Book Review: 'Secret Pizza: A Midwestern Fairytale' by Brenden Greeley

Let’s start by getting all the toppings on the table. Better than a decade ago, I self-published a comedic novel titled Murder by the Slice. It drew heavily on my own experiences as a pizza delivery driver in Cedar Rapids as a young man. The book was received fairly well locally (and a bit beyond), and I have been failing to finish a sequel ever since.

Those facts are likely what inspired my Little Village editor to ask me to review Brenden Greeley’s Secret Pizza: A Midwestern Fairytale (Party Cut Press, out Dec. 30, 2023). Greeley is a graduate of the University of Iowa, and his pizza-centric debut is largely set at the university and in nearby local pizza parlors in the 1990s.

At the heart of the story is a group of friends who are drafted into a secretive organization charged with protecting local pizza establishments wherever they may be. They are opposed by a villain who values profit over pizza purity — and who has seemingly infinite resources to go along with evil ambitions. The book features memorable characters, a fun, clue-driven quest and a smidgen of the supernatural befitting its fairytale roots.

In fact, Greeley’s ability to bring fairytale tropes to a modern story is perhaps the book’s biggest strength. One of our heroes has an absent parent. Friendships torn asunder provide character motivation. A personal sacrifice is made for the good of the cause. An evil mother (though not a step-mother) is central to an origin story. Animals come to the aid of the good guys and express disdain for the bad guys. A mundane object proves to be magical. A food-adjacent item causes those who consume it to fall asleep.

On the other hand, to employ a pizza crust metaphor, Greeley’s plot is pretty thin (a critique that could be fairly leveled against my own pizza adventure) while his commitment to backstory is perhaps overly thick. The book’s first chapter is 22 pages of backstory that sets up some of the plot points to come, but gets the novel off to a slow start. Most every character of note gets an extended backstory that slows the action. Oddly, the first chapter and portions of the main action are narrated in the first person, while the tales of other characters and the remainder of the action are narrated in the third person. That narrative choice gives the book an uneven — and sometimes confusing — cadence.

Secret Pizza (which almost certainly takes its name from the legendary Secret Pizza that used to serve Iowa City pizza eaters) offers plenty of touchstones for local readers. Greeley’s Cedar Rapids is far more fictionalized than his Iowa City, the latter of which is much as I remember it as a UI student in the early 1990s.

The book is appropriate for readers of all ages as the heroes of the story are almost comically wholesome. No stereotypical collegiate debauchery is on display — other than perhaps the copious amount of pizza consumption. Fans of pizza and fairytales will likely find that Greeley has delivered something passably delicious.