My Landlady the Lobotomist

MY LANDLADY THE LOBOTOMIST tells of a man who's lost someone very close to him. Simple, right? It isn't. Gerdes creates a rich, multi-faceted internal dreamscape. The protagonist is fractured. One part is a man who lives in an apartment house run by a woman who keeps frontal lobes in jars & labels them with their particular affliction. Another part is a dragonfly, forever searching for his "Angelfish." A third part is a raging Godzilla, searching for the evil She-sus. The dragonfly has a dreamy, yearning element to him, seeking the river for his elusive Angelfish, wondering if he's lost her for good, placing the opposite sex on a nearly impossible romantic pedestal. The Godzilla creature is an angry beast, destroying anything that stands in his path, on a rampage for a female who has caused him much grievance. Then there's the first part, a lonely college professor dealing with the often absurd predicaments & people populating his world, trying not to lose his heart or, egad, his frontal lobe. Gerdes displays a true love of words & has fun with language while keeping the narrative accessible. He also references things as obscure as Steve Hillage's FISH RISING which, if you know what they're referring to, will make this book all the more enjoyable. & if you don't get them, they're not so predominant as to be irritating.