#25 Downtown Owl Chuck Klosterman

Book Jacket Copy: Somewhere in North Dakota, there is a town called Owl that isn't there. Disco is over but punk never happened. They don't have cable. They don't really have pop culture, unless you count grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. They hate the government and impregnate teenage girls. But that's not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it's perfect.

Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl is the unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where rural mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing. It's technically about certain people in a certain place at a certain time...but it's really about a problem. And the problem is this: What does it mean to be a normal person? And there is no answer. But in Downtown Owl, what matters more is how you ask the question.

Similar to: John Green's An Abundance of Katherines; Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio

My Take: I am a huge fan of Klosterman's books of essays (I own every single one of them) but in my opinion, he really should stick with nonfiction. It remains to be seen whether his first book will be unique in its mediocrity, or if it will prove to be a continuing trend: his second novel will be released this Fall. Whereas I generally read Klosterman's essay books in a matter of a few hours or a few days, it took me an entire month to get through his 270 page debut novel, Downtown Owl; I just could not get into it, it didn't grab my attention so I could really only read a few pages at a time without losing interest and going somewhere else (or a million different other places, ADD-style) for entertainment... the Tube, Walmart, the back of a cereal box, whatever works. Basically, just save your money (and a month of your life) and skip this book, opting for one of Klosterman's far superior journalistic endeavours--I particularly recommend Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and Eating the Dinosaur.