Prozac to 12-step dumps and astrology to pick -up lines. Being married it has been years since I've entertained a study of the science to any useful purpose. So, Why is it that I put down my thoroughly unreadable ancient copy of Albert Schweitzer's prose in his "Out of My Life and Thought" to read Scorpio Men you ask? Curiosity my friends, a sometimes very dangerous curiosity.

As fate would have it, the author of Scorpio Men, Rand Marsh, was one of this columnist's editorial charges in the early days of Venice Magazine, and in those last days of the quirky Hollywood Gazette. Fortunately for me, and definitely for him, writer and critic Marsh's debut novel (or novelette) has enough moments in it that are hilarious and inspired to ignore those parts of the book that one wouldn't insert into a typical Hollywood Oscar contending movie, no less a literary work. Trust me folks, as his old editor, Marsh's publisher couldn't have unearthed a tougher critic to review this work.

Marsh, who is a regular contributor to such pulp fiction culture rags as Spin Magazine and URB, who has had a number of plays produced, and presently has full-length feature film in development, has a knack (And yes just like that bubble-gum pop band of the Eighties) for good hooks. In 'Scorpio Men On Prozac' he has chanced upon the double barrels of both; the popularity of astrology as a distraction from personal responsibility, and the obvious dependence on pharmacology in place of any evidence of a comprehensible higher-power in the universe.

Structuring the book through a series of short tales, divided by tips for Scorpions based on their moon sign conjunctions; basic Scorpion life-advice ("Scorpio remember, to fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already dead."); visits to the "shrink" who writes the "zac" prescriptions entitled, "Doctor Please Some More of These" (creating a form of insider shorthand like "being zacked"); and various facts and anecdotes about Prozac itself, he and his dysfunctional "crew" of Scorpio men sometimes on Prozac, and sometimes trying to kick it as if it were some form of dope, manage to mismanage their lives into a painful degree of comedy and pathos.

The publisher describes the novel as "a darkly comic adventure into the psyches of a group of Scorpio men and boys who are taking or should be taking Prozac AND the people they love or who have been twice stung" and makes the claim that, "Scorpio men may make you laugh or cry, they may piss you off but they will never bore you." For the most part this is true. Often the characters piss me off more than they make me laugh, but laughter is definitely a part of the experience of reading Scorpio Men...

Josh, or Rand Marsh himself, suggests that added to the trials and tribulations of being a "man" on this planet at this time, being a Scorpio, creates an almost impossible mission in life. Various characters choose different responses, and in one case a highly unlikely suicide in my opinion, with the information the reader has available (The author himself tells me that this is a true story. Go figure??). All the men (or boys)in the novel 'act out' with some form of self-destructive behavior in response to the dual pressures of testosterone and a Scorpio Sun (Oct. 22 - Nov. 21). Overeating or deprivation, drugs, obsessive career rituals and for a couple of these young men just being musicians, qualifies as some of the manifestations of dealing with such an overwhelming burden. The only escape hatch outside of insanity (jails, institutions and death), even at the supposed price of losing one's soul, is the pharmacology of Prozac; yet needing to make some sort of macho sense out of it all, Marsh feels compelled to escape the "zac" in the book's conclusion.  
   
"Shy? Forgetful? Anxious? Fearful? Obsessed? Overweight?" asks the author. "Now science will let you change your personality with a pill," ridicules Marsh.

Debut novelist Rand Marsh displays a sense of humor, and engaging sense of self-deprecation, a dreamy narrative language of originality and a feel for the ultimate absurdity that being human suggests. In the context of his own identity (Writers writing about what they know best, themselves), Marsh succeeds in exposing his own confusion and angst at what being a man alive in today's gender-confused society, a West Hollywood crowd full of vacuous pre-occupation, his view of what he, and many men for that matter, interpret as an evolving feminine insensitivity (His LAPD wife's. His suicidal best friend’s wife's. His mother and sister's) to this male dilemma; and the hypocrisy of modern medical solution in the form of pharmacology. Whether one agrees or not with what Marsh suggests about the issues, Scorpio Men on Prozac makes thought- provoking reading. More importantly, it is a downright enjoyable read.