Customer Reviews

The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas: Stories

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Davy Rothbart's short stories evoke the innocence and the complexity of human relationships. These sometimes wacky and sometimes not so wacky characters, encountering the everyday trials and tribulations of life, could be your best friend, your brother, or even yourself at some moment, current, past, present. Perhaps that's what Davy does best -- caputure the fleeting beauty of particular moments in time.

I have had the pleasure of following Davy and his Found crew at public events for the past few years here in Boston. When learning he would be here to promote his new book, I bought it right away. These stories are raw in a way that when you flip through and pore through Found zines are raw-there is a voyeristic feeling that washes over you when you read the stories of being plopped right into their lives with hardly any back stories, and sometimes, no discernible future at all. Davy himself has an amazing presense-the very aspects of Mr. Rogers that he enjoyed is what he has been given-a charm of being truly interested in other people's lives in an authentic pure way that is never malicious and always whimsical. His fictional pieces sometimes wrap up a bit too neatly (unlike love letters found in the trash-always messy and crawling all over the places with loose ends) but I feel his future writings will correct that aspect-but one cannot ignore the blinding heat of wonder of the beauty and cruelity of our world. Read and feel, people, read and feel....

Judy Blume likes this book. She says so on the back. I am talking about the author of Superfudge, ya'll! Author of Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing! Jesus himself may as well have recommended Davy's book.

What do I think?

I read this book in one day; and I was sad when I had no more stories left. Davy's people are my kind of people. You will only be mad at yourself if you do not read this book.

The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas is a hugely enjoyable collection of stories. I read it in under a day, because I couldn't stop wondering about the next story, and the next story. This book reflects some of those amazing experiences where life comes together through coicidence or design. Well written, touching, honest, and amazing, these experiences will have you invested in the journey, turning page after page.

When I finished reading, I immediately wanted to read more, and to take a road trip.

What a great book... an easy one night read, but will keep you thinking for days. Fun, insightful, thoughtful, quirky... all the things you want in a book. Another Sedaris on the horizon... can't wait for his next read to come out!

These stories reach down to those places that you think you want to forget, but really don't. It reaches to the aching of things you should have done, people that you will never forget, and to the things that you are guilty of being.

Maybe this review is a little dramatic, but this is a damn good book.
Buy it now.
Read it.

The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas, is a collection of short stories much like a collection of Found items from the creator himself! You never know what to expect and you can't help but to anticipate more. Each story is unique in bringing to life a cast of characters that follow you well beyond the pages of the book. I really enjoyed these stories and I look forward to reading more from Rothbart in the future.

...and not let go.

I devoured it in 2 days and then went back and read it again. Davy Rothbart has a knack for distilling the humanity in any given situation with an uncanny sensitivity. Many of the stories are out-loud funny and almost all of them will break your heart (in a good way). I can't recommend it enough.

Davy's book is a wonderful read. When I picked it up, I was pleased that it was a thin book. By the time I finished reading the last story, I wished it would go on and on. My favorite story in the collection was the "Lone Surfer...".

The Lone Surfer was, overall, a great book. It managed to be sufficiently sad and touching while also being humorous. When I found out that Davy Rothbart was the author, I was very surprised, as Davy's only other literary experience has been a magazine called Found, which required little to know writing on his part. Rothbart has written a wonderful collection of stories about love and loss.
The book is a collection of short stories, most of which concern people who have lost or are losing someone very close to them. The standout story is "The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas", in which the narrator and his girlfriend are driving through rural Kansas and see a boy surfing on two cinder blocks in his backyard. The boy falls and breaks his arm, so the narrator rushes him to the hospital. On the way there, the boy tells the narrator and the narrator's girlfriend about his dying sister who doesn't have much longer to live. They get pulled over by the police for speeding, but eventually the cops are helping them get the boy to the hospital.
Anyone who has ever loved and lost will be able to connect with the character's in Rothbart's stories. He tells the stories from the point of view of people from different races, classes, and locations, but the stories all retain the heart-wrenching quality of losing someone that meant the world to you, from a little sister to someone else's girlfriend to a prostitute's daughter.
This book is not for young children, because of obvious reasons, but adults are not the only ones who can enjoy Rothbart's stories. The Lone Surfer is an easy read, but if you look deeper you can find a truly touching message about love, which everyone will interpret in their own way. If you like this book, you should check out the magazine Rothbart created, Found.
My only complaint is that Rothbart should have written more stories for this excellent books, which is only just over 160 pages long. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.