Kiss Me, Stranger

Tanner's scrappy debut plunges readers into a hyperactive, nonsensical alternate universe in which a family's life is made hell by a government gone nuts. Heroine Penelope has 14 children, and her husband and oldest son are away serving in the military, leaving her to contend with regular visits from a grumpy government scrap metal collector. After Penelope slaps the Metal Man for trying to take her oven racks to melt down into munitions, the family goes on the run, seeking refuge in a landfill, surviving as scavengers, and dodging cannibals. Penelope dreams of her husband and eldest son's adventures, and with revolution in the air, the questions become, will life get better under a new regime and will she see her loved ones again? At its best, the novel reads like a send up of The Road by a young Kurt Vonnegut, but these moments are few, with Tanner decreasingly interested in imparting significance to the frantic comic absurdities that pile up with alarming speed. (Feb.)