Book review: A promising start is marred by two-dimensional characters and farcical end

Bonnie Garmus's latest book has a fantastic premise but it ends up farcical beyond the point of belief

Bonnie Garmus: A great premise, but the second half falters. Picture: Moya Nolan

• Peck & Peck 
• Bonnie Garmus 
• Bonnier Books 

Bonnie Garmus’s Peck & Peck follows on from debut bestseller Lessons in Chemistry, moving us from a 1960s research institute to the inner workings of a poetry journal in the 1980s.

Our verse-obsessed protagonist, Batter (named after his mother’s old dog, a fact which becomes quite a feature of the novel), is entranced by renowned publication Peck & Peck, yet on finally securing a job there as their copy assistant, realises that the inside isn’t quite as shiny as it might seem.

One of Garmus’s skills is world-building.

Her depiction of the offices is kaleidoscopic; through Batter’s eyes, we glimpse “thousands upon thousands of silvery metals and burnished coppers, perfectly balanced in precarious-looking mobiles all floating from the twenty-foot-high ceiling like the tentacles of a jellyfish, each a complex arrangement of letters”.

It’s cinematic writing, evoking the wonder-like sense of a dream achieved — this is something that Garmus does well.

It’s a shame then, that beyond a strong start, the second half falters. Much like in Lessons in Chemistry, the characters are quirky, yet here they suffer as two-dimensional.

The figure who shines the brightest isn’t Batter himself, but his office foil, Dexter, who’s wonderfully snide.

However, the rest of the cast are puppet-like, reduced to stereotypes. No characters are more at risk of this than the editors-in-chief of the publication, twins Salton and Declonius. One is predictably evil, one is invariably good, and the result falls a little flat.

Saying that, twins are included throughout the novel, in various iterations, and this is a highlight that makes for some very fun doubling.

The plot starts convincingly as well — the premise of the book is a fantastic one — but in a similar vein to Garmus’s characters, it ends up farcical beyond the point of belief, with strings tied together far too neatly with far too little reasoning by the end.

Peck & Peck certainly has its strong points, with scene setting so effective that surely a screen adaptation is in the works.

Yet for all that wonder, and a hopeful start, the novel remains hollow; the Peck & Peck offices might be brought to life, but its inhabitants remain cardboard cutouts.