Meet Digby Shaw, on the verge of turning teenager. Right now he's still child enough to grow angry at the mere mention of the Keebler dwarves (he suspects they hoard their cookies). About to graduate from grade school, and outlawed by his family, Digby's every move at home is mysteriously known by his mother, and in the classroom he's under the sharp eye of a powerful nun, twice the size of the Lord God, with a man's name. And he has a theory his father doesn't like him one bit. Nothing is safe anymore. Digby suffers every misfortune at school: embarrassed to perform in the school play, about a saint, bullied by the local juvenile delinquent, trying to do good when his every other instinct is to be bad. He likes books, lighting fires, facts and fictions of all shapes and sizes, and he likes tormenting his brother Emmet. But now the younger boy reminds him of himself. And all of a sudden, to his bewilderment, Digby also seems to like girls. One girl in particular, his oldest friend's sister. And still, her brother, his supposed friend, locks him in a box in the woods, just for fun. Only memory and love save Digby, and then only briefly. He would much rather just be cool.
This is a funny book about being sad and about being in the dark. It's also about what it's like to grow up in a funny family. Digby is getting ready to walk out into a world that's looking larger and fiercer to him every passing day. But he can't help but feel a little fiercer himself as he goes along. And he's certainly getting larger.
"Sometimes I wish that instead of being born the usual way, I had been flown through the solar system to earth and just dropped off here. It would be much simpler than having to have been nothing first. But I wasn't flown in. I was born, so I have to deal with it."
an enchanting, clean-cut, fresh-served personal panorama of discovery... about growing up... in an utterly convincing, osmotic manner -- EDITOR'S CHOICE, The Baltimore Sun, June 17, 2001, Book Editor Michael Pakenham
Product Details
Paperback: 156 pages
Publisher: Creative Arts Book Company; First edition. edition (March 15, 2001)
Sean Enright was born in Washington DC and grew up in Maryland. Currently, he lives in Kensington, MD, with his wife, son and daughter.
Enright has taught fiction workshops in the MFA graduate creative writing program at the University of Maryland, as well as undergraduate fiction workshops there, and poetry and other writing workshops at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Trinity College in Washington, DC and Montgomery College.
In 2001 he published a novel, Goof and Other Stories - it was an Editor's Choice in The Baltimore Sun that summer.
His poems, essays and translations have appeared and are forthcoming in TriQuarterly, Threepenny Review, The Sewanee Review, The Kenyon Review, Verse, Tikkun, Provincetown Arts, The Threepenny Review, The Sewanee Review, The Kenyon Review, The American Scholar, The Southern Poetry Review, Another Chicago Magazine, The Nebraska Review, Poet Lore, America, Garagoyle, The Journal (OSU), The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Cumberland Poetry Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Graham House Review, The Midland Review, Sonoma Mandala, Hubbub, The Laurel Review, Karamu, Nightsun, New Age Magazine and NEBO: A Literary Review
Most recently, Enright has completed a full-length black comedy, Home for the Holocaust. He was named a semi-finalist in the National Playwright's Contest at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center for his play about the Lincoln assassination called The Third Walking Gentleman. He has also written three 10-minute plays, The Crook and The King, (about the infamous White House meeting between Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley), The Walk and The Colonel. Currently, he finished a family tragicomedy set in the suburbs about a returning prodigal son and a mysterious bioterrorist plot. His one-act play, Atomic Dog, was staged by the Econo-Art Theatre Company of Chicago in 1987, and another one act play, Jim Thorpe is the Cornetist of This Band, was published in the music magazine ASYMPTOTE in 1988.
Enright's second collection of poems, My People, was a Finalist for the Washington Prize at the Washington Writers Publishing House in 2000. Cool Ghosts, his first collection of poems, was a Finalist in Texas Tech First Book Series in 1994. The Southern Poetry Review twice selected individual poems as Finalists for the Guy Owens Poetry Prize, in 1999 and 1998.
Enright has an M.F.A, Writing from the University of Maryland, and a B.A. in English from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
5.0 out of 5 starsReady for the GOOF movie, August 22, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Goof and Other Stories (Paperback)
Who is Sean Enright because I would like to buy some of his stock. This guy is going places. GOOF is popping up in every bookstore and is selling fast for good reasons. This book is an absolut riot and and a must read for any knuckle busted, paddled, gummied nose stuck to the blackboard catholic boy. Goof brought back so many great memories and made me laugh. I'm ready for the GOOF part two.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
