Portable Veblen (McKenzie)

Book Reviews
One of the great pleasures of reading Elizabeth McKenzie is that she hears the musical potential in language that others do not—in the manufactured jargon of economics, in the Latin taxonomy of the animal kingdom, even in the names of our own humble body part.... Her dialogue has real fizz and snappity-pop. It leaves a bubbled contrail. Ms. McKenzie's ear is not her only asset. There is also her angled way of seeing things. The hats on all of her characters sit slightly askew. The Portable Veblen, Ms. McKenzie's second novel, may be her most cockeyed concoction to date…. It's a screwball comedy with a dash of mental illness; a conventional tale of family pathos; a sendup of Big Pharma; a meditation on consumption, marriage, the nature of work….The Portable Veblen is a novel of such festive originality that it would be a shame to miss.
Jennifer Senior - New  York Times Book Review


Irresistibly comedic…. McKenzie…has an appealingly light, playful touch…. The Portable Veblen is about how very squirrelly family dysfunction can be—and about how, as many of us never get tired of reading, love sometimes can conquer all.
Seattle Times


[A] funny, philosophical novel…. Oddball characters and plot turns abound, including talking squirrels and bureaucratic ironies worthy of Catch-22. But a sober question occupies its core: Do our parents' best intentions do us harm?
Minneapolis Star Tribune


A wild ride that you will not want to miss…rambunctious and sober, hilarious and morbid, [with] strong echoes of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut….This unforgettable novel offers a heartfelt and sincere investigation into the paradoxical nature of love, familial as well as romantic.
Elizabeth Rosner, San Francisco Chronicle


A sweet, sharply written, romantic comedy about the pitfalls of approaching marriage…. McKenzie imbues her characters with such psychological acuity that they, as well as the off-kilter world they inhabit, feel fully formed and authentic…. With its inspired eccentricities and screwball plot choreography, McKenzie’s novel perceptively delves into that difficult life stage when young adults finally separate—or not—from their parents. In the end, The Portable Veblen is a novel as wise as it is squirrely.
Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air


A smart charmer about a brainy off-center couple who face up to their differences—and their difficult, eccentric families—only after they become engaged…. [The Portable Veblen] is ultimately a morality tale about the values by which we choose to live…McKenzie’s delightfully frisky novel touts…a world in which "underdogs and outsiders" like Thorstein Veblen, her appealing cast of oddballs and nonconformists, and even bushy-tailed rodents feel "free to be themselves."
NPR.org


Modern romance, Big Pharma, and one very intuitive squirrel collide in McKenzie’s clever, winningly surreal novel…. McKenzie has a pitch-perfect ear for a certain kind of California kookery…. It’s hard not to be charmed by Veblen’s whimsy.
Entertainment Weekly


Ambitious…. [McKenzie’s domestic scenes] accurately and funnily capture the complexities of modern families, made knotty by the work we’re encouraged to do in our individual lives. Think The Corrections meets The Wallcreeper—where the warring wants of career-centric success and familial harmony converge, tension and comedy emerge.
Huffington Post


No matter how many novels you’ve read, it’s safe to say you’ve never read a novel like The Portable Veblen. The book] brings together its disparate themes and worlds with confidence and dexterity, [making the standard well-made novel seem as timid as—well, as a squirrel.
Slate


(Starred review.) [O]ffbeat and winning.... McKenzie writes with sure-handed perception, and her skillful characterization means that despite all of Veblen’s quirks—she’s an amateur Norwegian translator with an affinity for squirrels—she’s one of the best characters of the year. McKenzie’s funny, lively, addictive novel is sure to be a standout.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) McKenzie skewers modern American culture while quoting from a panoply of voices, with Frank Zappa, Robert Reich, and, of course, Thorstein Veblen among them. The result is a wise and thoroughly engaging story in a satirical style comparable to the works of Christopher Moore and Carl Hiaasen. —Susanne Wells, Indianapolis P.L.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) The reader can't help rooting [the young couple] on. McKenzie's idiosyncratic love story scampers along on a wonderfully zig-zaggy path, dashing and darting in delightfully unexpected directions as it progresses toward its satisfying end and scattering tasty literary passages like nuts along the way.
Kirkus Reviews