Gullboy: The Inconceivable Life of Franco Parjarito Zanpa

More than a few writers have used New York's Coney Island as backdrop, but none have created a hybrid of decay and beauty quite like Rubenstein in his debut novel. The story centers on Ernesto Zanpa, a hard-luck loser who finds Franco the "Gullboy," half bird and half boy, in a seagull nest near the beach, and takes him in as his own. Ernesto is neither motivated nor smart, and his deficiencies are magnified by the many schemes of his money-obsessed streetwalker wife, Venus, and her ambulance chasing lawyer, Irv. From Venus's rise to Web cam stardom to Irv's problems with the Russian mob, their machinations over the fate of young Franco provide the black comedy that drives the book, but too many subplots create a muddle. Each tangent steals momentum from what should be the main story, further sapped by the disjointed way in which Rubenstein jumps from one character to another within each chapter. Ultimately, despite the richness of the imagery, the book is very much like the Gullboy himself—its abnormalities prevent it from fully developing. (Sept.)