Amazon.com Review
You don't need to know squat about wrestler-turned-governor Jesse (The Body) Ventura to read Keillor's book about Gov. Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente--he'll have you doubled up gasping for air, whether you like it or not. Writing in wrestle-speak unleashes Keillor's more rampageous comic impulses. He writes like Joe Bob Briggs, Ethan Coen, Hunter Thompson, and the young tall-tale-teller Mark Twain (whose characters the Duke and the Dauphin he steals).
It's not just a Twin Cities tale, either. Once young Jimmy discovers Hank Hercules's mail-order bodybuilding course, he goes from Minnesota bully magnet to globe-straddling he-man. (The book's design echoes Charles Atlas ads.) In Vietnam, Jimmy kicks commie butt with the elite Walrus Corps and meets his lifelong stalker, the V.C. turncoat the Rodent. In Alaska, Jimmy joins the IWW wrestling circuit and makes the monocled bone crusher Oberkapitan Werner Wehrmacht, Vicious Eddie with the zippered cheek, and Dave the Postal Worker look like NPR-listening wimps. Jimmy wrestles a 1,200-pound she-grizzly, and he's man enough to keep interrupting his life story to pick fights with his amanuensis ("Mr. Keillor is a tired old hack with a gecko face and thinning hair and a body like a six-foot stack of marshmallows"). Can Keillor get even? Can Jimmy outwit the Rodent? Will Schwarzenegger's Hollywood pals provoke Jimmy to revise Luther's Small Catechism to permit illegal headlocks? Get the whole stomping lowdown. (And to find out most of what Keillor knows about wrestling, read Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle.) --Tim Appelo
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
It all started with a running gag on Keillor's radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, spoofing Minnesota's governor-elect, Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Who better than Keillor, the self-branded Minnesota boy of "Lake Wobegon" notoriety, to parody this gloriously cartoonlike political animal from his own territory? This satirical autobiography of professional wrestler Jimmy "Big Boy" Valente made a preemptive strike on Ventura's own rumored book deal, beating him to publication. As with most Keillor material, it translates more gracefully as audio than in print. Keillor's timing and delivery are specifically honed to spoken presentation, sharpened by his years doing radio (and aided in places by impersonator Russell as the voice of Valente). Born Clifford Oxnard, Valente is adopted as a child and tormented by the bullies of tough South Minneapolis. He becomes a Navy "Walrus," serving in Vietnam before returning as a 300-lb. hulk to conquer the spandex-tights world of professional wrestling. Taking a challenge from his hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger, he ultimately runs for political office. Despite his skill, Keillor recklessly throws himself headlong into the material and has trouble sustaining his sharpness for the durationAthe joke starts to wears thin. Based on the 1999 Viking hardcover. (Apr.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
