Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson (2006, Hardcover)

Craig Ferguson's debut novel, "Between the Bridge and the River," is a witty, fast-paced, snarky story about an ensemble of characters that have been friends since their childhood in Glasgow. The tale casts a jaundiced eye on media debaucheries and petty indulgences, tossing in riffs on everything from Starbuck's to escort ads. Ferguson is particularly critical of Hollywood and its abyss of vanities.

Fraser, the Scottish TV evangelist has been disgraced in a sex scandal. His cancer-stricken boyhood pal, George, contemplates suicide. Sit-com star, angelic singer, and ladies' man Leon searches for a career in entertainment. Leon's 300-pound, sexually perverted, illegitimate half-brother wants to represent him, but is distracted by his many perversions. These friends and an eclectic cast of historical figures- prominently Carl Jung- all drive the plot of this unlikely story of moral collapse and redemption. They make their separate, but oddly linked, ways through a world populated by snake handlers, serial killers, dead-eyed whores and hack studio executives, taking hallucinatory side trips along the way. For every satire of organized religion or Las Vegas, Ferguson delivers a not-to-subtle moral injunction. The result is a tour de force of cynical humor and poignant reverie, a caustic narrative that searches for the sacred in the quagmire of the profane.

"Between the Bridge and the River" pokes fun at the media, pop culture, reality TV, religion, and, of course, Scotland as the novel jumps like a circus of fleas from Glasgow to London to Paris to Miami to Las Vegas to Los Angeles. The characters move in and out of the narrative like waiters at a busy restaurant. Yet for all of the quick changes, the book makes weird literary sense. If you are a person who enjoys deranged, slightly warped humor you'll want to read this book.