The town psychiatrist has decided to switch everybody in Pine Cove, California, from their normal antidepressants to placebos, so naturally—well, to be accurate, artificially—business is booming at the local blues bar. Trouble is, those lonely slide-guitar notes have also attracted a colossal sea beast named Steve with, shall we say, a thing for explosive oil tanker trucks. Suddenly, morose Pine Cove turns libidinous and is hit by a mysterious crime wave, and a beleaguered constable has to fight off his own gonzo appetites to find out what's wrong and what, if anything, to do about it.

Amazon.com Review
Reading a Christopher Moore novel is a little like eating a potato chip--it's hard to stop at just one. And you don't have to look beyond the titles to understand the allure; who could pass up a book called Practical Demonkeeping or Island of the Sequined Love Nun? Each of Moore's tales skewers a particular literary genre. In Coyote Blue he nailed New Age fascination with Native American religion; in Blood-Sucking Fiends: A Love Story he put a new twist on the classic vampire tale. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is a companion piece to his first novel, the hilariously twisted horror story Practical Demonkeeping, and readers of that book will recognize the setting, Pine Cove, California. In addition, Moore includes plenty of his patented weird sex, occasional gross-out death, several off-kilter but nonetheless affecting love stories, and some fabulous secondary characters such as Mavis Sand:

Mavis first began augmenting her parts in the fifties, first out of vanity: breasts, eyelashes, hair. Later, as she aged and the concept of maintenance eluded her, she began having parts replaced as they failed, until almost half of her body weight was composed of stainless steel (hips, elbows, shoulders, finger joints, rods fused to vertebrae five through twelve), silicon wafers (hearing aids, pacemaker, insulin pump), advanced polymer resins (cataract replacement lenses, dentures), Kevlar fabric (abdominal wall reinforcement), titanium (knees, ankles), and pork (ventricular heart valve).

In a nutshell, the plot revolves around a gigantic prehistoric lizard whose slumber deep beneath the ocean surface is interrupted by a radioactive leak from a nearby power plant. At the same time, a woman in Pine Cove hangs herself; the local psychiatrist (who has been prescribing antidepressants to everyone in town with gay abandon) decides the suicide was her fault and yanks everyone's medication; and an elderly black blues singer named Catfish Jefferson arrives to perform at the Head of the Slug saloon. Into this already strange brew mix one schizoid former B-movie starlet, a pot-head town constable, a bereaved local artist, a biologist tracking anomalous behavior in rats, a crooked sheriff, and a pharmacist with a bizarre sexual fixation on sea mammals, and you have a recipe for the kind of madness Moore does so well. --Alix Wilber

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 112 reviews)

Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

I first read this book when it was first published. I bought this copy for my 17 year old because I feel it is an important strand of our cultural heritage. Chris Moore writes wonderful parodies in the ilk of Tom Robbins and Kurt vonnegut. I was right, my stuck in AP English classes son loved this novel. It has been making the rounds since he finished it. I was a lit major and was shocked to learn that his teachers had never heard of Chris Moore.
December 28, 2008

... dies laughing.

If you've read Chris Moore, you know you'll be laughing from the first page on. If you haven't read his books before, get ready. He's got to be the funniest fiction writer to come along in at least 30 years!
October 25, 2008

Randomness supreme

This is one of Christopher Moore's best works. It is very funny, random, and thoroughly enjoyable. Must be slightly eccentric to find it amusing. Not a "traditional" humor novel.
October 15, 2008

kind of cute, but highly contrived and comparatively weak

Christopher Moore has culled a reputation as a macabre Tim Robinson: his books are amusing love stories with quirky characters, a surreal feel, and dark sense of humor. Such is the case with LLOMC, and if you're already a fan of Moore you will know what to expect (and probably like this) but if you're a novice to his works, either skip this as a starting point or at least read one of his better works first.

This book has some potential, and certainly a couple of chuckles, but over-all it exemplifies one of the problems I have with Moore that prevents me from giving any of his works 5 stars: he relies on highly contrived events that work best if you turn your brain off and ignore the "convenience"/deux ex machina. In this case, much of the book hinges on our accepting that a female character would start a "relationship" with what is essentially Godzilla -- rather than the latter more "realistically" just eating her from the get-go (as the critter does with everyone else it encounters.) That had me grumbling, as it just struck me as lazy writing.

Moore has done better (Lamb, Dirty Job) but he's also done worse (You Suck!) and by the end this just struck me as a so-so effort from him. On the bright side, it is quick reading and comparatively light, so if you don't mind a "trust the author/go with the flow" story, it's worth reading once if you have a long plane flight or need to work on your tan at the beach.
October 11, 2008

fun silly summer read

This was a fun, silly summer read. Some good lines and imagery. Not quite as fun as some of his other books.
July 19, 2008

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Practical Demonkeeping
by Christopher Moore

Island of the Sequined Love Nun
by Christopher Moore

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
by Christopher Moore

Coyote Blue: A Novel
by Christopher Moore

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story
by Christopher Moore