On the HahaFiction shelf
Jitterbug Perfume
King Alobar wants to escape death. Perfumers in New Orleans, Seattle and Paris want to create an extraordinary scent. Their pursuits cross centuries, with a mysterious bottle and the god Pan among the things connecting them.
From the publisher’s blurb
“the hero of this one is a janitor with a missing bottle”Read the full description at Penguin Random House’s description
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What makes it funny?
Robbins interrupts grand questions about mortality with puns and lavishly exaggerated description. Kirkus singles out a joke that puts Descartes into a familiar saying about a cart and a horse. The publisher’s opening makes the discovery of a white hair an elaborate royal crisis.
The comedy at work
The quest for immortality shares space with the practical business of making perfume. Robbins moves between ancient travelers and modern scent makers, letting philosophical speculation and verbal jokes take long detours through the story.
Try this if…
Book-group readers recommend Jitterbug Perfume as a way into Robbins’s witty, irreverent storytelling. It offers more to readers who enjoy elaborate narration and philosophical asides than to those who want every sentence to advance the plot.
Good to know
The opening contains explicit sexual material. Kirkus found some of the asides juvenile and the puns groan-inducing, so tolerance for Robbins’s verbal digressions may shape your response.
More funny contemporary & literary
Sources & further reading
- Kirkus review
Review
- Publisher: edition and opening excerpt
Publisher
- Reader discussion
Reader discussion
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