Changes

|title=Lightning Rods

|author=Helen DeWitt

|reviewer=Ani Johnson

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=978-0811220347

|pages=273

|publisher=And Other Stories

|date=September 2012

|website=http://www.helendewitt.com

|summary=This funny, well-observed satire on the American Dream isn't for those expecting another ''The Last Samurai'' or the easily shocked. A very good read but not one for the kiddies!

}}

Joe is a salesman on the verge of giving up. Having lost all confidence in his ability to sell vacuum cleaners to Middle America, he creates and elaborates on a fantasy just for fun. It includes a woman being 'serviced' from behind, her partner obscured by a waist high wall. The only thing any over-the-wall voyeur sees is an innocent activity e.g. she may manicure her nails.

Helen Dewitt's skill and wish not to be pigeon holed definitely shine through as we smile about a business (and, metaphorically, a country) that strays unaware from innocence to enforce a system that's both socially and professionally inappropriate whilst being led incrementally along a pathway of apparent well-argued coherence. We find it amusing because we recognise the allegory and the USA and because we're safe in the knowledge that the same metaphor wouldn't hold up for our country. Well, it wouldn't… Would it?

If you've enjoyed this and would like to stick with the satirically unusual, we heartily recommend [[Albert of Adelaide by Howard L Anderson]]. (There's a lot less jiggy with it too by the way.)

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