Ellery Pierce is a scientist working for a company that manufactures “animatronic creatures for movie studios and theme parks.” He has had no success in marriages and relationships, yet longs for love, so he decides to make a woman to his own specifications. This is the premise of “Adventures of the Artificial Woman” (Simon & Schuster, 208 pages, $22), the latest novel by author Thomas Berger (best known for “Little Big Man” and the Pulitzer-nominated “The Feud”). It is not a new fictional scenario, and the story follows a familiar trajectory, in that the, um, “hero” ends up getting a lot more than he bargained for when he brings his lovely creation, Phyllis, to “life.”
After an awkward interval during which Ellery tries to both train and woo Phyllis, culminating in a disastrous dinner party that turns out to have not one, but two additional animatronic guests, she leaves him. Phyllis is embarking upon an American Journey, seeking both fame and fortune, as so many heroines have in the past. And as so many have, she encounters more than her fair share of farcical villains, liars, creeps, climbers, fools and losers — all ready to trample one another to get ahead. The human emotions she encounters most often are greed, lust and desperation. Every character she meets suffers from inflated self-regard and/or a defective moral compass.
Berger invites (and sometimes earns) the reader’s laughter as he shares Phyllis’ puzzled take on a wide variety of American foibles and follies — gourmet cooking, lap dancing, phone sex, a community theater production of “Macbeth” and movie stardom. Movie stardom? Of course. After all, the gorgeous, tireless, battery-operated Phyllis has no difficulty remembering her lines, and no qualms, either, about taking off her clothes for the camera.
Ellery and Phyllis eventually reunite, in time for him to watch her turn to politics and take a run at the White House — and in time, too, for him to realize that she has become even more inhuman than she was to begin with, in the wake of her exposure to humanity. What’s the right thing for Ellery to do? Will he do it?
And will you like “Adventures of the Artificial Woman”? You might, if you’re in the mood for a diet-soda kind of book, artificially flavored and colored. Certainly, I wanted to chuckle along with the author — who’s clearly enjoying himself — but the writing just isn’t sharp enough to make Phyllis’ story matter. Ultimately, Berger gives us more silliness than satire, more cynicism than truth. It’s a brisk and amusing read, but not a nourishing one.