CNN - Review: 'The Organ Grinders'

(CNN) -- "The Organ Grinders" features primers and polemics on environmentalism, bad drivers, agri-biotechnology, the prison system, Third World conditions, organ transplants and donations, and the rain forests -- all before page 25. Bill Fitzhugh manages to wrap these well-researched rants, as well as riffs on vegetarianism, overpopulation, animal experimentation, biomedical research, the legal system and abortion into his fairly humorous second novel.

After a brief preface assuring the reader of the validity of his voluminous research, Fitzhugh wastes no time in setting up the first confrontation between his two protagonists: Paul, the pure-hearted, naïve environmentalist, and Jerry Landis, the greedhead venture capitalist. Their encounter sets their courses for the remainder of the story -- Jerry pursuing further riches and immortality, and Paul pursing Jerry like John-Boy with a vendetta.

Paul is an overgrown Boy Scout of the environmental movement. Or rather, movements; he's wearing himself out rushing from fighting industrial pollution to protecting wildlife habitats to saving the whales. So he narrows the focus of his evangelical zeal to stopping one, overarching evil: Jerry Landis.

We're obviously meant to root for Paul, but Fitzhugh sure doesn't make that easy at first. Paul is so blindingly pure, he's boring -- and Fitzhugh's clichéd, clunky prose doesn't help. With no apparent irony, he describes Paul as "a six-foot-four-inch model of a man ... All-America handsome, his perfect black hair and winning smile the stuff of sorority dreams." He loves his girlfriend, Georgette, "more than all the rain forests in the world, but it broke his heart that she'd become so cynical." Gee whiz. Fitzhugh fails to recommend whether a paper or plastic barf bag would be more ecologically sound here.

Fortunately, once his story gets rolling, both Fitzhugh's characters and his prose improve. The background subject matter is fascinating, and Fitzhugh smoothly weaves it into his storyline -- or rather, works his storyline into his subject matter. In the process, Paul and Georgette turn from cartoons into human beings. This is mainly due to the barrage of major and minor aggravations and infuriations of everyday life they encounter. The gauntlet of horrors they must run just to get from one day to the next ring achingly true for modern city-dwellers.

Jerry Landis is an intriguing combination of Donald Trump and Snidely Whiplash, and Fitzhugh seems to have more fun writing him than any other character. Another lovely creation is Arty, who takes volunteering for medical experimentation to levels previously unimagined -- and for good reason.

Fitzhugh's wry style is amusing, but uneven. Some passages are laugh-out-loud funny, particularly his hysterical description of an ideological schism among ultra-vegetarians, and a marvelous bit with an FDA inspector whose religious affiliation proves troublesome for Landis. Unfortunately, such scenes highlight Fitzhugh's overall tonal inconsistency. He also indulges himself at the expense of his style. Paul's last name is Symon, apparently so Fitzhugh can sprinkle lines from Paul Simon songs throughout the narrative, a device that distracts more than it entertains.

All in all, however, "The Organ Grinders" works as both a plea for planetary sanity and as a fairly witty novel. Readers who can make their way through the book's biomedical and ecological symposia will be rewarded with an entertaining and thought-provoking read, as Fitzhugh melds deadly seriousness and satire to keep the customer satisfied.

David Daniel is a bright and bon vivant coordinating producer for Headline News.