Johnny Be Bad, But Be Good at It

by Tony Fonseca

05/14/2007

Ostentatious, Johnny. Afterlife Battlefield. Philadelphia, PA: Active Bladder, 2006. 249 p.

What do loner/punker Zack Fury, Johns Hopkins educated ophthalmologist Prescott Rosenthal, and Melody Holiday, the lead singer for an Australian Indie band, have in common? Well, for one thing, being suicides they all end up at the New Arrivals afterlife battlefield, where they are fought over between sword wielding skeletons who ride zombie horses and martial arts experts who ride giant flying tarantulas. That is if they can escape the giant, Joshua Tree shaped Venus Flytraps.

This surreal but colorful otherworld is the creation of one Johnny Ostentatious. Ostentatious (www.johnnyostentatious.com), writer, prank phone call expert, and all-around punk rocker who is also the brains behind Active Bladder Press (www.activebladder.com), which currently has four novels to its credit (three by Ostentatious, and one by James R. Cain). As someone who has always dreamed of running a small press and is actually on the verge of doing so (more about that in the future), I have to hand it to Ostentatious—especially if Afterlife Battlefield exemplifies the quality of work that will be coming out of this little known publisher.

Let me begin by saying that Afterlife Battlefield is the type of novel I most enjoy picking up. It’s what I would term a smart, witty, often sardonic but fun read. My favorite novelists include the likes of Twain, Pynchon, Vonnegut, Rushdie, and newcomer Chuck Palahniuk, satirists all. Each is the type of author who has an axe to grind, a demented, often degenerate sense of humor, and an uncanny knack for letting people make fun of themselves. Each is what I would call an equal opportunity parodist, in that no one, not even the “sympathetic” narrator or protagonist, escape ridicule. Like the writers mentioned, Ostentatious also has a penchant for writing dialogue. The best parts of Afterlife Battlefield occur when the prim and proper Rosenthal interacts with the in-your-face humanity (to borrow a phrase from The Simpsons) of Fury. When the two converse, readers will not help but smirk, and sometimes will find themselves laughing out loud. When Fury goes on a rant, readers will find themselves thinking a cross between Dennis Miller and The Satanic Verses.

That being said, I have to qualify my recommendation of this novel: it is unfortunately, not going to appeal to those of you who are looking for horror per se. Granted, there are giant spiders and zombie horses, and some kick-ass skeletal acrobatics with swords, but the sense of repulsion mixed with fear or terror, or at least the sense of disquiet which defines horror is not to be found here. I would have to place Afterlife Battlefield squarely in the realm of dark fantasy. Ostentatious treats his subject matter more with a sense of wonder than anything else, even though his characters do express fleeting senses of fear. After all, human eating plants, giant flying tarantulas and a horse that’s a horse even though it’s a corpse (sorry, couldn’t resist) are nothing to sneeze at. What is missing is the overwhelming sense of fear that accompanies horror, that emotion that makes characters feel helpless and realize their own mortality, and by extension plays the same trick with the reader’s emotions.

However, if anyone reading this review is also a fan of dark fantasy, satire, or comedy, I would highly recommend picking up a copy of this novel. Ostentatious is a talented writer who seems to enjoy what he’s doing, which translates into an enjoyable read. You’ll get the feeling reading this that the author would be a cool person to sit a table with, with a pitcher and a lot of free time between you. You may just have to kick him under the table every now and then to keep him from getting you both arrested.