Downtown Owl

by Chuck Klosterman

New York Times Bestselling Author Chuck Klosterman's First Novel

Somewhere in North Dakota, there is a town called Owl that isn't there. Disco is over, but punk never happened. They don't have cable. They don't really have pop culture, unless you count grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. They hate the government and impregnate teenage girls. But that's not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it's perfect.

Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl. He plays high school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. She gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer who listens to Goats Head Soup. Horace Jones has resided in Owl for seventy-three years. He consumes a lot of coffee, thinks about his dead wife, and understands the truth. They all know each other completely, except that they've never met.

Like a colder, Reagan-era version of The Last Picture Show fused with Friday Night Lights, Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl is the unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where rural mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing. Loaded with detail and unified by a (very real) blizzard, it's technically about certain people in a certain place at a certain time...but it's really about a problem. And the problem is this: What does it mean to be a normal person? And there is no answer. But in Downtown Owl, what matters more is how you ask the question.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club, Contemporary, Novels, Humor, Audiobook, Literary Fiction

275 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2008

About the author

Charles John Klosterman is an American author and essayist whose work focuses on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times Magazine. Klosterman is the author of twelve books, including two novels and the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. He was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor award for music criticism in 2002.

Reviews

[RandomAnthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, I just finished Downtown Owl. A few thoughts:

1) I realize slamming Klosterman is fashionable, but I liked this book, esp. the first 250 pages, quite a bit. However, it's important to note that Klosterman loves North Dakota and parts of Downtown Owl read like mash notes to the author's home state. You could see him sitting in a bar saying, "Wasn't growing up in North Dakota weird, even if we didn't know it at the time? But still, I can't complain."

2) I laughed out loud at least ten times while reading this book. Most of the laughter took place in the first 100 hundred pages.

3) The interlocking stories strategy works pretty well, although I felt like Julia's character was the least developed. She could have used more weight. However, Klosterman's more insightful, esp. with minute by minute thought processes, than a reader of his other work might imagine; it's hard to get the author's other books out of your mind when reading Downtown Owl.

4) Part of that is Klosterman's fault. He writes like Klosterman, if you know what I mean, even when different characters are speaking.

5) The last thirty or so pages were really weird. I'm not sure if the ending was necessary. I'm curious as to what others will think.

Still, I don't regret reading this book for one minute. If you're a Klosterman fan you'll recognize some of his consistent talent in Downtown Owl and heck, it's a quick read. Snag the book from the library and give it a shot. You don't have anything to lose.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely fabulous. It ranks as one of the top three books I have ever read and definitely one of the funniest. The people who say it isn't a very good read went in with the wrong expectations. This isn't Steinbeck or Henry James, this is a modern Salinger. What else could you expect out of Klosterman? It's not about what goes on around the characters, but rather what goes on inside the characters. It is absolutely wonderful. You get to follow the thoughts of multiple characters while feeling like you understand and connect with how they are feeling. His stream-of-consciousness is random enough to be funny as hell, but congruent enough to be understood. Imagine taking the social criticisms of Killing Yourself to Live, the pessimism and pop-culture references of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, putting those ideas in the heads of lovable, fictional characters, wrapping them up in a entirely ironic plot, and finishing it off with an incredible ending for some ribbon. Chuck Klosterman gave us one hell of a present in Downtown Owl, if you ask me.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman. Now I will a) write a review of it here and b) attempt to write said review in the style of Chuck Klosterman. When I picked up this book I was (mostly) excited to read a new work by Mr. Klosterman though (somewhat) apprehensive about his taking on of the fiction novel genre. I was 85% happy with the final outcome.

This is my review. My review is this. After having read his first published stab at fiction in the form of a short story in Chuck Klosterman IV I didn't believe he could really make me enjoy a full scale novel. I was wrong. Downtown Owl was pretty good. Klosterman sticks to what he knows. Pop culture observations this time done through the eyes of ficticious characters. So even if the book is not a literary masterpiece, it still is an honest solid work by the well established author.

My biggest qualm with the story (and it's not a major point of contention) is that on the whole the story seemed to lack a point. We follow three different characters from the same small rural town of OWL living three different kinds of existences but never crossing each others paths. A sort of three seperate stories united and seperate at the same time. The ending was paradoxically unnecessary and necessary at the same. The ending is truely the part of the book that warrants discussion and debate.

[Helena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chuck Klosterman is adorable and thus we fell in love and made casual small talk one day about a year ago when he came in to sign books. Now we live together. Except, you know, he's a book on the shelf and I'm a real live girl.

I think, perhaps, had I read this several years ago, it would have been The Best Book I've Ever Read. However, Douglas Coupland got to the several-years-ago-me first and so I spent the course of Downtown Owl looking for the Canada references. (There aren't any. But explain the difference between Canada and North Dakota to me in a meaningful way and I'll give you five dollars.) That's not to say I didn't like it, but I think I've read it before.

[Jodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a Pop Matters interview Chuck Klosterman says, “It was harder to write fiction, but maybe that was only because I’d never done it before. I can’t remember if writing Fargo Rock City was hard or easy.”

The fact that he’s never written fiction before is painfully, achingly, stupefyingly, annoyingly obvious. First, there is the problem with the adverbs, which I won’t go into again.

To start off Klosterman can’t even answer the question of who is telling this story, one of the main tenets of all fiction, even the most experimental. My best guess, after finishing the book, is that it’s Chuck Klosterman himself. The mystery narrator seems to have all of Klosterman’s patented schtick down. There’s tons of weird lists, parenthetical asides, pop culture references coming at you a mile a minute, lots of repetition to really make his point in case you missed it the first three times. Sounds like Klosterman, right?

Read the rest

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I had low expectations, maybe I really like Chuck Klosterman, maybe it was the right book to read on the way to and from a memorial service in two sittings on public transportation - regardless, I did really like the book. I previously posted I was worried about the reference to Friday Night Lights on the back, but it's close. Of course, North Dakota isn't Texas, and there's a lot less football (even though FNL is only incidentally about football).

Don't read it if you're expecting some epic plot to come out and hit you in the face. It's more FNL Season 1: a quiet portrait of a town that hasn't changed at all than FNL Season 2: in which Landry kills someone. And you know what? It's a good choice.

I only hesitated from giving the book 5 stars because I got really angry not knowing more of the reaction post-blizzard, especially concerning Mitch and Julia. And also not knowing more about Laidlaw.

[Holli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Klosterman is a genius and I'll read anything he writes- he's so clever and writes in such a conversational way. It's easy to get into the rhythmn of his writing and I enjoy every page. In this book, he tells the story of a tiny town called Owl that's hit by a monster blizzard. The blizzard doesn't even happen until the last few pages but every page leading up to it is a pleasure. The surprising/creepy ending kept me thinking about it for days...

Favorite Passage:
"Why do we get out of bed?" Mitch wondered. "Is there any feeling better than being in bed? What could possibly feel better than this? What is going to happen in the course of my day that will be an improvement over lying on something very soft, underneath something very warm, wearing only underwear, doing absolutely nothing, all by myself?" Every day, Mitch awoke to this line reasoning; Every day, the first move he made outside his sheets immediately destroyed the only flawless part of his existence. He could still remember the spring of 1978, when he (along with over half of his fifth-grade classmates) contracted mononucleosis. It was the best month of his life."

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been reading Chuck Klosterman's nonfiction for a few years. He has elevated himself to be one of those authors whose books I will read sight-unseen. When I first came across this book I thought... Klosterman? Fiction? This could be good. But now after I've read it, I'm just frustrated.

This novel creates characters, raises a bunch of questions about them, and then never answers the questions. The characters are well-grounded in a place and a time, but maybe they were conceived as merely set pieces to allow Klosterman's observations about the place and time to unfold. I felt like Klosterman just gave up on their stories and tossed the characters into a white-out oblivion. There's no tidy chapter at the end that wraps up all these loose threads. You never find out what happens to these people.

Example 1: Mitch and his high school football buddies have a constant debate about who would win in a fight between two of their classmates-- Grendel and Cubby Candy. Near the end of the novel, everyone is gathered to watch the fight. But we never find out what happens.

Example 2: Another recurring question in the book is whether high school football coach John Laidlaw seduced and impregnated his student Tina McAndrew, or if the rumors are true, how he managed to accomplish this and keep his job. In case you care, the question is never answered.

Example 3: The novel chronicles the adventures of new-in-town Owl High School history teacher Julia Rabia, who spends too much time drinking in the local bars and attracting the attention of all the single men in town. The only one she likes is the one who seems not to care, Vance Druid. Julia pursues Vance and in one chapter we are lead to the precipice of a relationship between them. Then comes the oblivion, and all we're left with is a ringing telephone.

Students in fiction writing classes all around the country are working hard on how to make readers care about their characters. In my opinion bad form to make the reader care even somewhat about a character, create a dilemma for them, and then drop the characters off the face of the earth. I sincerely doubt that this novel would have been published without Klosterman's reputation behind it. Maybe this fiction experiment thing was just a lark for Klosterman. But if the novel is fluff, at least let it leave a pleasant aftertaste.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chuck Klosterman's first novel did not make a great impression on me. Honestly, I read it and nearly immediately forgot it. I'd stick with his essays.

[Vonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book has all the signs of another typical Klosterman book, nonfiction, fiction alike. Funny, unique, quirky, bold. Takes place near/in his hometown of Fargo, North Dakota. He can never resist inserting music industry trivia. Which I love. It shows a passion of his. I will admit I never identified with his type of musics, so maybe that contributed to my dislike here. But, alas, Downtown Owl was greatly disappointing. Especially after The Visible Man & I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains, the last two books I read by him, the former being one of my all time favorites.

Downtown Owl was told from several different character perspectives. A few of which, honestly, I could not care less about, and, honestly, found myself barely paying attention to, wanting to finish the chapter so as to return to other characters' lives that were more interesting to me. I will say, however, as always, I appreciated his numerous approaches to storytelling, his unique structure/format, such as one chapter being told through a student's answers on a test on Orwell's 1984, another told "drink" by "drink", another told by what was "actually said" versus what was "thought", another where it was listed what every single person in the room's arbitrary thoughts were.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 1 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Regular readers might be confused at first over why I found Downtown Owl, the debut novel by famed Generation X memoirist Chuck Klosterman, so incredibly terrible, given how many tropes it shares with CCLaP Publishing's first original book, Ben Tanzer's 2008 Repetition Patterns; after all, both are essentially collections of related stories, both of them oriented more towards character development than plot, both concerning the blue-collar citizens of a small industrial town in the rural US, both heavily informed by the events that happen to these characters in the Reagan-obsessed, pop-culture-happy early 1980s. But see, this gets into something I talk about on a regular basis here, that for every general problem in literature that I rail against over and over at CCLaP, there are always exceptions that I end up loving, and that the differences between the two can oftentimes be surprisingly subtle ones; in this case, for example, even while sharing many of the same surface-level details, the reason I ultimately liked and signed Tanzer's manuscript was that at least he comes to a resolution concerning the situations his characters find themselves in (even if in some stories it's a very quiet one), proof that his lovable losers have grown or at least changed by the end, and thus that there was a reason for us to read the story in the first place. Klosterman, however, provides no such thing for his own 270-page masturbation session, turning in instead essentially a series of hacky Keilloresque go-nowhere character sketches with no natural story arc at all, doubly damning here because of the characters not being very interesting in the first place (a group of old men who sit around a diner each day debating conservative politics; a 23-year-old elementary-school teacher who promptly becomes a miserable alcoholic the moment she arrives at this barely existing North Dakota village; and a dozen more characters who make us think by the end, "Why again am I supposed to care about the fates of any of these mouth-breathers?").

And if this wasn't enough, Klosterman then tacks on one of the most hackneyed, ridiculously arbitrary endings I've ever seen in contemporary literature, literally the meteorological equivalent of saying, "Then a space alien showed up and killed them all with a giant laser ray," the kind of immature mess you'd usually expect from some 15-year-old who's suddenly gotten to the end of their creative-writing homework and doesn't know how to end it. But even with all this, there's still yet another problem with this book even worse than the ones already mentioned, summed up succinctly in the following plea I have for Klosterman if he is to ever one day stumble across this review...ahem...F-CKING ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE ENDLESS GODD-MN REFERENCES TO EMPTY SH-TTY '80S POP CULTURE, SERIOUSLY YOU F-CKING GEN-X HACK, STOP IT STOP IT ENOUGH F-CK YOU ENOUGH, F-CK YOU F-CK YOU STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP F-CK YOU STOP. The older I get, the more I come to understand just how ashamed of ourselves we all should be for letting postmodernism devolve to the nadir it became by the 1990s, where we as a society seemed to suddenly believe that giant lists of band names and television shows somehow were an adequate substitute for actual insight, for actual storytelling craft; and while I still believe in the power of occasional pop-culture references in literature, especially when it's done to make a bigger metaphorical point (for example, see the Repetition Patterns story "Pac-Man Fever," which turns out to not really be about Pac-Man at all), I absolutely can no longer condone the mere mentioning of post-Vietnam consumerist items just for the sake of mentioning them, for example in the unbelievable 64 mentions in just the first 50 pages of this particular book (and yes, I literally sat and counted, and yes, I did so because I knew you wouldn't believe me otherwise).

Klosterman can be forgiven for the four pop-culture-infused nonfiction memoirs he wrote before this first novel of his, because of them coming out during the years when we were all under this cultural spell (including myself -- I was as guilty of worshipping empty pop culture in the '90s as everyone else); but Downtown Owl just came out in 2008, long past the time that we've discovered late postmodernism to be the elaborate intellectual con-game it actually is. I refuse to have anything more to do with PoMo trainwrecks like these in the Sincerist/Obamian Age we now live in, and everyone involved with this book should be ashamed of themselves, for putting so much money and promotion behind such a badly-erring reflection of our current zeitgeist.

Out of 10: 2.8

[Kaitlyn Concilio · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not usually a hard question: "What are you reading about?" Most books helpfully even give you clues on the back cover, with a quick summation you can offer up. "The history of the original Dream Team in 1992." "Jonathan Franzen didn't feel like enough people were paying attention to him so he wrote the same book three times."

When I got that this time, I hesitated. "It's about ... a small town in North Dakota, I guess?" Which is true, but it's not really about the town, it's about the people. And while that seems like the same thing, it's not. You're not reading the detailed history since its founding, you're getting a small snapshot of a few lives. The best description I could come up with was, "It's the story of a small North Dakota town in the 80s. The events that happen are fairly normal for a small town, or at least that would be, individually. Your average small town would have one or zero of these events happening. That four or five of them are happening is nonsense, but that's kind of immaterial."

I am not a great person to be asking for book recommendations.

The author, Chuck Klosterman, like him or love him, studies people. Profiling, describing and intuiting their reasons for existing, most of his authorial life revolved around trying to explain someone (or a group of someones).

So you can understand why, when he's trying to set a scene, it's a bit like listening to a German opera — intellectually, you understand that it's probably very beautiful, but in the moment it sounds like large bears mating. And, given that the novel takes place in the middle of nowhere, North Dakota, it's not even a very interesting German opera (or ursine copulation, depending on where you were in the metaphor).

The first third of the book is dull. A slog. I tell you this so you can prepare for it — gird yourself, lay in provisions, whatever you need to do to get through it. Because it's worth it. I've seen the other side, and it is sublime.

Because Klosterman eventually gets around to what he does best — explaining people. These characters are so vivid their mood swings started affecting how I was doing in the real world. Their actions and reactions and emotions are authentic, to themselves and to human nature. Even the most unbelievable, freakish characters are eventually explained and vindicated, even if that explanation is completely batshit crazy.

Explaining any of the plot seems simultaneously like cheating you and utterly pointless — without the connecting web, plucking at any individual strand leaves you wanting for the whole. It's raw, it's gritty, it's real, and it's definitely worth a read.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, I dismissed Klosterman as another rambling pop culture writer. If all it takes to write a book is to talk about Bad Religion's first album and Alf, then I should just record conversations with my friends and transcribe them.

Then one day I found Killing Yourself to Live on the street, and found that book to actually have a great mix of pop culture references with a real story. I thought, "Wow, he really writes with such honesty here, I can't wait for him to write a novel." Boy, was I wrong.

Downtown Owl is Klosterman's first novel, and it couldn't be worse. It's format alone is enough to make you want to stop at page one. The book is broken up into sections, or chapters I guess, but each one is from the perspective of one character. Their name, the date, and time appear at the top of each chapter heading, but none of that info ever seems relevant, or memorable.

None of the characters interact really, and nothing ever happens. It ends abruptly, and although I was glad it was over, I felt totally unsatisfied. Klosterman creates all of these characters by telling us their favorite books, tv shows and albums, but little else. Owl is a small town in North Dakota, where nothing ever happens or changes. The book is no different.

This book was released in November 2008. I bought it at Urban Outfitters, on a clearance table, for less than half the original price, in January 2009. This is a lesson learned.

[Christian · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like Chuck. I used to really like him. His pop culture analysis is usually spot-on and witty. Downtown Owl, however, is supposed to be a novel. And it sort of is one, but it still reads like a backpage essay in Spin. I didn't care about any of the characters, the dialogue and internal monologues were not believable (they all sounded like Chuck-as-high-schooler, Chuck-as-23-year-old-history-teacher, Chuck-as-old-farmer), and the ending sucked.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read books to be entertained or educated. This book must be in a third category.

[The Face of Your Father · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undeniably clunky with its first time novel jitters and yet, it is also sharp and true to heart. Klosterman made a variation of ‘The Last Picture Show’ for the walking-dead Reaganites in the early stages of term one. Small-town hullabaloo of precise depictions, a black comedy not fully realized until the abrupt and loosely threaded conclusion, which is both a minor pro and a major con of this novel. Either way, impressive! In some ways anyway. I’ll read Klosterman’s other fiction, ‘The Visible Man,’ because of this. 3.25.

[Oliver Crook · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was honestly better than I expected. A good read about small town living (which he nails) and about people who let life happen to them rather than be proactive. I didn't necessarily bond with any of the characters and a couple of the plot lines were a bit gratuitous, but on the whole it was entertaining and thought provoking. It really made you think about how much of the stuff that shapes our lives we just let happen to us, rather than actively try to write the script ourselves. It's easy to sit back and say "well there's nothing I can do," but that's rarely the case (for privileged people at least.) Our stories get written either way—this book points out that you're able to influence it more than you think, or you'll suffer the consequences (both awful and mundane) for letting someone else concoct it for you.

[christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman follows a few months in the lives of 17-year-old level-headed, slightly depressed, Mitch — a mediocre athlete who’s ideal bedroom would be as sterile as a hotel room. Julia, the 23-year-old recently-hired history teacher who’s resale value skyrockets because she’s new in town and she’s in a town of men who want to ply a woman with alcohol. And Horace, a widower who enjoys solitude, spy biographies and wars he did not fight in. The omniscient unnamed narrator is a smartass, 80s trivia guru, with a keen understanding of how a cold winter wind could feel like snorting Cocaine.

Owl, North Dakota, is any of the small towns in the country that Richard Russo, Jonathan Tropper or, heck, Lorna Landvik creates. Cafes, bars, a bowling alley and quirky characters with quirky nicknames making quirky gossip. It’s a story as old as Jon Hassler’s liver spots were, and it is incredibly hard to screw up. A novel about a small town is one of the easier ways to get a book branded as “charming.”

Downtown Owl is funny. It is set in 1983-84, and it is pleasant to read nostalgia fiction that includes people discussing Dallas plotlines and discovering Boy George.

* It starts with Julia, woman handled by another teacher who demands that they get drunk together on Friday night. Julia has just bellied up when she is approached by a local who asks her to go with him to the movie E.T., playing a few towns away.

“I just met you, like, eight seconds ago,” Julia said. “In fact, I didn’t even meet you. You didn’t even say your name. I just saw you eight seconds ago. Do you have any idea how crazy that seems?”

After he walks away, she is approached by his friend, who apologizes for Bull Calf’s actions … and asks Julia to go see E.T. with him, instead.

* Horace’s posse of old men argue variations of the same argument every day, and every day it ends with someone telling someone else they are a hippie who should just move to California with those other orange-juice drinkers.

* There is a character named Marvin Windows. This, for the non-Midwesties, is an inside joke of a name.

* The novel often goes off-roading with alternate-form story telling: A list of the nicknames of various Owlites, typically acquired in high school after an arcane incident; What the 22 students are thinking about in John Laidlaw’s English class, instead of his discussion; What Julia and the one-play football hero are saying versus what they mean during their first sober conversation. [Sometimes this technique works, sometimes it is a good idea that wasn’t stretched well enough.]

This book has flaws. None of the three main characters are written well enough that their voices are distinguishable. Mitch could be a high school version of Julia and both have the potential to become Horace. When Julia and a local are stoned and having a conversation, it is hard to follow who is saying what. Some great minor characters are introduced at the cost of going deeper with the big three, but a few of those minor characters start to get great.

If this was the world’s introduction to Chuck Klosterman, I’m not convinced it would do more than make a ripple and it certainly wouldn’t result in the O.C.’s Seth Cohen’s devotion or Klosterman earning a teaching position in Germany. As it is, this novel will probably just be a blip in his writing career. I believe his next novel will define if he can actually be trusted to write unique and tricky fiction.

Yes. Sometimes it seems like Chuck Klosterman bucked at the waist and vomits a chapters-worth of words onto a piece of paper that is immediately mass produced and stapled into a book before he can even wipe his mouth.

Ralph. “Blah blah ZZ Top.”

Ralph. “Blah Tommy Kramer blah blah blah.”

Ralph. “Cocaine. Blah.”

All while Klosterman’s editor stands behind him and says “Atta boy, Chas. Just get it all out. It will make you feel better. Now try to purge some thoughts on the Rolling Stones. You have anything you want to say about the Rolling Stones?”

And that is how what seems like a NaNoWriMo project became a novel. A novel I, unfortunately, don’t hate at all.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are our lives more meaningful if our deaths have an impact? What if they aren’t?

[Lacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Chuck Klosterman's non-fiction work, so I met the prospect of his fiction with a sort of hopeful apprehension. I wasn't necessarily expecting it to be as good as his other work simply because fiction was not his primary mode of writing to this point. I am pleased to report that Klosterman met and then exceeded my expectations.

Downtown Owl is not the novel I expected it to be. I don't know what I expected it to be, but it wasn't what was delivered to me. I think I half expected a sort of pretentious love story wrought with allusions to some protagonist's vast musical knowledge and intense desire to get out of small town rural America. I love Chuck Klosterman, but any Chuck Klosterman fan would also know exactly why I might get this idea.

What I got instead was an illuminating investigation of small town life. Sure, there were allusions to pop culture artifacts of the time (it is set in 1983) and a few turns of phrase that sounded like the Klosterman I'm used to reading, but on the whole, the development of the three main characters' story archs not only helped to move the story along but helped to imbue the novel with an acute awareness of humanity and the human experience.

This is why, to me, the novel was so good. Any novel that can deftly handle the human experience will be good, but a novel that manages to handle three separate experiences in equally touching and sympathetic ways shows an advanced understanding of what makes people tick, what makes them get up in the morning and feel that they have some degree of purpose, even if to the outside eye, they may be floundering.

Some might argue that the story doesn't necessarily "go" anywhere for much of the novel, and this is true, to a degree. It isn't evident precisely what the novel is leading up to, what sort of climactic moment will emerge. And when this moment does emerge, its with a deftly handled mix of clarity and confusion that is incredibly compelling. But the development of these characters, the slow realizations about their motives and their pasts (particularly in the case of the character Horace, I found) is reason enough to propel the story forward.

As a reader, I felt privileged to crawl inside the minds of these characters, and the outside elements of plot and location only helped to inform this experience. For that I must give Klosterman my highest accolades, and site this novel as one of the many reasons I have believed in his capabilities as an author since I first read him a few years ago. Highly recommended.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure what to say about this one. Written as a series of vignettes about the denizens of rural Owl, North Dakota (population 800ish), it presents a humorous and in my experience pretty accurate portrayal of small town living where everyone knows everyone (and often their entire history), everyone knows everyone else's business (there are few secrets), and everyone thinks everyone else is kind of an idiot (most are), but they love them anyway and are willing to tolerate even the most outrageous character defects in service of peace and unity (in the case of Owl a head football coach who repeatedly impregnates the school's cheerleaders).

Klosterman clearly has great fondness for the region and writes some interesting characterizations. My favorite:

For most of his youth, Horace had believed in destiny. He believed it was his destiny to fight in a war. But this was not some romantic, self-destructive fantasy; he did not believe it was his destiny to fight and die. He believed it was his destiny to fight and live. He believed it was his destiny to kill faceless foreigners for complex reasons that were beyond his control, and to deeply question the meaning of those murders, and to kill despite those questions, and to eventually understand the meaning of his own life through the battlefield executions of total strangers. Unfortunately, Horace had been born in December of 1910, a terrible year for anyone who hoped to experience militaristic calamity. To young for WWI and to old for WWII and later wars.

Owl I think aspires to be a North Dakota version of Richard Russo's Empire Falls or perhaps a North Dakota version of the early 1990's sitcom Northern Exposure. It's not up to the first because Russo is simply a much better writer, always invested in his characters--they are friend, family. Klosterman's writes his characters as more novelties to be observed. Northern Exposure is a better comparison but Owl just isn't funny enough to be a comedy. It's not bad for what it is, but overall it's just o.k.

On my buy, borrow, skip scale: a weak borrow.

[Brianna Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a town where everyone knows everyone seems cliché. Though in the small town "Owl" of North Dakota, this concept is normal for almost all the residents. Three different stories from three different people are told in a darkly comical way by Chuck Klosterman in "Downtown Owl".

In the novel "Downtown Owl" by Chuck Klosterman, set in the 1980's the author writes of three characters who are intangibly connected. Julia, a twenty something woman who has just moved into Owl and is less than motivated to start her "temporary" teaching career. Mitch, a high school student and football player who seems to mope around the hallways and drive around the same blocks in his friends silver dodge pickup. What else could he do in a town of less than a thousand people? Horace, an old man who is constantly reminded of his wife's death. And also spends his days in a coffee shop with his friends, debating about politics and chatting about the town rumors. They all get caught in the same situation, a blizzard that eventually kills six people in Owl. Mysteriously enough, Klosterman decides to leave it to the reader to contemplate on who exactly died within those six victims.

With reading this I've familiarized myself with the author's style of writing, which includes an almost depressing but humorous way of conveying his message or theme. Though I have no idea what it's like to grow up in a rural town during the 80's, I do know that at times one is defined by one mistake they've committed for the rest of their life. Every person in Owl is defined by something or even someone they did. But is it better to be defined and remembered for one single incident in your life, or not to be remembered at all?

P.S. Without Mr. Samakosky's recommendation of Chuck Klosterman, I would have not discovered my new favorite author so thank you for that.

[Kathryn in FL · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago. What I remember about it was the humor. I laughed many times throughout the entire story. If you grew up in the cold north, this book should ring true to you. I grew up on Lake Erie (in Erie), however, I lived in many small outlying communities in Ohio and PA and this story captures small town living better than just about 95% of the books I've read.

Klosterman has a very dry wit. When I mentioned it to some of my friends, they just stared at me, it was the first time, we didn't all agree on a book we had read (4 adults ranging from late 30's to mid 50's all with at least a bachelors degree). I finally realized it was because they didn't grow up in the midwest and they never lived in a small town. To my best recollection Downtown Owl was a city akin to that in the tv series Northern Exposure, where everyone knows what you ate for breakfast and nothing is secret.

I do remember the ending was a bit of a letdown, however, it was fitting for the situation. If you currently live in the North and have seen some outrageous weather, read this book before summer or wait until the first bad storm next winter.

I think this deserves a second time. I will add that I have attempted to read two other books by Klosterman that did absolutely nothing for me (I can't remember which ones and I am pretty sure I didn't finish them or at least one of them).

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this were the first thing Chuck Klosterman had ever gotten published, it would not propel him to the fame he enjoys, and could even doom him to obscurity. But since it's not, both he and the book will do just fine.

It's also a good thing I grew up in a small town in North Dakota. I know where each of the small towns (other than the fictional Owl) he references are, and have been to probably all of them. And I have known all of the people in the book, just with different names.

Speaking of names, the Marvin Windows character (Google it and you'll learn why the name is so funny), is about my favorite in the whole book.

This was an accurate portrayal of general life in small-town North Dakota. Everyone knows everything about everyone, except for what each person is really thinking.

Occasional lapses in narrator tense jumped off the page, and some have said there are too many adverbs (which I didn't really notice until it was mentioned). The biggest disappointment was the ending. I wasn't ready for it when it happened.

Klosterfans are likely to enjoy; newcomers to his schtik may not see the attraction.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I read Downtown Owl, I kept thinking of that old chestnut "You can't see the forest for the trees."

I enjoyed individual chapters of the book. Unto themselves, there were quite a few of them that told interesting stories about the main characters with Klosterman's snarky pop culture commentary. I especially liked the sections that focused on Horace, the 74 year old widower. It's in these chapters that it feels like Klosterman's created a living, breathing person that exists outside of his own head and I did like that.

Taken as a whole however, the book didn't really hang right for me. While I'm fine with the way the author approaches his characters' fates, for the most part it didn't feel like it came together. The threads of the story remained disparate to me. Now you could argue that's the point of the book and I'm a big dumb idiot for not "getting" it... and I suppose you could have a point. Still, I didn't like it.

I saw the trees, I didn't get the forest.

[willaful · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm so angry with myself for ignoring the clues that this was going to be my absolutely most hated storyline: a bunch of unrelated stuff happens to a group of loosely related people, then there's suddenly a horrible catastrophe. Or to quote my two line review of the movie, "Magnolia": "Everyone is very sad. Then the frogs come."

I hate the ending so much, I can't give this book a decent rating, even though I enjoyed listening to about two thirds of it up to the end. The third I disliked was the narration for the character Horace; although the reader had an interestingly gruff, homey voice, his intonations were so consistently the same that I was petrified with boredom every time his sections came around.

[Bridget · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the biggest disappointments of my life...but if you like falling in love, just to have your heart broken, read it.

Translation: I loved this book until the final 10 pages. It was sardonic and witty, but also charming and provocative. Then Klosterman ruined everything with a terrible ending. It's like he just quit.

This was his first novel and I've enjoyed the non-fiction, pop culture musings that he usually puts out. He has a knack for character and scene descriptions, but did not handle a plot trajectory well.

[Kemper · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who grew up in a small town, I thought the first half of the book was a hilarious spot-on depiction of rural life in the midwest. However, the book takes on a darker tone in the second half and ends on a very depressing note. It's a odd switch in tone that you don't really see coming. Good book, but that switch makes it a weird read.

[Rincey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book left me not hating it, but not loving it either. Like everyone else notes, there are plenty of pop cultural references and parenthetical asides that every Chuck Klosterman fan recognize. But I feel like he could've done more with the characters and the ending seemed random.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could be a sociological book about anywhere, USA. It is insightful look about people just being human and living life, heading toward a bizarre storm that will take one or more of their lives. Enjoyable, mundane and exciting all at once. A good read