Flan

by Stephen Tunney

Originally published in 1992, this controversial novel tells the story of a young man named Flan who undertakes a harrowing journey through a charred and burning American landscape in search of his girlfriend, Holly. Accompanied by his talking fish Ginger Kang Kang, Flan follows destroyed railroad tracks through an ashen world gone completely mad with violence, barbarism, and cruelty where unimaginable suffering becomes laced with absurd comedy and impossibly hallucinogenic imagery. This cinematic mixture of Hieronymous Bosch, Night of the Living Dead and Dr. Seuss is also a tale of naive love, fading memories, and the confused displacement of reality in the face of total destruction. Uncompromising in its descriptions, Flan is the post-apocalyptic novel that invites the reader to visit the Hell on Earth that resides in the dark corners of our own dreams.

500 pages, Paperback

First published January 26, 1993

Reviews

[John Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is better than the CD, and the CD is wonderful. Get them both! This book, and Flan (Songs From the Novel). This book was outrageously ripped off by Cormack McCarthy. If you liked The Road, and want to read the original, read Flan!

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Imagine Candide set in an Hieronymus Bosch painting.

Now imagine it dull and repetitious. You get Flan.

Flan wakes to find his apartment and possibly the entire world on fire. He barely escapes his building with his scorched toupee and Ginger Kang Kang, his talking fish. He is lucky to have his eyes, because many of those on the street who witnessed the bomb or whatever occurred have empty, bloody, pus-filled sockets. (A lot of things in Flan are bloody and or pus-filled.)

I made it about halfway through this one. Flan and Ginger set out from the devastated city, stumbling over endless corpses, witnessing gang rapes and mercy killings, learning that cannibalism has become a kind of spectator sport -- it's all an inventive but not very interesting endless chain of horror and black comedy. The rapid rate of mutation that sets in provides some interesting creatures.

Tunney has also chosen a diction that slips into the cloying, repetitive prose of children's books from a nearly a century ago. It brings nothing to the narrative. I found the book easy to put down.

[Artephius · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every now and then a book comes along that makes you wonder, really wonder, about the state of mind of the author. Is this guy okay? Seriously, what the fung fung was he thinking when he unleashed this on the world? I can't imagine this helped him release any of his inner demons; 'cause if your inner demons are this much in control, there may be no releasing them in a single lifetime.

[Hannah Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my thing at all. Had some interesting descriptions and seemed exciting but ultimately took me and characters nowhere? Very self-indulgent whilst telling me nothing of the authors opinions other than that he may not have been completely okay???

[Snood · Rating 4 out of 5]

A goose stands before you on the railway. In its eyes, you see galaxies. Each galaxy holds stars. Each star, planets. Each planet, cities. And each city, homes. Atop each kitchen counter in each little home is a goose eating day-old breakfast cereal. And each has stars in its eyes.

Flan is exhilarating, exhausting, exfoliating, exquisite. Every fum fung (fuddyduddy) word of it wraps around your brain like two slugs in the slimy throes of sexual ecstasy. Trudging through a swollen land of pus, burning plastic, and low brown clouds, a bald man and his fish seek out a mountaintop maiden, sweet Holly. (Or is it Helen?) On his journey, he encounters corpse puppets, men who eat from others’ stomachs, aggravated eagles who just want a cup of coffee, and goat-headed rats that go “DENG DENG DENG!” This is Dr. Seuss’s The Road through a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Sickening, sublime, and often stupid, but never once dull.

A word of warning though, the sheer amount of explicit sex and violence makes this very difficult to recommend to most readers. A great deal of money or patience is necessary to get a copy as well since most go for $100+ online.

[Noemi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been a fan of Stephen Tunney's music for years now (thanks to a good friend of mine) I finally decided to check out and read his first published work. Buying said book was an adventure of its own as it costs nearly up to 400 dollars on Amazon. Anyway, I found Tunney's writing style to be a bit to take in with the (sometimes) over excessive amount of swearing and descriptions of dying corpses that quickly all seem to sound the same. Be prepared to see the word fuck repeated several times in a row many times throughout the novel. Outside of that, the characters and setting are very unique and different. A talking fish (that over goes a dramatic change later) a flying eyeball, a dog with a human head; Flan's world has an armory of bizarre and interesting characters. What I previously mentioned is only scraping the bottom of the barrel. The plot is simple and to the point: Flan wakes to find himself in some sort of hell, he decides to leave and go to his lover, Holly, in hopes that her cabin is safe in the mountains. Nothing too complicated to grasp, but the flavorful characters use their charm to definitely add much more to it. The ending of the novel left me feeling a bit relieved and dissatisfied. Flan finally makes it to the cabin only to find that it looks run down and lonely. He sits on the porch and contemplates whether he would hate to see no one inside or to find her dead. Afterwards, Flan looks to the sky to see a blue figure move about the clouds. (Or something like that, I wrote this while I was bored in study hall, I can't just whip out this book in front of a bunch of people to check.) He then walks towards it and realizes that his imagination got the better of him. Leading the reader to believe that Flan was imagining the whole thing. He goes to all this trouble to get to the cabin, and he doesn't even go inside. It sort of came off as a tease for following Flan all the way to the end, but oh well! The soundtrack album Stephen Tunney composed under his moniker, Dogbowl, does set the mood for the story and adds some new insight on the story. Which is great, considering the fact that I heard the album first before reading this book. Plus, you now know another human being who has a clue as to what the fuck you just read too. Overall, "Flan" was a quick read and a very interesting and memorable one. I doubt I'll ever forget it anytime soon. The book sure as hell isn't for everyone, though I'm sure that's a given.

This is probably the only serious review I'll ever write on here. I doubt anyone will even read it anyway. But if you did, thanks.

[Sy Kadella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warning: this book is EXTREMELY dark. I saw a couple reviews mentioned Cormac McCarthy's the road. This book makes that one seems light. But it takes that darkness and makes it tolerable with a heavy dose of humor. This is a book about an absurdist post-apocalyptic world. I found the mix of darkness and absurdity to be wonderful and ingenious. Others will probably find it overwhelming, but I think this book deserves way more attention than it has received.

[Kaleb Wulf · Rating 4 out of 5]

RIP "Dogman"

[Alexandra Boyadzhiev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit

[Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

odd and interesting in some parts but also kinda repetitive. probably won't reread, anddd i might have missed some 'hidden meanings'.

[Brianscottnoleyahoo.Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been nearly 40 years since I read this, but this isn't a book you can easily forget. You might want to. Read it if you can find a copy, it's a wild ride.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 5 out of 5]

The imagery is at times exhausting, but undeniably what kept me tuned into Flan's journey towards his beloved Holly on the mountain. Stephen Tunney does something really rare here in that he takes the most absurd images and turns them into something I somehow invested myself in believing as he and his fish-turned-woman traveled through a bleak landscape of neverending pain. The ending was bittersweet and all too brief. Some endings take entire chapters. This one was two pages and bam, I was hit with the 'withdrawn' stamp of my library copy. The ride was over. I don't know if the author was going for something where he, too was experiencing a transformation like the characters in the book or if he was trying to say that, at the end of the world, does it really matter what things look like in its aftermath? But there were several parts where he used these staccato descriptors of everything from objects to dead bodies to the sun, with similes that really have nothing to do with the thing being described even with poetic breaches of imagery. The poo poo sun. Stupid booze (bozo, boo zee). That got annoying. And sometimes he would even use the same word twice in trying to frame the character's unmooring of mental stability. Also annoying. But nothing was going to keep this from being five stars. I do wish he'd been nicer to his fish, Ginger Kang Kang, once she'd transformed into a woman. But again, in an apocalyptic wasteland where reality itself seems to be coming undone, does anything really matter?

[Ali Bhatti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this book on my shelf since quite some time, and I finally read it.

The general feeling I had after going through the first few pages, was "wtf am I reading", like seriously, this is the most bizarre and weird book (and in a nightmarish way) that I've ever read.

The ending was what really made me smile, and if you're willing to endure 400+ pages of absurdity, then be my guest.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting books sound like low brown clouds.... anyone have the record to this book, i lost my friend whom found it....

[Teragram42 · Rating 4 out of 5]

never read it, but it's called flan, need i say more.

[Frank Pounding · Rating 3 out of 5]

experimental apocalyptic surrealism. a fever dream.
not necessarily my thing, but the author is a friend of a friend, i felt obliged. i liked it.

[Sarah Campbell]

Absurd & surreal. Tunney's style is so strange & unique; it's very inspiring.