Social Blunders

GroVont Triology #3

by Tim Sandlin

Some consider it a social blunder to use the wrong fork, but Sam Callahan, the narrator of this ribald and tangled yarn, would never make such a mundane faux pas. For Sam, every goof is a doozy and his missteps are at least as comic and bawdy as they are tragic.

Sandlin provides his bumbling hero with an appropriately quirky past: it's 1984, Sam is 33 and his second wife has just left him. He lives in North Carolina with his 19-year-old daughter, born to him and an eighth-grade classmate. (The earlier parts of Sam's life were chronicled in Skipped Parts and Sorrow Floats.) Sam never knew his birth father's identity: his mother claims to have been gang-raped by five high-school football players, which has left Sam with an abhorrence of men and of conventional sex as well. The impending divorce puts Sam in a mind to get his life together, so he spontaneously introduces himself to four out of five of his possible dads (and big oops to the unsuspecting widow of the fifth). He fails to consider the repercussions this will have in the men's families; he's attacked by two of his possible half-brothers, seduced by his could-be stepmother and charmed by his potential half-sister. To say that Sam brings on his own calamities would be an understatement, yet his absurd logic in matters of romance, lust and paternity is oddly endearing.

The characters in this third installment of Sandlin's GroVont Trilogy don't spend much time in GroVont, Wyo. In fact, Sam doesn't escape west until after the climax of his tawdry tale. Still, Sam would be a literal riot in any state, and, as rendered by Sandlin, his voice is an effective blend of flippancy and compassion.

-Publishers Weekly

Genres: Fiction, Humor

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Tim Sandlin has published ten novels and a book of columns. He wrote eleven screenplays for hire; three have been made into movies. He turned forty with no phone, TV, or flush toilet and now he has all that stuff. Tim and his wife adopted a little girl from China. He is now living happily (indoors) with his family in Jackson, Wyoming.

Reviews

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series, and it just keeps getting better and better too. In this installment we're back to Sam Callahan's point of view, jumping another 10 years ahead in time to his early 30's. Life is not going so great for him though and his daughter decides he needs to seek out the men that may or may not be his father. In doing so he opens a can of worms unthinkable beforehand.

For me, this is easily the best book in the series so far. I loved Skipped Parts for how insane it got while still being a great coming of age story. Sorrow Floats upped the ante by taking a very serious topic and making a great moral lesson out of it (plus Maurey was just a great main character for the story). Social Blunders is great because I can kinda relate to Sam on a psychological level in the same way I can when Woody Allen is in character in his movies. For whatever reason I understand the little neurotic man character pretty well, and while Sam is no Woody Allen, there is enough similarity in his character that I can easily draw the comparison and find enjoyment in it. It doesn't hurt that I'm at a similar age and would surely react in some of the same ways he did to situations in the book (except some of the more outlandish ones that surely don't happen in real life quite so regularly).

I will say that this is easily the most lighthearted book in the series so far, and can come across a bit silly and childish at times, especially if you just finished Sorrow Floats and went right into this. Sorrow Floats is a much darker book and the changeover can be a bit drastic.

Overall, it's a great book though, and again, this is a series I love and will surely recommend to others. Now on to the last book I go.

[J. Gonzalez- Blitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star is the lowest Goodreads will let me go, but it's far too generous. My rating would be more accurate if I could go into negative integers. FAR into negative integers. This was another of the books found discarded in the hallway, and I can see where someone would simply want to be rid of the putrid thing since it's not even fit to wipe one's ass with, given that human excrement is a less toxic substance than rape apologia. Which this is. A tome of rape apologia where a guy who's spent his life believing he was conceived in a Steubenville-like attack on his then 14 year old mother (huh. 14. Same year I was raped, though had anything took hold it would have been well and aborted). So he tracks down the high school jocks who did it, who are now all wealthy good-ol'-boy country club Republicans or something. (I'm not hiding spoilers. I want to ruin this for everyone.)They tell him his mother was actually a "slut" who "wanted it" and was "lying about the rape", you know, all the bullshit rapists usually say about their victims? But in this MRA stroke-fest of a fiction this is taken at face value and it's true because his mother is written as an evil(eyeroll) mentally ill(so this is ablist as well as misogynist) feminist terrorist who poisons dogs and hates men and lies for the hell of it. Now I know that false rape allegations do occur, statistically at about 2-8%. And people who lie about it are also abominable and make it that much harder for real survivors. But given that this book plays on every paranoid negative stereotype of women, this book seems more to play into the fantasy indulgence of paranoid misogynists that women are all manipulators and schemers looking to take advantage of men at every turn. In addition to the man-hating feminist who lies about rape, there's the insulting goldigger ex-wife who ran off with the pool boy to make porn, the aging narcissist bored rich housewife who blackmails the protagonist into sex acts(which also reads as an act of rape, given how unwilling he seems, though that's never addressed), the female friend who he impregnated in high school and ditched him for a more popular boy, and of course, the now adult daughter who's begun to have a sex of her own in college. Though it's consensual, this is treated like a greater travesty than rape itself. There are blurbs all over this book about how funny and satirical it purportedly is, including one from Kim Gordon which seems to be more about the author in general than this particular work. Still, it's about as funny as the nutsack of a dead syphilitic donkey on a humid August day, and left me with no desire to seek out any other works by this author.

[Don March · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rollicking raunchy raucous debaucherous dysfunctional good time fun-- with genuine heart and emotion mixed in for good measure-- I absolutely love Tim Sandlin's books. The two I read previously to Social Blunders had me laughing out loud on many occasions, and though not as funny as Western Swing or Skipped Parts (which had me laughing out loud on page 1), SB is still a heck of a ride.

Light easy to read fare, character and dialog driven, Sandlin is a master at illuminating the human condition from a lightheartedly dysfunctional perch. Tackling serious subjects such as suicidal misfits, rape, teenage pregnancy, infidelity, divorce, broken families, and unconventional parenting (to say the least) Sandlin brings heart and warmth to a slew of sometimes squirm inducing scenes and scenarios. And although I don't consider his work 'deep' by any stretch, it is compelling (often in an absurd way) and certainly emotional at times. And the characters... oh the characters... I loved them all... even the dirtbags... and the main character Sam Callahan, well it was fun to reconnect with him (20 years older than he was in Skipped Parts) and despite ALL his tragic flaws and social blunders, I simply couldn't help but cheer for him.

I've heard/read comparisons of Sandlin to Tom Robbins (which I can sort of see) but I consider him more of a cross between Tom Perrotta and Christopher Moore, but with a voice uniquely his own. Certainly not for everyone, but highly recommended to those who enjoy a little fun in their dysfunction.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Social Blunders is the 3rd book in the GroVont trilogy. Once again it concentrates on the character of Sam Callahan, who we met in the 1st book of the series (Skipped Parts). This seemed a much better read than the previous book in the series (Sorrow Floats). The dysfunctionality of the characters is still there, along with some biting humour, but also tinged with some accurate social observations.
This is an ideal book for pure escapism and entertainment, but there is nothing really thought provoking. So all in all this trilogy would make for some ideal holiday reading.

[Hal Brodsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sandlin is very funny AND he can write. Think Christopher Moore without the Supernatural.

This book is a hard "R" and not for everyone.

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s weird, I liked and disliked this book - I don’t know what else to say about it. I did read it all the way through, tho, so that’s saying something.

[word girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize this was the final novel of a trilogy until I was already fifty pages into it. I suppose I could have set the novel down and attempted to find the first two, but I was having too much fun being led unexpectedly through the dysfunctional world of Sam Callahan. Sam is a thirty something wealthy guy who is just enough worried for the world to still be relatable. His flaws are many but primarily include attempting to rescue distraught women through his..ahem...oral prowess. He's a sucker for a lost soul and this novel opens just after his second ex wife Wanda leaves him in his own 240Z, pool boy, and his dead grandmother's jewelry to boot. With nobody nearby to save, and with encouragement from his fast living teenage daughter from his first marriage, Sam embarks on a quest to meet his fathers. Yes, fathers. Sam's mother had revealed to him that he'd been the product of a group rape by HS football players who then stood around in a circle and urinated on her. Sam's daughter Shannon believes him finding these five men, figuring out which was his real father, and then beating him up should cure the cloud of depression and hatred of men that follows Sam everywhere. Off he goes...

This is a fast moving story and jumps from scene to apparently unrelated scene rapidly. It's not bogged down with as much melodramatic emotion as you might expect from a plot so "out there" mainly because Sam is a typical guy and doesn't really express that. The scenes included give the bare minimum to make an impact and it just feels real and believable for that reason. We really believe that one of his potential fathers would be more interested in a game on tv than on the fact Sam is there in his living room. We believe in the private detectives and the blackmail attempts and the fact that he's sleeping with a woman who could be his stepmother by force while also falling in love with who could be either his half sister or his cousin. No matter down which wacky alley Sandlin leads us, we believe we're really there because we believe that Sam is honest from the start. Included throughout are what I can only call zingers, or one or two line sentences that sum up the human condition (or a portion of it) so well that you're impressed by the shortness of them. "Manic depressives have all the luck; they soar between crashes. The best us regular depressives can do is battle our way up to normal every now and then," or "And stupid mistakes are much more interesting than wise conduct" are just two of similar truths to be found in this novel.

I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a quick paced read about a good hearted screw up or those that are interested in how a single person's actions can effect so many different people.

[Rebekah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5-ish stars. It was a little raunchy for my taste, and the characters were awful people, but they're fictional so it's fine, but I generally enjoyed the story. I didn't realize it was a part of a trilogy until it was too late, but the way it's written makes that a nonissue.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Social Blunders" is the third novel in what is now the Gro Vont quartet by Mr. Sandlin. It is also the weakest. At least I hope it is as I have yet to read "Lydia", the fourth book in the series. If "Lydia" is a weaker text than "Social Blunders", oh how the mighty have fallen.
"Social Blunders" has the same narrator and protagonist as the first book in the series ("Skipped Parts") and Sandlin maintains that distinct character voice for Sam Callahan. However, he does not give Sam a good story to tell us, and the situations border on ridiculous the entire novel. Occasional absurdity is part of Sandlin's motif, and it works most of the time. However, when absurd is all you are filling a book with it loses its way.
To be fair, there are some very brilliant moments in the text, and the opening line of the first chapter is excellent. Sandlin is a gifted writer and can be very profound. But, those moments are too few and far between in this book for my tastes. Especially when compared with some of his other work.
What I so enjoy about Mr. Sandlin is that his crazy tales are filled with fully fleshed out people. They are human in so many ways, and the reader can see the reality in them. That is simply not the case in this text. Another major flaw is that almost none of the characters are likable. This is because they are so one dimensional and flat.
I am a fan of Mr. Sandlin's, and I greatly enjoyed the first two parts of the Gro Vont quartet. However, this text does not measure up and will disappoint. Still, it is an easy read, and a nice distraction. Read it for that purpose and you will be fine with the experience.

[Ian Mapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of a find this - but first, where the book came from. I completed a card in the library and they have managed to source this book from - Spokane - which i tracked down to be in washington. Amazing service.

And a good book. Its rare to find something genuinely funny, but this works. It is the 3rd in a trilogy but having not read the other two do not seem to have mattered.

Our anti hero is Sam Callagan, whos second wife has just left him. His first wife bore him a daughter at 14 and although they remain friends, no longer live together.

Sams first problem is that he cannot say no to women and believes the answer to their unhappiness is due to lack of orgasms.... this leads him into scrapes aplenty.

His second problem is his mother was raped at 15 by five blokes. This has set his life views on women and men and at a lose end cause his wife has left him, it is suggested he traces his fathers. So he unceremoniously bursts into their lives, ungraciously imposing himself on their lives.

These two issues cause much murth and social blunders - including fucking one of the blokes wives as he burst through their front door to the echos of a surprise party!

The structure is farily unimportant to the general laughs and observations, many of which are profound and amusing.

No hesitation in ordering the first of the Tioligy (Skipped Parts, Sorrow Floats).

[C.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Sandlin wraps up the GroVont trilogy in style with Social Blunders.

In some ways, this is the weakest book of the trilogy--picking up the story 10 more years into the future and returning to Sam Callahan as the narrator, book three is not as believable as the others. The characters all find themselves in rather unlikely places in life and some of the episodes border on slapstick. Beyond that, the secondary characters are not a well drawn in the earlier books.

Yet, Social Blunders overcomes these flaws for two main reasons. First, its king-hell hilarious--probably the funniest book of the series. Sam's voice has lost none of its distinct charm as he's moved into his thirties (although he simultaneously acts older and younger). Second, like the best parts of the first two books, its got a heart of gold. As the story moves into its final act, its nearly as touching as the first two books.

In the end, although fans could probably spend time with Sam, Maurey, Lydia and the gang as often as Sandlin might care to write about them, things end on a perfect note, leaving little hope or need for another chapter in a truly wonderful series.

[Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought this book on a whim for a few dollars at a used book store. Pretty good, given those odds. I later found out that it was the third in a trilogy, but it’s written in such a way that you can pick it up without worrying about it, as the author gives any backstory when necessary.

The story follows the main character Sam (recently divorced and with a daughter) on a journey to find his real dad after he discovers that he has five possibly fathers...because his mother was drunk and possibly had sex with any/all of the men. Interesting take on the whole “finding your roots” thing, I’ll admit.

I went back and forth on a three or four star rating and settled on three. I feel like those who would enjoy this story are cynics. I find the author to be pretty witty, but at the same time I can see how this is a little immature at times.

[Marina Furmanov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good metaphors but essentially crap. Sorry to be so blunt but if you are investing 300+ pages, I assume you want to learn something.. To grow.. To be intrigued.. Well I learned about a guy who holds on to his past and learns that it is in fact a fake past. That - to me- is sadder than holding on to a real past. I wish it had more depth than the rather grotesque and fake story of his fertilization. And then the negative lifestyle that he had - being a bank to those undeserving. I mean- it was just depressing.. And long.. And nothing compared to jitterbug. Maybe some of Robbins other books.. But please don't compare it to jitterbug. There is nothing like it. And to compare sandlin to Jack Kerouac .. That's just insulting to "on the road".

[soda · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's amazing how many men love this book so much. Probably because it involves a woman being gang raped. I wonder how these male readers would feel if a woman wrote a "heart felt" book about a guy being raped. They'd probably just call it 'man hate' and move on to something misogynistic like this so they can feel better about themselves.

And the lack of emotion...oh Universe forbid men not show emotion. I can roll my eyes enough!

What a classless, tasteless attempt at "soul searching".

[Autum · Rating 5 out of 5]

HILARIOUS!!! Sandlin is brilliant when writing a story with a male as the main character. That is maybe why Sorrow Floats didn't cut it for me, the lead was a female. Social Blunders has everything; comedy, sorrow, loss, love, and delicious sarcasm! I recommend the Grovont Trilogy (this book is the 3rd) to anyone who has a sense of humor and a heart. Sam Callahan (main character) is a confused mess of a writer, who goes to any lengths to help out the women in his life, that you can't help but fall in love with.

[Bill P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sandlin's principle characters are in their 30s and the action has migrated out of GroVent for the most part to North Carolina. Sam Callahan's the principle focus again in search of his "true" father amongst the five candidates from Lydia's past. This version is largely comical with scenes that made me laugh out loud. I am really looking forward to Lydia, the fourth recently announced novel in the series forthcoming in Spring 2011. In the meantime, I will be fitting in Sandlin's other backlist titles coming from Sourcebooks, Sex and Sunsets and Western Swing.

[Molly Kurland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's the 3rd in the Grovont series. When it was over I wanted more so I went online searching for the author and found that he has a blog on myspace. I sent him a note letting him know how much I appreciate his books and I got a nice note back. How cool is that!

Sandlin goes deep into complex characters. He's bright, quirky, funny...all the things I like in a person. And a very gifted writer. The words and story flow. It's very hard to put down.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third book in the "Skipped Parts" trilogy returns back to the main character in the first book, Sam Callahan. It is a little disappointing considering it is the last installment. I somewhat lost faith in Sam as he makes some relevant mistakes and acts a little childish as he embarks on his search for his birth father. I definitely would recommend to those who have read the first two simply because it does answer some questions that are still out there.

[Shea Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Sandlin. I like his quirky, strong, adaptable female characters. I even like the second string male characters. Sam Callahan, I had a hard time liking. The story was funny, particularly the surprise birthday party scene, but Sam was overly pathetic in this book. Sorrow Floats, Sandlin's second in the GroVont series, is much more thought provoking and earnest. The ending of Social Blunders does make for some possibly good story lines in the next installment.

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've come to the conclusion that I should re-read the GroVont trilogy every few years or so. I think Tim Sandlin is a genius, or he had enough problems and put them into fictional characters in such a way that I feel more normal. I don't know. His books aren't for everyone, but I for one love them.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a great conclusion to the trilogy. Can't wait to read the fourth book. Sam was so much more broken that I could have imagined. His heart is really in the right place, though. Seems Shannon is pretty messed up, too. I'd like a 5th book about Shannon. This could go on for more generations.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I asked my local (then, not now) second hand bookseller for some recommendations to take me off the beaten path. This was a bit too caustic for me, I like black humour, but this went too far for me. It did remind me a bit of Vernon God Little, which I loved.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this trilogy immensely. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Sorrow Floats, but each book is thoroughly entertaining in its own way. I anxiously await the arrival of Sex and Sunsets...

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of the three books in the series, this is my least favorite. Sam finds out the truth about his mother, bad things happen to good people, bad people seem to soar. All in all, it was a book about life, from an interesting author's point of view. It was still an entertaining read.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my 20's I read pretty much everything that Tim Sandlin had ever written. Would enjoy them as much now? Probably not. They are simple and fun. Definitely a good choice if you want something that doesn't require too much focus.

[Desiree · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very witty guy. I enjoyed his writing style and his sense of humor! IMMENSELY. But his book is actually depressing! I'm scared to try another! This one was written in the 80's! weird for me. But it had a lot of humor. I'm glad I read it. Actually, I didn't like the book!

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely loved it. when the book was over i couldn't believe there weren't any more to the series :(

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome. Just as funny as Skipped Parts. Sam is my hero!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third of the trilogy and absolutely hysterical and touching. I haven't looked at treadmills the same way since!