The Rich Part of Life

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Teddy Pappas is an eleven-year-old boy forced into maturity before his time. He lives with his younger brother and their eccentric Civil War historian father, a man more comfortable with discussing Confederate footwear than what kind of day his sons had. Their lives have been quiet for a year since the real lifeblood of their household, Teddy's mother, died in a tragic car accident. On the one-year anniversary of her death, Teddy's stoic father plays his wife's favorite lottery numbers in a tender, uncharacteristic act. When it turns out that the family holds the $190 million winning ticket, their world is instantly transformed." "Seemingly overnight, a host of colorful characters demands their attention, including Teddy's hilarious aunt and uncle, a beautiful divorcee, a desperate former soap opera star, and a menacing stranger who threatens the very core of the family. As events spiral out of control, the family struggles to discover what "the rich part of life" really is."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Howard Bahr

Mr. Kokoris' talent is evident on every page. He is in touch with the human spirit and offers, in this postmodern world, a refreshing hope for redemption.

Publishers Weekly

A lottery fantasy comes with strings attached for a reclusive history professor in Kokoris's quirky, engaging debut, which begins when widowed academic Theo Pappas hits the jackpot to the tune of $190 million by playing his late wife's favorite numbers. But a quiet life of studying the Civil War in the Chicago suburbs and caring for two young sons has hardly prepared him for instant wealth, and after banking the cash he finds himself fending off an army of scam artists who want a piece of his newfound prosperity. Some of those with a vested interest are family members most notably Theo's cheesy younger brother, Frank, an erstwhile filmmaker who shows up looking for cash after his latest B-movie fails. Frank is followed by one of his shadier charges, an aging actor named Sylvanius who played a vampire in a daytime soap opera, and family life gets a bit complicated when Sylvanius takes a romantic interest in Theo's aging Aunt Bess, who has made the journey down from Milwaukee. But the biggest shock is the arrival of Theo's wife's first husband, a redneck named Bobby Lee Anderson, who claims to be the biological father of the professor's older son, Teddy, the precocious 12-year-old who narrates the story. The custody battle that follows generates most of the drama in this novel of character, and Kokoris gets considerable mileage from the extensive foibles of his bizarre cast. A subtle sense of humor as sweet as it is wicked and winning dialogue keep up the momentum, and Kokoris smartly steers clear of the obvious clich s of newfound wealth inherent in his plot. The result is a winning tale that bodes well for this writer's future. Author tour. (May) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Winsomeness and whimsy are laid on with a trowel in this nevertheless quite likable debut about a suburban Illinois family transformed by outrageous misfortune, and even more outrageous good fortune. While Theo Pappas, a 60-ish university history prof (and Civil War specialist) and his two sons are grieving the loss of the boys' mother, Theo wins $190 million in a state lottery. Twelve-year-old Teddy (who narrates) begins mentally spending the money his father can't seem to deal with, and younger brother Tommy begins exhibiting increasingly deranged behavior, while the world beats a path to the Pappases' door, begging contributions for innumerable causes and crackpot schemes. Unmarried Aunt Bess (a wonderful comic character) joins the family, followed by seedy-looking Uncle Frank, a fast-talking producer of "genre" movies (which feature "vampire cheerleaders" and "Celebrity Shewolves"), hoping to elude the loan sharks on his trail. It isn't all as amusing as it should be, because too many scenes are unshaped and unfunny, and Kokoris doesn't know when to modulate the appearances of such initially promising figures as rapacious Gloria Wilcott, the bosomy neighbor who aims to capture Theo, or the campy leech known as Sylvanius ("the vampire who starred in . . . Uncle Frank's movies")-a cross between Quentin Crisp and Ed Wood, Jr. The novel also flounders in an overextended account of a cheesy reenactment of the Battle of Bull Run (in which Theo is persuaded to impersonate "Stonewall" Jackson), and in the subplot involving Bobby Lee Anderson, the redneck stalker whose real relationship to the Pappases will not surprise any reader past adolescence. For all that, Teddy andespeciallyfive-year-old Tommy are vivid, engaging characters, and the story comes to life whenever Kokoris indulges his flair for farcical malapropism and misstatement ("This all reminds me of a Norman Rockwell movie," etc.). And it has one immortal moment: Uncle Frank's sullen declaration that "By nature, Greeks are depressed people . . . . We're not all Zorba." Now that's funny.