Cooking Bacon Naked
Stephen E. Chatman
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What a marvelously humorous and witty dialogue Stephen E. Chatman has endowed us with with his newest novel Cooking Bacon Naked. Throughout the meritorious depths of Cooking Chatman flaunts his stick-and-move philosophy, beguiling the reader with his flamboyant stunts as would the main event at Mandalay Bay. His epic storyline revolves around the lives of Stephen (an ex-boxer and guzzler of cheap Merlot with issues of grand proportions) and his love interest Liza, with notable appearances by Stephen’s “other” women: Max, Melody and Rachel, the money-grubbing mother of his child.

As we each know, relationships and the maintaining of these relationships is often a 24-7 deal. (Ordeal in Stephen’s case.) But what Chatman does is toss obstacles in the path of his protagonist’s juggling routine, expecting him to maintain a perfect balance. This makes for hilarious entertainment: watching Stephen drop the balls and struggle to begin anew…

This brilliant melee is told from the perspective (or reality) of the male mind. And having the ability to gaze into the reality of what makes man tick is refreshingly well worth the read. As Chatman allows Stephen to stumble and trip over his often chauvinistic philosophy and fighter mentality, the reader is brought into that very reality. Thus is the skill of Chatman to entice with grand flare.

“Never let a guy come up behind you. You could get the life beat out of you,” Stephen says frequently throughout Cooking, as if this is the most brilliant philosophy ever. In fact this philosophy is very reasonable. Though when considering how Chatman places Stephen in situations where the resolutions are so obvious to the reader – especially the female reader – “make sure your opponents gloves are in front of you” would suffice as a more plausible and respectable philosophy.

The repetition of that statement sets the mood for the hilarious scenarios and the laughable conversations we share with Stephen. This is what makes this novel truly special.

At one point in Cooking a hotheaded Stephen comes forth to do Max’s bidding:

[pg. 67]
“So Max sent you? Max, Max, it’s always Max. Answer me this,” he quips.
Omar draws on his cigarette and exhales out of the corner of his mouth. Here it comes! I just knew he would blow the smoke in my face. That would have been majorly disrespectful and it’s what I would have done, if I smoked…

Later in the menagerie we see another example of Stephen’s great philosophy:

[pg. 115]
For years, the cronies took turns granting themselves big raises and fat-cat bonuses on top of bigger bonuses for their self-proclaimed vice-president titles. In my neighborhood, gang signs are flashed to identify your allegiance. Around the vice presidents, you gain allegiance by laughing heartily at anything they say that is an attempt at humor. Just to piss them off, I laugh as hard as I can before they even finish their joke. I suppose that’s a form of reverse brown-nosing.

Chatman entices with his humor and stuns with the voracity of his truth. In one memorable scene Stephen is in jail after having punched a security guard in the nose for “being allergic to flashlights.”

[pg. 149]
…Sometimes you have to ring a guy’s bell to get him off your back. And if it’s not the pervert, it’s the convert who has spent his life stealing, beating and killing…but now wants to preach religion to me, while he awaits conviction for a quadruple homicide… This guy walks around with one of those picture bibles made for kids, since he can’t even pronounce words on an eye chart. If you take the time to listen to his wild interpretations of the bible, you’ll hear about Moses giving Eve an apple atop MountEden.

Humorous throughout without a doubt… And although the ending was a bit disappointing, what makes this novel such a rock amongst the sea of new literature is that Chatman doesn’t shy away from taking risks. His “go-for-it” mentality really works wonders for the funnybone in all of us.

There are no if-ands-or-buts about it, if one fries up some bacon in his birthday-suit one is liable to get splashed by sizzling bacon grease. This analogy is likely the reason for the title Cooking Bacon Naked – one must be prepared to be splashed with Chatman’s wit!

5 stars – Exhilarating, Hilarious & Suave

Copyright © 2006 Jacquii Cooke

Available at Amazon.com