The reviews are in!
“A perfect, curl-up-with-a-margarita splash of summer fun. Ms. Bird’s wickedly good grasp of social satire couldn’t be finer.” —The Dallas Morning News
“A delightful tale–part social satire, part comedy, part drama . . . Bird paces her story with rollicking hilarity and scathing insight.” —Candace Horgan, Elle’s Readers’ Prize 2008
“Bird details her pilgrim’s progress with an acute eye and ear–and a scorching sense of humor.” —The Austin Chronicle
“Sparks and laughs fly.” —The New York Post, “Required Reading”
“A fast-paced, fun story by a smart, sensitive woman of a certain age. . . a perfect summer read.” —Palm Beach Post
“A laugh-out-loud addition to Bird’s long line of estrogen-fueled dramedies.” —Publishers Weekly
“Pure wicked fun . . . delivers big laughs.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Smart, sardonic satire and irresistibly irreverent irony.” —Booklist
"Anyone who picks up Sarah Bird’s How Perfect Is That should probably be wearing a flak jacket. This is hard-edge, scary-funny social comedy and not for sissies." —Dave Hickey, author of Air Guitar
"Yes, Texas women are funny, and this novelist proves it. How Perfect Is That is a very funny book." — Fritz Lanham, Houston Chronicle
“How Perfect Is That? Pretty damned perfect. Sarah Bird’s scathingly funny look at red state high society delivers a novel that's equal parts Edith Wharton and Nick Hornby. Hilarious.”–Will Clarke, author of Lord Vishnu's Love Handles and The Worthy
“Friends, you've got a treat in store. A laugh-out-loud riches-to-rags tale, a novel of manners that's perfect for the 'coming to our senses' post-Bush age. How Perfect is That is a fried Twinkie of a book–crunchily witty, creamy-hearted and shockingly delicious.” –Janet Fitch, author of Paint it Black and White Oleander
“Her sarcastic homage to upper crust Texas women is so funny that one shouldn't risk eating or drinking anything while reading it. It's "perfect" for summer.” The Beaumont Enterprise
Praise for Sarah Bird's past work
“Do not eat or drink while reading this book. It has so many laughs I almost choked to death.” –Florence King
“Sarah Bird is a fearless madcap. . . falling-off-the-chair hilarious.” –The Los Angeles Times
“Sarah Bird writes fiction with such energy and snap, her novels seem to be in motion. . . Breathtaking.”
–Dallas Morning News
“Bird’s writing brings to life every person and place. . . Laughter comes often and is uncontrolled. The compulsion to read segments out loud . . . is overwhelming.”–The Chicago Tribune
“A very funny book, too–sometimes savagely so. . . It is, in short, a treat.” –San Jose Mercury News
Austin Chronicle
June 6, 2008
Blythe Young, the social- climbing protagonist of Sarah Bird's new novel, has reached wit's end. For a gal who's always used her wits to climb each rung of the ladder, the realization of her plight at the start of How Perfect Is That is a real buzz kill. Sure, her Code Warrior concoction – a "proprietary blend of Red Bull, Stoli, Ativan, just the tiniest smidge of OxyContin, and one thirty-milligram, timed-release Spansule of Dexedrine" – can stave off the truth for a little while. But once she's been kicked out of the carriage house that she's squatted in since her divorce from an Austin blue blood (and with that ouster, separated from the stash she kept hidden in an ice cream container in the freezer), Blythe Young can no longer maintain the illusion which her made-up name implies. The road does not go on forever.
Bird's new novel is a valentine to Austin, the city the author calls home. Set in 2003, the story of Blythe's tribulations is grounded in physical and geographical references that instantly ring true to the Austin reader. Underlining her descriptions of the tangible, however, is Bird's cagier objective: using Blythe as a metaphor for the conscienceless profligacy of the Bush years. Blythe's catering company, Wretched Xcess, got drunk on the free-flowing money of Austin tech boom, only to crater in the wake of the Dellionaires' downturn and the divorce from her husband and his connections. Everything, after all, is connections – and in Austin society in 2003, the ultimate connection is to George and Laura.
Once cast out of Pemberton Heights society and dunned by the IRS, Blythe's trajectory leaves her parked in her company minivan outside the university co-op she had lived in as a graduate student. With nowhere lower to sink than utter vagrancy, Blythe takes up residence in her old haunt and begins her redemption – but not without her instinctive wiles and scams. Bird details her pilgrim's progress with an acute eye and ear for the lifeblood of Austin – the parvenus and old-money socialites, the old hippies and young vegans, the LUGs (lesbians until graduation) and the lobbyists. Like Blythe, Bird accomplishes it with wit – and a scorching sense of humor.
BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN
Publishers Weekly
How Perfect Is That
Sarah Bird. Knopf, $23.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-307-26828-0
In the latest from seasoned Texan social satirist Bird (The Flamenco Academy, etc.), Blythe Young’s recent divorce from Trey Dix has left her outside the protective bubble of Austin’s high society. As her catering business goes broke and the IRS starts to chase her down, Blythe seeks a haven at Seneca House, the housing co-op where she lived 10 years ago during college. There, she must face Millie Ott, one of many friends Blythe shucked off in a frenzy of social climbing. Once portly Millie is now slender and, as a perfect foil for Blythe, also saintly: she delivers aid to the homeless by way of a tandem recumbent bike (which Blythe names the “dorkocycle”). At Seneca House, Blythe tries to make amends with people she’s stepped on, to avoid the IRS, and to kick both a lingering drug habit and an addiction to scamming people into helping her out. She slowly starts to wins over the affection of her housemates until one of her unthinking decisions brings potential ruin on the co-op’s financial well-being. The result is a laugh-out-loud addition to Bird’s long line of estrogen-fueled dramedies. (June)
Kirkus Reviews
Bird delivers big laughs with her spot-on examination of Texas’s high falutin’ ladies; reading about Blythe’s antics is pure, wicked fun.
Booklist
Bird infuses her riches-to-rags tale with enough smart, sardonic satire and irresistibly irreverent irony to uproariously outweigh any moral misgivings.
Praise for How Perfect Is That
Friends, you've got a treat in store. A laugh-out-loud riches-to-rags tale, a novel of manners that's perfect for the 'coming to our senses' post-Bush age. How Perfect is That is a fried Twinkie of a book--crunchily witty, cream-hearted and shockingly delicious.
--Janet Fitch, Paint it Black and White Oleander.
"How Perfect Is That? Pretty damned perfect. Sarah Bird’s scathingly funny look at red state high society delivers a novel that's equal parts Edith Wharton and Nick Hornby. Hilarious.”
--Will Clarke, author of Lord Vishnu's Love Handles and "The Worthy
How to be a Popular Girl
by Dick Holland, The Austin Chronicle
Sarah Bird is coming over for lunch and she's promised to bring her latest production -- the soundtrack to her new novel, The Yokota Officers Club. Her e-mail had said: "You'll get my Napster when you pry the mouse from my cold, dead hand."
Later, she will dance, but now, as we visit over pimiento cheese and root beer, we hear, from the other room, "Brown-Eyed Girl," the Van Morrison classic important to the plot of the novel since it's the featured number in a go-go dancing competition. Also prominent in the soundtrack are
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Passion with a Beat - Rivalry and romance fuel glimpse into world of flamenco
By Charles Matthews
In her latest, The Flamenco Academy, Bird has given us another coming-of-age story, but her central plot is one that Tory Cates might have dreamed up: A shy virgin meets a dark, handsome, mysterious man who awakens in her the possibilities of passion, but when he disappears from her life as suddenly as he entered it, she becomes obsessed with finding and winning him.
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A Conversation with Sarah Bird, author of the novel The Flamenco Academy
BookBrowse.com
How did you decide to take on the subject of Flamenco for a novel?
The one subject that I always knew I wanted to write about was an obsessive love affair I had that began when I was 16 and fell in love at first sight with a deliriously handsome young man and remained so until I was 23. For years I tried to capture this experience on paper, but it always came out as a suburban melodrama.
When I was 20 and living with Beloved, I walked in on him in bed with a friend. Realizing that I had to put at least an ocean between us or I would never break free, I went to Europe. So, dazed and heartbroken, I hitchhiked and Eurailed for a year and a half. During that time I found a job as a tour guide in a botanical garden owned by White Russian émigrés on Spain’s Costa Brava. One very late night, very early morning, in a tiny club outside of Barcelona, I saw an astonishing performance of what I would learn later was flamenco.
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Tour De Farce
by Sarah Bird, Texas Monthly
Don’t bring your kid! And other things parents should know when it’s time to visit college campuses. As a Texas mom, I always assumed that college would be a no-brainer. If you wanted your child to get a world-class education, you sent him to the University of Texas. If you wanted him to have unnatural congress with barnyard animals, it was off to Texas A&M. Something for everyone. But like so much else about parenthood, from potty training to the home tonsillectomy, it turned out to be vastly more complicated than I’d been led to believe.
My first shocking discovery was that the majority of the kids UT accepts are in the top 10 percent of their class. I take that on faith, since a quick stroll across the Forty Acres reveals myriad flip-flopped chuckleheads who look to have been in the top 10 percent of their class in, maybe, Gap Sweater Folding for Condescending Teens.
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