Tin God (Flyover Fiction) [Hardcover]

Terese Svoboda (Author)

Book Description

Series: Flyover Fiction | Publication Date: March 1, 2006

Celebrated by the New York Times Book Review for its “genuine grace and beauty,” Terese Svoboda’s work has been called “desperate, chilling, seductive” (Vogue) and “haunting and profound” (A. M. Homes), while Vanity Fair warned that it “detonates on contact.” In Tin God, her writing can only be called . . . divine. “This is God,” the novel begins, helpfully spelling G-O-D for the reader, and we are spinning on our way into the heart of a Midwest that spans spirits and centuries and forever redefines the middle of nowhere.

 

Whispers plague a desperate conquistador lost in tall prairie grass. Four hundred years later, a male go-go dancer flings a bag of dope into the same field. God, in the person of a perm-giving, sheetcake-baking Nebraska farm woman, casts a jaundiced yet merciful eye over the unfolding chaos. Fire and a pair of judiciously applied pantyhose bring the two stories together. A contemplation of divinity and drugs on the ground, Tin God is a funny yet poignant story of the plains that transcends its interstate spine and exposes us to a whole new level of Svoboda’s fiery prose.

(20060317)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fabulous fabulist Svoboda (Trailer Girl) checks in to indulge a talent for wild, sketchy comedy. Laid in Willa Cather country, this quick take has some of Thomas Pynchon's quirky Americana crossed with the Indian tales of Jaime de Angulo. A conquistador rides through the Midwest of 500 years ago; his blue eyes make the Indians think he's God—and God in fact narrates the book. Flash to contemporary slackers Pork and Jim as they lose a bag of drugs in the same field, while God watches wryly, speaking with the crusty accents of a cracker-barrel philosopher. God feels at home in the Midwest, where everyone is waiting for His (or Her) signs. Bessie, the clairvoyant cleaner (she sees God in a tin hat) and the mother of Pork, is the daughter of a migrant worker; with Rolf, her bar-owner ally, she tries excavating the treasure she's glimpsed in her dreams, until alien light storms and the whispers in the grass scare them off—and, it is implied, destroy their budding romance. Back and forth the narrative moves, with Steinian The Making of Americans logic gluing together this eccentric vision of a God-driven Middle America. Svoboda loves her red-state mopes, and that warmth both illuminates and animates her eccentric prose. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

When G-O-D broadcasts in Svoboda's fictional realm, it's not a message of revelation sent from on high. That would be way too predictable. Instead, this edgy, irreverent supreme being would rather spread grass than gospel over the rolling fields of the midwestern heartland. But there's grass, and then there's grass, and it's the eponymous latter that has captured the attention of Jim and Pork, two hapless jokers who have somehow managed to lose a bag of the "good stuff" in tough guy Rolf's field. It's the same field, where, eons ago, a Don Quixote-like conquistador flummoxed a tribe of whispering natives when, on his horse, he catapulted to earth from out of the blue. As Pork starts digging for his lost stash, he uncovers evidence of the earlier man's presence. Is there a message here, a cosmic connection that spans centuries? Only G-O-D knows for sure, and she's not saying. Svoboda's fiercely symbolic and brashly audacious allegory is a fanciful yet cautionary tale. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 182 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803243316
• ISBN-13: 978-0803243316
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,238,042 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Writing in the voice of God as I did in Tin God didn't seem like much of a stretch after being the eldest of nine children. We lived in a small town in southwest Nebraska with the smell of sage tumbleweeds and cattle feedlots. Although I've lived most of my adult life in NYC, I'm still haunted by home, a place that's now mostly in my head. But in NYC, I can travel without going anywhere. Eight languages are spoken on my block, including Chinese. For me, that's perfect--I can be surrounded by people I know but I can't understand a word they're saying. Although I've never been a pirate in 18th America, this year's Pirate Talk or Mermalade should reveal my interest in research. Even Henry Hudson believed in mermaids! Next year's Bohemian Girl will return to Nebraska, albeit 19th century Nebraska, with a spunky girl who escapes from the Indians.