Review written for ClubReading.com by Bill
Tristan Egolfs first book, a wonderful, psychotic romp through the life of John Kaltenbrunner. The story tells us of Johns childhood growing up on a farm in middle America, dealing with the frustrations of never being understood, an only child, and quite possible the un-luckiest person alive.
I really enjoyed this book, and will highly recommend it. Tristans writing style is fresh, energetic and daring. His writing style to me was a cross between Norman Mailer and Aldos Huxley on drugs. His terrific use of metaphor kept me laughing. And always at the right times. Tristan seems to have a knack for presenting a very dark, satirical story, but with enough flavor of humor to keep the reader.
My favorite example of this is a paragraph from early in the book where John, age 13, is rushing his ailing mother to the hospital and is in an accident. Here he describes the scene.
He pried her from the floor and carefully tucked her back into place. One of the younger trolls loomed up behind him as he did so. John turned around, his face and shirt soaked with blood. The troll took a step back, hesitated, then started spewing venom.
The rest of them flew into a fit. The smaller ones shrieked and ran circles around the car. The father spat and cursed with his lower lip flapping loose, a pair of shopworn electrical goggles knotted into his greasy black hair, and his corpulent mayonnaise and catfish gut roped off at mid-bulge by a cracked vinyl belt. He looked like a genitally infected tree monkey in the throes of a masturbatory frenzy…. He gave up all hopes of communicating with them. He leaned back and pressed a rag to his gushing forehead. The aboriginal theatrics continued all around him.
The story is told as narration from a person we never meet. This approach was very interesting and pulled off very well. Especially suited to near the end of the book where the narrator goes into more detail about the purpose of the book and its place in the epoc.