Baby Got Books

Downtown Owl

Being a fan of pop culture, I really like Chuck Klosterman — Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs had me snorting with laughter at times — and so I jumped at the chance to read his first foray into fiction, Downtown Owl.

Klosterman grew up somewhere in the Dakotas, and he sets this novel in the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota; I get the feeling (despite the disclaimer at the beginning) that many of the characters and events in this book were drawn from Klosterman’s childhood and adolescent memories. And like many other books that I’ve read and enjoyed that took place during my formative years (the early-to-mid-eighties), the storylines and characters in this book bore no resemblance to where and how I grew up. But I know enough about the stereotypes of the era from watching t.v. to appreciate the humor in Klosterman’s story.

The structure of this story is a bit odd and took a little while to engage me, but it nonethless worked. Each chapter in the book is labeled with the name of one of three main characters: Mitch (a high school student), Julia (a new teacher just transplanted from Wisconsin), and Horace (an elderly regular in the town). There are other regular characters as well, including the hotshot football coach/teacher Mr. Laidlaw (who had impregnated at least one high schooler).

Each chapter covers the events of a day or so in the life of one of the main characters, and while they all take place in Owl and involve the same cast of supporting characters (most of whom have nicknames that make them sound like hoboes, e.g., “Bull Calf”, “Buck Buck”, “Busload”, “Brother Killer”), they don’t have a whole lot of direct connection throughout most of the book. And so I wondered how it might all tie together at the end. And when I got to the end, I realized that they sort of did and they sort of didn’t, but I wasn’t asking the question any longer — I was just sitting there with my jaw hanging open.

If you’re a fan of the era, I think you’ll dig this book. But beware that if you have (a) a wife who adores Def Leppard, and/or (b) a 10-year old son that loves Star Wars and still believes in Santa Claus (by the way, I happen to have both), one single paragraph in one of the chapters under Mitch’s name will belittle you and your loved ones mercilessly. You’ll know it when you see it.