“Suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium.” – Cyril Connolly
Getting a glimpse at the residents of Jasper Lane was a bit like peeking into the windows of a museum for the artfully deranged, and the scrim of Eric Arvin’s screwball suburbia is in the curb appeal that has nothing to do with manicured lawns and gingerbread trim, and everything to do with the mad-scape of the people whose secrets and lies and wondrous proclivities make me want to settle there and fill my lawn with pink flamingoes and ceramic gnomes, and host my own parties that will become legendary in the annals of debauchery and depravity.
Subsurdity is a block-party sitcom where the morality is policed by Melinda Gold and her mother, a harpy of an old woman whose only redeeming feature is the comedic gas-mine of her chronic fart problem. Eric Arvin skewers the illusion of the perfect suburban neighborhood with a voyeur’s eye view of exactly what goes on behind closed doors on Jasper Lane, where Cassie Bloom holds court and hosts gay porn parties, where out of work husband and expectant father, Steve Jones, becomes a gay-for-pay porn star—and suddenly keeping-up-with-the-Joneses takes on a whole new meaning. It’s the place Gayhound the homosexual dog calls home; where “Better Homes & Gardens” meets “Murder Most Likely”; where “good Christian” is an oxymoron of biblical proportions that threatens to strangle the very life out of seventeen-year-old Patrick Gold; where nothing spells humiliation like your tongue stud getting stuck in the UPS guy’s Prince Albert—for all your neighbors to witness—and where, amidst all the absurdity, a lovely little romance blooms between Rick Cooper and James Tucker. That is, if James can find the strength to come out of the closet.
Folks, Subsurdity ain’t your mama’s daytime soap opera, that’s for sure. It takes the monochromatic suburban life and transforms it into an in-living-color satire where the characters put the “fun” in dys-fun-ctional, and I’d gladly turn off my Kindle and tune into that fun, if only to gawk and wonder why my life is such an utter snooze.
Eric Arvin is a GayRomLit participant (and fellow Hoosier. :-D). You can visit Eric’s blog HERE.
Buy Subsurdity HERE.