I've seen Thomas McGuane's
Ninety-Two in the Shade described as "written on drugs", which may be a fair description, but it's a funny, worthwhile novel. A story of going crazy, family issues, lost potential, certain death, fishing, love affairs, dropping acid, rodents eating cake, living in a bomber fuselage, relatives running whorehouses, women with shopping compulsions, bonefish, rubes from the Midwest, told through bursts of literary pyrotechnics.
I don't have much else to add here. The prose can occasionally become overwrought, and the characters maddening. The plot (described in another review as "ephemeral as a cocaine high") moves swiftly and inevitably, and the ending is, if not satisfying, then worth a smirk. I plan to re-read this at some point, just for the fireworks.
This isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's a quick overview of Roman culture, customs, and mores written in the style of a travel guide. While not for the serious scholar, it's a fair introduction to daily life in the greatest city the world would see for over a thousand years. The author also breaks up each section with short passages from Roman writers like Martial, Horace, Virgil, and Juvenal.
Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana wasn't considered by its author as one of his serious novels, instead being "an entertainment". A lighthearted comedy set during the Cold War during the last gasps Fulgencio Batista's regime (Castro disliked the novel because it trivializes the cruelties of Batista), it's the story of a vacuum cleaner salesman who's recruited into Britain's secret service.
I've seen Thomas McGuane's Ninety-Two in the Shade described as "written on drugs", which may be a fair description, but it's a funny, worthwhile novel. A story of going crazy, family issues, lost potential, certain death, fishing, love affairs, dropping acid, rodents eating cake, living in a bomber fuselage, relatives running whorehouses, women with shopping compulsions, bonefish, rubes from the Midwest, told through bursts of literary pyrotechnics.