SUMMARY:
It’s 1972 and the Sixties are over. Or are they?
When the house they are renting outside of Oneonta, New York, burns to the ground, twenty-four-year old Jeffrey Hesse and his wife, Jane, split up, launching Jeff on a wild journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening. Inspired by an angel calling herself Isadora Duncan, Jeff sets out to see the world and find his place in post Sixties America.
The BookViral Review:
A brutally honest and utterly riveting sexual and intellectual transformation story that swims along literary lines, When Life Was Like A Cucumber proves an extraordinarily powerful debut from Wyss.
There is a lot of wit here, bawdy wordplay, and accounts of long nights spent drinking and taking drugs but don’t let that deter you. This is a read that benefits greatly from attention to detail with Wyss evoking the contours of his mind with extraordinary and often comic vividness.
Superbly written, ambitious in scope and yet without a moment of lapsed energy much period fiction tend towards the clichéd but it’s a credit to Wyss that he wholly manages to avoid beleaguered tropes to deliver something which is wholly original.
Underpinned by social commentary he captures the mood of the moment as we come to know the characters he’s created beyond a state of airy detachment. Sometimes harrowing, often explicit, but always emotionally charged he achieves a remarkable level of intimacy with his readers through his unwavering ability to look to the past and transition the influences of the time to the written word without diminishing them.
An exceptional read When Life Was Like A Cucumber is recommended without reservation.