Downtown Owl: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Klosterman, who has made a name for himself as an idiosyncratic pop-cultural commentator on rock music and sports, proves just as entertaining in his first novel. In or on the edge of nondescript Owl, North Dakota, live laid-back high-school football player Mitch Hrlicka, who stands out from his peers by being exceedingly normal; teacher Julia Rabia, who has fallen in love with buffalo farmer and Rolling Stones–exclusivist Vance Druid; and old Horace Jones, who mourns his wife and has a few painful secrets. Klosterman doesn’t follow them in a conventional narrative manner. Gifted with a superb ear for dialogue, a kind of perfect pitch for the way ordinary people talk, Klosterman is also capable of fine word-portraits of the three principals and the folks orbiting them in a town whose residents have nicknames like Vanna White, Bull Calf, Grendel, and Little Stevie Horse ’n’ Phone, and time exists on its own odd terms rather than those of the novel’s setting, the 1980s. Despite their eccentricities, or maybe because of them, one believes in these people and their often improbable yet always credible stories. Think of this as a literary relative of the movies Fargo and American Graffiti, sans the latter’s cruising Main Street and warm weather, with a poignant and tragic edge to it, conferred by a paralyzing and deadly blizzard in February 1984. --June Sawyers

Review

"An astonishingly moving book, a minor masterpiece in the genre we might call small-town quirkiana." -- The Boston Globe

"It's tempting to compare this novel with Sherwood Anderson's classic portrait of small-town American life, Winesburg, Ohio. But no one in Winesburg listened to Ozzy Osbourne. And Klosterman is much funnier than Anderson." -- The Washington Post --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416544186
• ISBN-13: 978-1416544180
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (92 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #84,769 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Klosterman Blizzard, September 16, 2008

By	Jeremy J. Parker "Jack Shoegazer" (Sirius B) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Guess what? Chuck Klosterman wrote a novel and it's good and it's nothing like his non-fiction pop culture essays. In fact, were I given the book not knowing the author, I would never have guessed.

After I saw an advertisement for a Klosterman event calling him "the next Hunter S. Thompson," I got very upset because, Klosterman, Hunter S. Thompson, you are not. I suddenly had a very irrational hatred for Klosterman. I thought Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs was pretty good. I didn't always agree with him, but at least when he was wrong, he was entertainingly wrong. Suddenly I hated that book and thought he was incredibly stupid and not very clever at all in retrospect. This novel, Downtown Owl, changed my mind. Klosterman is cool once more.

Downtown Owl reminds me in tone and texture of a Mark Haddon novel or David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. It has the same humor as Franzen's The Corrections with less resolution. Chuck does an amazing job with the small-town Midwest and most amazingly - he somehow writes the early-to-mid 80's without seeming nostalgic or silly or even dated. Chuck displays his encyclopedic knowledge of film and music throughout but manages to make the release of E.T. seem current. The real trick, the real page-turner is that the struggles of his characters are as universal today as they were over twenty years ago. Downtown Owl lacks the rough edges and narrative mistakes of many first novels and rolls heavy with both wit and tragedy.

The one critique I see coming for this novel is that it could be argued that there is a lack of plot. This novel could be Dazed and Confused if that film was spliced with extra narratives, one from a teacher at the school and another from an old man who spends his afternoons talking in a cafe with other elderly farmers. The novel covers August of '83 through February of '84, but it is never more than "This is what happened to these people." One could argue there is no resolution because there were never any conflicts to resolve, and the few that did exist were sidestepped.

Ultimately, this comes down to the question, "Is it the journey or the destination?" Your enjoyment of this book may very well depend on your answer.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Spade is a Spade, October 3, 2008

By	L. Cunningham (Charleston) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was hesitant to post a review of Downtown Owl, because I'm somewhat partial to the works of the author. I've loved all of Klosterman's books, and have always thought that his essays deserve their place alongside the finer works of the past ten years. However, if no one else is going to say it, I will--this book was simply okay. For a first stab at fiction, I would say it was just `good.'

People--myself included--are fast to rave about Klosterman's work, and one previous review even said that the writer `wouldn't have known it was Klosterman had the name not been listed on the cover. Really? The mentioning of obscure eighties rock songs, deep debate over the creative merits of the Rolling Stones, and Black Sabbath/heavy metal references didn't remind you of any certain author's favorite topics? To me it was obvious, but I confess that it didn't bother me. That's who Klosterman is and it's natural to think that some of his music essay writings would bleed into his fictional work. In my opinion, it doesn't discredit the work at all--in fact I welcome it--but to say it doesn't exist is ridiculous.

Downtown Owl's most powerful feature may be Klosterman's characters and their introspective dialogue. Such self-reflective accounts allow readers to develop a connection to each one, even if they are have nothing in common. Also, the pace of the book--though this may be idiotic to say--sort of mirrors the pace of life in small towns like Owl. Life moves a bit slower there, and the pace of the book stays congruent with that.

The main flaw of the book, in my opinion, is the latter part of the book where the storm begins to move in. Mitch, for example, is blown backwards--with apparently no idea of what just hit him. I feared it might be a supernatural force or an atomic bomb, only to find out . . it's a storm? I'm not familiar with weather patterns in North Dakota, but most storms I've witnessed can be seen at least a minute or two in advance. The speed at which the fierce weather enters, surrounds, and confines the characters is beyond unrealistic, and comes across as if (a) the author grew tired of writing or (b) his car was double parked while scratching out the last few chapters.

Overall, it's a good book. And yes, I liked it. But let's just leave it at that, and not inflate the book's significance or gravity just because we are so used to the author's previous--and more superior--pieces of work.

28 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Love CK, love fiction but..., October 8, 2008

By	Ryan Smith "RyanSmithLovesHisParents" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

it doesn't work. now, i know that this review will be marked as 'unhelpful' simply because people don't agree with my opinion (which isn't really the point of the helpful / unhelpful review exercise), but i felt i ought to weigh in anyway. i feel like i see eye to eye with klosterman on a number of things (judging by his nonfiction, which is tremendously good), but i don't agree with the structure he chose or what he thinks is important in the construction of a good novel.

first of all, the book comes off as a vehicle for clever analogies and metaphors, which are great strengths in his writing, but in the fiction realm, they don't stand to further the ultimately bland characters. i came to the book expecting little by way of plot (due to an article in esquire in which he espoused a love for movies where nothing happens) and generally, the lack of plot doesn't bother me, but that's not what sinks this book. it's the dialogue. the lack of contractions, the sentences, everything just seems forced. unfortunately, the only really compelling character (julia) loses a TON of steam with her romantic pursuits, which kill her charm and interest factor in full.

i love the idea of 'downtown owl' and parts of it are hilarious and charming, but there's nothing affecting at all. it's a pretty disappointing first book and i don't see improvement on the horizon. the man knows what he likes; i just don't think it worked for him here. and honestly, i hope he doesn't try again. i hope we just get more great nonfiction, which is his first love and greatest strength. this just seems a bit like a poorly constructed and executed experiment.