Customer Reviews

Ovenman: A Novel (Tin House New Voice)

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

 

 

Jeff Parker's debut novel is a kick in the teeth. Bold and ballsy, it's also very, very funny. Laugh out loud funny. Chortle and choke on water kind of funny.

Protagonist When Thinfinger, the kind of oddly named anti-hero every teenager wants to be and every parent has nightmares about, is a slacker everyman adorned in hideous tattoos (splotches that run the length of his arms and might be bushes) going where life takes him. Mostly life takes him to parties and mostly it makes him drunk. He wakes up nearly every morning having no idea what he did the night before. It's an amusing beer-induced fugue state. And in true Memento fashion, When covers himself in hastily scrawled (and poorly spelled) Post It notes detailing his night before antics.

The one thing When is good at, besides screwing up and getting wrecked, is working the oven at Piecemeal pizzeria. When is a professional, expert at cutting slices and intimate with the layout of the oven. And he takes his job seriously. So seriously, he thinks it's entirely reasonable for him to skim money off the top any chance he gets. Maybe even rob the place.

Surrounding When are a bevy of oddly appealing misfits: his best friend who sells him back his stuff and might just be responsible for When's terrible tattoos, his girlfriend who hides knifes around the apartment 'cause she dreams that he tries to stab her, and Skinhead Rick who carries a live grenade around. Not to mention hippie freaks, skater bums, a guy who scars himself and restaurateurs who make the Sopranos seem quaint. This motley cast inhabits a down and out 1990's Florida college town and Parker's prose is so fierce you can practically smell the rot.

Risky, acerbic and delirious, Ovenman is a triumph of style and wit. Call it coming-of-age if you will but Parker's novel is less about finding one's self than it is about milieu and attitude. It's about busting up the alphabet and kicking tail. There is no easy box to check here, no simple turn of phrase to summarize. Ovenman is a rare chimera - both revolting odd and yet oddly familiar. Read this and weep, suckers.

I bought this book after it was compared to "The Ask" which is a story with a hero character that really does nothing and has nothing happen to him yet engrosses the reader with the writer's style and intellect (humor) that book parts in it that you will steal and insert into your own conversation. After 30 pages of "Ovenman" thats really the book. And I found myself hoping he gets kidnapped, or runs someone over and needs to flee the country, I was hoping for something big and was certainly let down when none of it happens. It again is a book that follows an anti-hero that works in the foods industry and does nothing really. And while I wanted to rant about it, I read this book in 4 days, meanwhile books like Ishmeal in weeks. It then occured to me that this is very absorbing, often times very funny, and a great departure from books of supposedly huge importance. While I can't say it's perfect, I can say it's perfect at what it is. And I can say if you've ever worked in the foods industry you will love it, and most likely suggest it to at least 3 co-workers who resemble the characters. And yes, it has a few parts that I will use in conversation so that I appear wittier than I truly am.

Outstanding first novel from a writer with a great eye for detail. I can't say that I've ever read anything quite like it...Jeff Parker really nails his characters and sense of place from the first page. The writing is tight, dark, propulsive and very funny...I finished this in one sitting. Can't wait for the next one.

Ovenman is no superhero, but he's a great character. Parker excels at quirky, funny characters: Shaka Bra scarring himself before going off to war; Blaise hunting rattlers for a skateboard stunt; Marigold dreaming of murder as she sleeps holding a baseball bat; and the title character Ovenman, overlord of the nightshift at the local pizza joint, just trying to figure his place in it all. It's not Tolstoy, so 5 stars would be overstating it a bit, but rarely have I laughed out loud so often while reading. Solid, literate fiction, a well told story and fun, memorable characters...like I wrote on the post-it note I put on the cover "read it again!"

I laughed, I cried, I immediately grabbed my Huffy with the orange banana seat and tried popping wheelies...you know, cause that's a turn-on. I look forward to the next one!

A very enjoyable, quirky novel. Nearly every line in the novel is entertaining, nicely spun, with unusual word choices. This is a sort of updated Catcher in the Rye in terms of current intense youth jargon. The characters are zany, and full of strange energey and surprising thoughts and offhand remarks that contain quite a bit of provocative truth--for example, ". . . it tasted like generic industrial laundry detergent, the kind that really cleans."

Please note:

Jeff Parker is my brother. That being said, these reviews are not the reviews of this poster. They were borrowed from the author's myspace page at: http://www.myspace.com/iamovenman

"Jeff Parker is a writer who understands that voice is the doorway to all true beauty in fiction. Tight, wry, dark, and deeply funny--he is a master of the hyper-compressed sentence that explodes with more meaning and nuance than should be possible. Ovenman is a welcome addition to the literature of the lovably hapless by a young writer with talent to burn."
--George Saunders, author of Pastoralia and In Persuasion Nation

"Funny, soulful, and energetic, Ovenman is wonderful."
--Mary Gaitskill, author of Veronica

"Rarely are mopping and pizza dough so pleasingly rendered. Even inside When's world of chaos, Parker's novel pushes forward with grace. This is a delight of a debut."
--Aimee Bender, author of Willful Creatures and An Invisible Sign of My Own

"Mr. Parker has written a weirdly attractive life of people one thought had no life, the pierced and tatted Xtremes. Creepy, convincing, hooty, and fun. The movie will be scary."
--Padgett Powell, author of Edisto

"In his utterly original Ovenman, Parker has created a time capsule of the nineties in Central Florida and an ode to the mysteries and hopes and acrobatics of youth. When Thinfinger, the skateboarding philosopher at the heart of this terrific novel, is brilliantly acerbic and uncommonly insightful. And awfully, awfully funny. Here's a brief note of which I hope he'd approve: This novel really cooks. Read it tonight."
--Bret Anthony Johnston, Director of Creative Writing, Harvard University


Also by Jeff Parker: The Back of the Line

A gritty slice-of-life from a young skateboarding punk living in Florida in the 90's. Everything about When Thinfinger is idiosyncratic, starting with his name and moving to his badly tattooed arms and penchant for writing post-it notes to himself when he's drunk.
Fairly quick moving and insightful, well-written novel.