(One character even owns a lot of Frank Zappa CDs.) The roundelay of comic episodes that America finds herself in as she splashes about trying to make sense of her rudderless life are deftly intertwined with some painful, touching recollections of her dad’s. Hewing fast to the write-what-you-know maxim, her portrait of America’s family is seems to be thinly veiled personal history. As much as the premise sounds like that of every other Bridget Jones rip-off, Zappa manages to give a new spin to these sometimes stale scenarios. Having invested most of her life in Jasper-as part of an ongoing attempt to get approval from men now that her inattentive father has died-there’s nothing to stop her slide into dementia. After Jasper’s bombshell fax, America launches herself into a full-blown frenzy of binge-eating, self-hatred, and borderline-stalker behavior. But her boyfriend, Jasper, just faxed from San Francisco saying that they’ve grown apart and it’s over, her mother is an overbearing loon who spends her days flitting between different neuroses and New Age fads, and she doesn’t have any career besides some occasional voiceover work. She’s a mentally young 30-year-old with an artist boyfriend and no pressing need to find a career, thanks to the monthly allowance from the estate of her late father, revered shock artist Boris Throne. Narrator America Throne shouldn’t really have any problems. Famous daughter, now first-novelist Zappa spins a story about obsession and heartbreak.
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