{"id":996,"date":"2018-10-19T03:50:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T03:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/?p=996"},"modified":"2018-10-25T12:48:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T12:48:27","slug":"book-review-toyer-by-gardner-mckay-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/19\/book-review-toyer-by-gardner-mckay-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Toyer by Gardner McKay (1999)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Toyer
Toyer cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adventures in Paradise<\/em> actor Gardner McKay\u2019s novel, Toyer<\/em>, is a haunting and inventive thriller. Also produced as a play by McKay, the novel is a compulsively readable, if not slightly long-winded, examination of the media\u2019s relationship with violence, the dark side of Los Angeles, and madness in and of itself.<\/p>\n

The heroine of Toyer<\/em> is Maude, a strong-willed neurologist who has been caring for the victims of the so-called \u201cToyer\u201d for his year-plus spree. Toyer can\u2019t exactly be deemed a serial killer since he leaves his victims alive– though in a completely incapacitated and vegetative state. The press nicknamed him \u201cToyer\u201d because of his M.O., one that centers around tormenting his victims before lobotomizing them.<\/p>\n

What makes Toyer<\/em> rise above other thrillers is the insight it provides into the effects of the perpetrator\u2019s havoc. Madness is passed from one person involved in the case to the next, with Maude as the primary recipient. When Toyer starts communicating with the press, the media sensation that surrounds it becomes a business in and of itself, leading to everything from a major book deal to potential movie right options.<\/p>\n

Toyer<\/em> is also, perhaps more than anything, an examination of Los Angeles as a house of insanity. It studies all the types who gravitate to it, from the wannabe actors to the various professionals wading through the scenes. Through McKay\u2019s eyes, they\u2019re all susceptible victims to the city\u2019s uncompromisingly overbearing atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The primary fault to Toyer <\/em>is that it seems McKay was so in love with writing it that he didn\u2019t want to stop. By the book\u2019s last hundred of its near-five-hundred pages, his sometimes overly-flamboyant (though often charming) prose makes a bit of a nuisance of itself. This doesn\u2019t prevent the book from reaching a successful and appropriately disturbing climax, however.<\/p>\n

There was talk in the last decade of Toyer <\/em>being adapted for the screen by filmmaker Brian De Palma. It\u2019s a pity that the project now appears dead, as the book reads just like one of the director\u2019s tongue-in-cheek, surreally dream-like \u201cHitchcockian\u201d thrillers. Toyer <\/em>is such a cinematic read that it practically demands an adaptation one day. Until that day comes, however, tracking down a copy of Toyer <\/em>will give you the kind of disturbing satisfaction that only a good, hopelessly twisted, thriller can provide.<\/p>\n

GRADE: B+<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adventures in Paradise actor Gardner McKay\u2019s novel, Toyer, is a haunting and inventive thriller. Also produced as a play by McKay, the novel is a compulsively readable, if not slightly long-winded, examination of the media\u2019s relationship with violence, the dark side of Los Angeles, and madness in and of itself. The heroine of Toyer is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1114,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions\/1114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}