Michael Kent

In Pop the Plug we find the iconoclastic Albert "Big Jiggety" Nostran about to graduate from a diminutive rural New England college. He has extricated himself from a thorny patch of a year all but tethered to a 97.5 percent incompatible roommate. While his lady quest has remained fraught, as he clutches his hard-earned diploma, a certain dark English professor reemerges, inviting him out to dinner to celebrate a new commencement. It is a pivotal moment for all the Nostrans: Back in France, where his immediate family has sought exile for 20 odd years, his tempestuous father, Quentin, has retired. His younger brother, Simon, has finished high-school. Upon his return, Albert becomes something of an organizer/conductor as the whole family gradually empties the grand old house, the home where he grew up, destination: America. In this second Nostran installment, the protagonist grapples with more the New World's many idiosyncracies, no longer alone. Hobbled by an aging husband and difficult to fathom circumstances, his mother asserts herself now as she seldom has in the land of Meaux mustard and Brie cheese. After exploring some of his old college haunts, attempting to rekindle the friendship Albert once enjoyed with brother Simon, the latter is whisked off himself to the world of higher education. The recent graduate must contend with his father's exponential barrage of venom. And find a job, a mountain he never had to climb living overseas as a non-citizen. Pop the Plug explores the chiasm pried open as the neurotic world of school no longer extends its safety net. It also relates the many sparks that flicker and sear within a complex father-son relationship. Angst-ridden though it may sound, the novel is also perforated with humor. Pointed observations, pithy dialogue give the reader ample reason to forge ahead and delight in the protagonists' tribulations which include a trial. Literally.

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