Downtown Owl

With the same cynical edge and cheeky pop-culture references that characterize his music writing, Chuck Klosterman portrays the unpretentious but still dark impulses of a rural community in North Dakota. Here, during Reagan's first term, the '70s became the '80s with little fanfare. Philip Baker Hall's voice, wrought with deadpan drollness, is the perfect vehicle for Klosterman's prose--smirking but never sanctimonious. Lily Rabe gives a similarly expert narration as the town's most recent arrival, Julia Rabia, a schoolteacher who, as the only single woman under 40 in the small community, soon finds out that there's no such thing as one's "own business." Klosterman himself--a North Dakota native--makes a cameo as the coffee-swilling 72-year-old Horace Jones. J.S.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

May 5, 2008
Four books of nonfiction (Fargo Rock City
; Klosterman IV
; etc.) and a steady magazine presence have established Klosterman as a pop culture writer known for his air-quotes wit. There’s plenty of that sensibility in his first novel, and fans and detractors alike may be pleasantly surprised to find Klosterman delving beneath the quirky surfaces of Owl, N. Dak., the “overtly idyllic” but “paradoxically menacing” town that provides a perfect backdrop for the author’s sense of humor. (The time in which the novel takes place—1983, an era of Def Leppard and feathered hair—tickles the author’s love of the vapid.) The book shifts perspective among three Owl residents: Mitch, a smart teenager who’s “not clutch” on the football field or with girls; Julia, a teacher fresh out of college and discovering an affinity for booze and beaus; and Horace, a widower whose life revolves around coffee and bull sessions. Though no single narrative line binds the three—the event that ultimately unites them is a creaking deus ex machina—Klosterman creates a satisfying character study and strikes a perfect balance between the funny and the profound.