There is not a real ‘person’ in any of the characters in this book’s 261 padded pages --and I say ‘padded’ because the tales are all in big type, with 1½ point line spacing, and several of the tales are nothing more than de facto radio plays where every bit of dialogue is double spaced. Yet, these three tales -- "Hector Berlioz, Private Investigator," "Johnnie Ga-Botz," and "The Old Boys" -- if you can call them that, are easily the best in the book, for precisely the reasons stated above. They have some humor, but succeed in their limited ways only because they are not short stories, but plays.

The bulk of Gates Of Eden is loaded with characters so lame that not even the accoutrements of a Coen Brothers film could make them funny. They are losers, crooks, cons, hitmen, and not a one is truly humorous, and certainly none smack of the ‘reality’ Coen cannot even parody well, even though he does his best to make the tales mundane, for they never impart insight, nor have a moment’s worth of poesy.

In the titular tale, Joe Gendreau is a weights-and-measures man, who makes sure gas stations don’t overcharge or cheat on gas, and also makes sure the seven ounce Bun Buster at a burger joint does have seven ounces of beef. If they do, there are ways to deal with them. If you were expecting a ‘bada-boom’ you know where this tale is headed- straight down the toilet, with asinine dialogue like this:

'Standards are what make us a society. A community agrees. A gallon is a gallon. A pound is a pound. He who says fifteen ounces is a pound -- he must be put down. A pound is a pound, or we go bango.'

Perhaps Ernest Hemingway, at his best, might be able to get away with such bad dialogue in a short tale that soars off at the end, but Ethan Coen is no Hemingway, and his lead character ends up entangled in a silly blackmail plot after being seduced by a giggling Japanese woman.

In "Cosa Minapolidan," a mobster wants a corpse for odd reasons, yet his bozo goons can do nothing right. The Marx Brothers this story ain’t! Destiny is that tired old saw, a boxing tale, but with nothing new. Adultery, scheming, and stupidity abound, as dim-witted Joe Carmody, boxer and would-be private investigator, floats through his anomic life, believing it’s a great idea to sell advertising space on the soles of his boxing boots.

In "A Fever In The Blood," yet another soft-boiled detective type, Victor Strang loses his hearing in one ear, due to psychological trauma, after having the other one bitten off in a fight, and is harried by bizarre dreams of a weightlifting Pope. Thank Mike Tyson and the Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal for this bad tale. Ho-hum. In "The Boys," an impotent dad cannot control his hellion kids when they go camping, and a similarly pathetic record executive is the focus of "Have You Ever Been to Electric Ladyland," while "The Old Country" follows a boy who terrorizes his Hebrew school, and then gets a comeuppance.