Sale Day at C-Mart

Sale Day at C-Mart
by Joe Basara
(5/5 stars)

The best way to describe this book might be to say it's the absurdist class struggle of "Catch-22" fused with the retail comedy of the movie "Clerks."  I found this combination to be very entertaining and a step up from his debut "Cypress Lake."

This story takes place in Cypress Lake, though it's set a few years later in the mid-80s.  C-Mart is a big box chain store not unlike KMart and like KMart it has a hated rival known as T-Mart.  The management of both stores have the brilliant idea of a Christmas in July sale.  The book takes place during this sale day (hence the title) through the points of view of the store's employees.

The employees spend much of their time hopping around working (or trying to avoid working)to meet management's impossible demands.  The Powers That Be in Atlanta decree to "spread 'em thin" to avoid paying too many salaries, which often leaves stock piled up and displays a shambles and frustrated customers going across the street.  Three new employees are inserted into the chaos of C-Mart and things get off to a great start when their training person calls in sick because of a night of partying.  Thus they're left to fend for themselves.

The customers become increasingly nutty, sometimes to an exceedingly surrealistic extent.  There are a few times when the author problem should have toned it down, but for the most part it makes for an entertaining story as the employees struggle to meet management's crazy demands and the craziness of the customers.  But it never manages to get as dark as a "Catch-22."  In fact there's even a happy ending.  Well, it is Christmas after all...or Christmas in July.

Basara's writing is as good or better than novels you would pay many times more for, which makes this a really good bargain for anyone who wants a well-written tale of absurdist humor.  Or maybe if you work at a C-Mart type place and want a little catharsis.

That is all.