Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Corn Belt [Hardcover]

Tristan Egolf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1999

A literary sensation published to outstanding accolades in America and around the world, Lord of the Barnyard was one of the most auspicious fiction debuts of recent years. Now available in paperback, Tristan Egolf's manic, inventive, and painfully funny debut novel is the story of a town's dirty laundry -- and a garbagemen's strike that lets it all hang out. Lord of the Barnyard begins with the death of a woolly mammoth in the last Ice Age and concludes with a greased-pig chase at a funeral in the modern-day Midwest. In the interim there are two hydroelectric dam disasters, fourteen tavern brawls, one shoot-out in the hills, three cases of probable arson, a riot in the town hall, and a lone tornado, as well as appearances by a coven of Methodist crones, an encampment of Appalachian crop thieves, six renegade coal-truck operators, an outraged mob of factory rats, a dysfunctional poultry plant, and one autodidact goat-roping farm boy by the name of John Kaltenbrunner. Lord of the Barnyard is a brilliantly comic tapestry of a Middle America still populated by river rats and assembly-line poultry killers, measuring into shot glasses the fruits of years of quiet desperation on the factory floor. Unforgettable and linguistically dizzying, it goes much farther than postal.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Tristan Egolf's first novel is an unsparing view of life in a town where inbred Appalachia and Middle America overlap and intermingle. John Kaltenbrunner, an only child, is born on the heels of his father's death. At an unusually early age, the boy shows a flair for farming and a desire to be left alone, two things that make people pick on him in increasingly vicious ways. John's life plan is to drop out of school when he hits 16 and mind his own business. But he loses everything, alienates everyone, and through a series of increasingly outrageous mishaps winds up serving three years work-release felony time on a river barge. When he comes home to Baker, no one recognizes him:

John had expected, maybe even hoped for, a little something more to herald his arrival--some burning crosses or lynch mobs on the lawn, a coven of Methodists to picket his re-entry, a banner-wielding committee from the school board, anything at all. But to his disbelief, he found the streets quiet and empty.

The streets don't stay that way for long as the tale truly turns on the garbage strike organized by John and his gang of fellow misfits. As a result, Baker comes apart at the seams and all the citizenry reveal their true natures. In his singular debut, Tristan Egolf demonstrates an unschooled flair for storytelling, which earned him accolades--and even a comparison to Céline--when the novel was published in France. True, his characters are cutouts with few surprises, including dialogue (there isn't any). But there is plenty of room in these pages to admire a wild and imaginative look at a slice of life cut from the underbelly of Middle America. --Schuyler Engle

From Publishers Weekly

The growing legend surrounding the author (he was discovered by the daughter of prominent French novelist Patrick Modiano; see "Hot Deals," Aug. 24) threatens to create unusually high expectations for this bright but uneven debut novel published first in England. It's a wild ride of a book, prone to stretches of excess, but also possessed of a manic, epic energy. It begins ferociously, thrusting the reader into the aftermath of the explosive melee that has torn apart Baker, a Midwestern town besotted by ne'er-do-wells and thieving churchgoers and rotting with municipal decay. As the narrative works backward, the "notorious" John Kaltenbrunner becomes the focus of the story. Described by his peers as "the freak on the tractor, the corncrib fascist, the troglodytic goatroper from just north of the river," John is a driven, determined boy who proves capable of single-handedly reviving an entire farm by the age of nine. In dysfunctional Baker, however, John draws ire in direct proportion to his prodigious talents. Soon he's been run off his land, siphoned penniless and exiled to a floating work-camp on a blighted river. John eventually returns to Baker, only to find the town as horror-stricken as ever. After washing out of innumerable menial jobs, John finally obtains work as a garbage collector, which leads to a lengthy showdown between the "Hill Scrubs" (John and his fellow garbagemen) and the rest of the community. Soon the town is awash in garbage and John and his fellows are hunted men. Told from the point of view of one of the locals, the novel reads much like an eyewitness account made available for the public record. What drives this book at times also derails it, as Egolf's gift for depicting comic misfortune?initially entrancing?suffers from overuse. By the book's latter half the disasters have become expected, the tropes repetitive and John's growth as a character stunted. Despite this, Egolf's robust and intoxicating prose shows great promise.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 410 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802116418
• ISBN-13: 978-0802116413
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,457,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sad day folks........., May 14, 2005

By 

Snorri Wolfersson (INDY,IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt (Paperback)

.......I just read that Tristan Egolf, the author, shot himself to death a few days ago. I loved this book for its manic energy and its attention to the details of the assembly line killing and processing of domesticated animals. I can't even imagine standing knee deep in turkey blood slicing off heads all day long for a living. In an odd way this book celebrates individual capitalism and old fashioned gumption like no other. The protagonist studies, tries and fails, tries and succeeds, learns, becomes hopelessly isolated, and gets caught at the wrong end of the paranoia stick more than once. The parallel story track details the assembly line killing of the human spirit which occurs when despair and emotional fragility combine with the quest for the almighty dollar in odd ways in a person's thought process. I enjoyed the energy and the constant seeking for knowledge of the title character. This was truly a fascinating work and I am quite saddened that such an original, twisted, seeking voice has been lost to us all. RIP Tristan.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Audacious debut, November 28, 2000

By 

Christopher A. Smith (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Corn Belt (Hardcover)

Surely not the most polished novel that you are likely to read this year, and literary purist will frown at Egolf's overblown style and dialogue-free prose. Egolf is often ham-fisted and can be sloppy with the details (upon reading the climax you'll wonder if Egolf has ever even *seen* a basketball game).

But those flaws notwithstanding, Egolf has written an audacious jet-fueled debut which is somehow all the more compelling for it's absurdity. Those reviewers who have criticized the novel have said little which I would directly contradict (no, there is no dialogue; yes, the characters are one dimensional) but somehow the sheer energy and inventiveness of the novel kept me glued throughout its four hundred pages.

Lord of the Barnyard is an Appalachian Confederacy of the Dunces on crack cocaine. Egolf uses sheer creativity and his raw intelligence to muscle his way though a rollercoaster plot that takes us on a whirlwind tour of John Kaltenbrunner's backwoods heroism and larger than life exploits.

And the novel is funny! It made me laugh!

Egolf is a smart writer with talent. Hats off to him for this gutsy first novel, flaws and all; I look forward to reading his future work.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outrageously Funny, March 15, 2005

By 

Sheila "irishsheila" (Coeur d'Alene, ID) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt (Paperback)

A great read that, in this day and age of copy-cat fiction and stamped-out thrillers, Lord of the Barnyard is unique and very entertaining. It's style isn't for everyone, but if you consider yourself a die-hard book lover and fiction fan, this book will be one of your ten best.