What do you think?
Rate this book
The Book of Bunk: A Fairy Tale of the Federal Writers' Project
Paul Dent, penniless and recently orphaned, hops a train in deepest Dust Bowl Oklahoma in the Spring of 1936, and winds up attached to the Federal Writers Project, one of the least understood, shortest-lived, and most impossibly ambitious government undertakings in the history of the country. He is assigned to capture the essence of the mountain towns of eastern North Carolina for a series of travel books no one believes will ever be published. There, among writers and cheats, arsonists and Reconstructionists, blind and deaf children and disease-ridden Senators, Paul will meet the love of his life and her lover, witness the awakening of one great novelist and the possible resurrection of another, discover more than one America that could have been, and confront the truth about his relationship with his unpredictable, brilliant, and Machiavellian older brother. There are echoes here of Laurel and Hardy, Bonnie and Clyde, Powell and Loy, Cain and Abel. It s a book of bunk, in other words. A collection of lies. A creation myth about a vanished country that may or may not have existed, and the very real, conflicted nation that has sprung from it. THE BOOK OF BUNK is the latest unclassifiable explosion of storytelling from Glen Hirshberg, the Shirley Jackson and International Horror Guild Award winning author of AMERICAN MORONS, THE TWO SAMS, and THE SNOWMAN'S CHILDREN.
- GenresFiction
238 pages, Hardcover
First published November 28, 2010
47 people want to read
About the author
Glen Hirshberg
93 books151 followersThree-time International Horror Guild Award Winner Glen Hirshberg’s novels include The Snowman's Children, The Book of Bunk, the Motherless Children trilogy, and Infinity Dreams. He is also the author of four widely praised story collections: The Two Sams, American Morons, The Janus Tree, and The Ones Who Are Waving. A five-time World Fantasy Award finalist, he has won the Shirley Jackson Award for the novelette, “The Janus Tree”. He also publishes new fiction, critical writing, and creative nonfiction in his Substack newsletter, Happy in Our Own Ways (https://glenhirshberg.substack.com/), and offers classes and manuscript coaching and editing through his Drones Club West activities (dronesclubwest@outlook.com). He lives with his family and cats in the Pacific Northwest.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 11, 2022
The events of The Book of Bunk: A Fairy Tale of the Federal Writers' Project begin in rural Oklahoma amid poverty and mournful death in 1936 when the world was mired in the Depression. They end in 1953, a few years after the end of World War II. Most of the story takes place in Trampleton, North Carolina.
This is not a fantasy, despite the term "Fairy Tale" in the title. Glen Hirshberg, the author of this book, was originally known as a writer of horror fiction; the only things by him that I had read previously were some pieces of genuinely unsettling short fiction. Some horrific things occur in this book, but none of this would be considered as belonging to the category of horror fiction.
And yet, even though there is no supernatural element to this story, things happen that might sound fantastic. Much of Trampleton and its inhabitants seem to tumble - willingly - down a rabbit hole that leads to a peculiar Wonderland. This is a Wonderland in which each person may choose his or her own circumstances. The Hatter would be Mad only if he decided to be mad; a person changes into a pig if he wants to be a pig. A land of hope and promise.
Paul Dent and his charming but frequently unkind and belligerent older brother Lewis have just come from burying their father. Once Lewis has finished beating up his brother one more time, Paul clambers into a freight car of a passing train. Already in the car are a young woman, who passes the time by writing, and an even younger African-American boy, blind and deaf, who passes the time by screaming- loudly and incessantly. They ride from Oklahoma to North Carolina, where the girl, Sarah, hires Paul for the organization for which she works, the Federal Writers' Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration. The WPA is a government agency established by the Franklin Roosevelt administration to provide jobs and, of course, get necessary tasks done during the Depression. The necessary task to which Paul is assigned is helping to write a guidebook to North Carolina. He is based in the town of Trampleton in Buncombe County. (The agencies and the guidebooks really did exist and Buncombe County did and still does. Wikipedia explains that the term "bunk" meaning "nonsense" came from the name of the county.)
Paul begins getting to meet people and to learn about the town. He finds that this state is still largely racially segregated, but is assured that North Carolina never had the racial violence found in other Southern states. Paul's brother Lewis comes to Trampleton as well and immediately becomes popular throughout the town. Paul meets a young woman, who has a close male friend who wants their relationship to become a romantic one; Paul also wants to be romantically involved with the woman.
Paul is told a secret about the town and the Wonderland aspects that I mentioned above. One of the people involved is a famous person who really lived at that time. It seems that pretty much everyone in Trampleton already knows the secret - except Paul, the young woman he likes, and her male friend. (Those two have lived in the town for years and it seems hard to believe that they had not heard about a secret that was so widely known.)
Serious developments take place that effect the lives of most of the major characters. Eventually the Federal Writers' Project is investigated for their leftist beliefs.
I am generally not fond of horror fiction but I have found some of Hirshberg's stories truly frightening. The Book of Bunk is very different, but likewise quite good. I think that there are some flaws, however. As I already indicated, I don't think that dozens of people of all walks of life and including both women and men and Caucasians and African-Americans really could keep an important part of all of their lives a secret. (I'm sorry if my repeated references to a secret seem unnecessarily mysterious, but it would not be proper for me to say more about that.) I also think that Lewis Dent is too changeable - generous, mean, affable, irascible in turn. Yes, most people contain some contradictory elements, but not to the extent that Lewis does.
Other characters seem more realistic to me and therefore they come to matter more. The two main young women, a garage mechanic, a roominghouse proprietor, a bordello owner, and many others are all multi-faceted but believable. Paul Dent is as well.
I have been to the Carolinas but I have never lived there, and I certainly did not do so in the 1930s, but much of the way it is portrayed seems convincing to me. I think that racial issues are handled well; I suspect that others might disagree.
My copy of this book is a limited edition signed hardcover, which states that there were only 415 such copies. I think that these may have been the only printed copies of the book, but I might well be wrong. Some brief thoughts on the dust jacket: whoever wrote that "There are echoes here of Laurel and Hardy, Bonnie and Clyde, Powell and Loy, Cain and Abel" had to have either been kidding or had not read the book. (I can understand the relevance of "Cain and Abel" but none of the other pairings.) The picture on the dust jacket looks perfectly 1930s WPA mural to me; I doubt, however, that the central figure of a man being robbed at gunpoint would have appeared on many post office walls.
(Changing the subject almost totally, my favorite use of the word "bunk" is in the 1940 film, Christmas in July, directed by Preston Sturges. The central character is a young man who enters a slogan in a contest run by a coffee company. His suggestion is, ""If you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk." He keeps explaining the joke to people, saying that it is a pun on two meanings of the word "bunk." He is so certain that his slogan is brilliant that he assumes that anyone who doesn't like it must just not get the joke.
Hey, I said I was changing the subject almost totally.)
And returning to the real subject: there is considerably more humor and likewise more drama than I may have indicated. This is quite a good book.
This is not a fantasy, despite the term "Fairy Tale" in the title. Glen Hirshberg, the author of this book, was originally known as a writer of horror fiction; the only things by him that I had read previously were some pieces of genuinely unsettling short fiction. Some horrific things occur in this book, but none of this would be considered as belonging to the category of horror fiction.
And yet, even though there is no supernatural element to this story, things happen that might sound fantastic. Much of Trampleton and its inhabitants seem to tumble - willingly - down a rabbit hole that leads to a peculiar Wonderland. This is a Wonderland in which each person may choose his or her own circumstances. The Hatter would be Mad only if he decided to be mad; a person changes into a pig if he wants to be a pig. A land of hope and promise.
Paul Dent and his charming but frequently unkind and belligerent older brother Lewis have just come from burying their father. Once Lewis has finished beating up his brother one more time, Paul clambers into a freight car of a passing train. Already in the car are a young woman, who passes the time by writing, and an even younger African-American boy, blind and deaf, who passes the time by screaming- loudly and incessantly. They ride from Oklahoma to North Carolina, where the girl, Sarah, hires Paul for the organization for which she works, the Federal Writers' Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration. The WPA is a government agency established by the Franklin Roosevelt administration to provide jobs and, of course, get necessary tasks done during the Depression. The necessary task to which Paul is assigned is helping to write a guidebook to North Carolina. He is based in the town of Trampleton in Buncombe County. (The agencies and the guidebooks really did exist and Buncombe County did and still does. Wikipedia explains that the term "bunk" meaning "nonsense" came from the name of the county.)
Paul begins getting to meet people and to learn about the town. He finds that this state is still largely racially segregated, but is assured that North Carolina never had the racial violence found in other Southern states. Paul's brother Lewis comes to Trampleton as well and immediately becomes popular throughout the town. Paul meets a young woman, who has a close male friend who wants their relationship to become a romantic one; Paul also wants to be romantically involved with the woman.
Paul is told a secret about the town and the Wonderland aspects that I mentioned above. One of the people involved is a famous person who really lived at that time. It seems that pretty much everyone in Trampleton already knows the secret - except Paul, the young woman he likes, and her male friend. (Those two have lived in the town for years and it seems hard to believe that they had not heard about a secret that was so widely known.)
Serious developments take place that effect the lives of most of the major characters. Eventually the Federal Writers' Project is investigated for their leftist beliefs.
I am generally not fond of horror fiction but I have found some of Hirshberg's stories truly frightening. The Book of Bunk is very different, but likewise quite good. I think that there are some flaws, however. As I already indicated, I don't think that dozens of people of all walks of life and including both women and men and Caucasians and African-Americans really could keep an important part of all of their lives a secret. (I'm sorry if my repeated references to a secret seem unnecessarily mysterious, but it would not be proper for me to say more about that.) I also think that Lewis Dent is too changeable - generous, mean, affable, irascible in turn. Yes, most people contain some contradictory elements, but not to the extent that Lewis does.
Other characters seem more realistic to me and therefore they come to matter more. The two main young women, a garage mechanic, a roominghouse proprietor, a bordello owner, and many others are all multi-faceted but believable. Paul Dent is as well.
I have been to the Carolinas but I have never lived there, and I certainly did not do so in the 1930s, but much of the way it is portrayed seems convincing to me. I think that racial issues are handled well; I suspect that others might disagree.
My copy of this book is a limited edition signed hardcover, which states that there were only 415 such copies. I think that these may have been the only printed copies of the book, but I might well be wrong. Some brief thoughts on the dust jacket: whoever wrote that "There are echoes here of Laurel and Hardy, Bonnie and Clyde, Powell and Loy, Cain and Abel" had to have either been kidding or had not read the book. (I can understand the relevance of "Cain and Abel" but none of the other pairings.) The picture on the dust jacket looks perfectly 1930s WPA mural to me; I doubt, however, that the central figure of a man being robbed at gunpoint would have appeared on many post office walls.
(Changing the subject almost totally, my favorite use of the word "bunk" is in the 1940 film, Christmas in July, directed by Preston Sturges. The central character is a young man who enters a slogan in a contest run by a coffee company. His suggestion is, ""If you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk." He keeps explaining the joke to people, saying that it is a pun on two meanings of the word "bunk." He is so certain that his slogan is brilliant that he assumes that anyone who doesn't like it must just not get the joke.
Hey, I said I was changing the subject almost totally.)
And returning to the real subject: there is considerably more humor and likewise more drama than I may have indicated. This is quite a good book.
September 12, 2014
Fair warning: this review is going to be lofty and upsettingly vague but i really do not want to summarize, i want to self indulgently talk about it.
I don't know of any other book like this one and this is coming from a guy who has no idea why advertising a book as "defying classification" would be a good marketing strategy. The book of bunk is a study in contrasts and flat out contradictions. It's sprawling yet very claustrophobic. Travels across great distances and alternates between multiple time periods but never gets caught up in the gimmicks of a period novel. At its core, this is a novel about people under great stress. A nation post depression, a town clinging to old ways, people divided by class, gender, race, religion and young men in desperate love, all factors that model and manipulate behaviour. And at the centre of it all is a fraternal rivalry that reflects the time and place in such a complex but familiar way. This book left me fascinated and almost envious of the mind that put it all together. Even if you don't appreciate the novel as a whole, there are individual "scenes" that demonstrate how good glen hirshberg is at writing a short story. Some truly haunting, tension filled scenes between haunted tension filled people. Even games (elaborate ones but games nonetheless) take on a desperate feeling because they offer escape. As soon as reality creeps in, it destroys lives.
I truly love this book and although it's not my habit, i'm absolutely going to go back to this novel. It requires it and i fully expect to feel a whole new set of emotions on the second run through. The highest possible recommendation.
I don't know of any other book like this one and this is coming from a guy who has no idea why advertising a book as "defying classification" would be a good marketing strategy. The book of bunk is a study in contrasts and flat out contradictions. It's sprawling yet very claustrophobic. Travels across great distances and alternates between multiple time periods but never gets caught up in the gimmicks of a period novel. At its core, this is a novel about people under great stress. A nation post depression, a town clinging to old ways, people divided by class, gender, race, religion and young men in desperate love, all factors that model and manipulate behaviour. And at the centre of it all is a fraternal rivalry that reflects the time and place in such a complex but familiar way. This book left me fascinated and almost envious of the mind that put it all together. Even if you don't appreciate the novel as a whole, there are individual "scenes" that demonstrate how good glen hirshberg is at writing a short story. Some truly haunting, tension filled scenes between haunted tension filled people. Even games (elaborate ones but games nonetheless) take on a desperate feeling because they offer escape. As soon as reality creeps in, it destroys lives.
I truly love this book and although it's not my habit, i'm absolutely going to go back to this novel. It requires it and i fully expect to feel a whole new set of emotions on the second run through. The highest possible recommendation.
May 19, 2011
Loved experiencing the dreams and reality of the Trampleton people through Paul Dent's curious compassion and Lewis' welcome manipulations.
February 14, 2012
Kind of funny and tension filled novel about the federal writers project of the wpa. Takes place in oklahoma and north carolina of 1930's usa. All based on the premise that the writers project wrote travel guides to the states at the "project" and made some stuff up as a joke. See the county of bunkcombe north carolina. It was a bunch of bunk. The oklahoma travel guide was the last to be published, after jim thompson was fired as the boss for being a pinko. His/their book was burned and a redneck church lady took over the book and brought out a piece of crap. I guess new york's and california's guide were probably the best written, but hidden jewels in many of the state guides. Interesting and rather surreal novel here though with f scott fitzgerald playing a large part in the proceedings. 3.5 stars really. kind of a quirky, unclassifiable novel.
January 7, 2021
Reading this book was like its own bonfire game, jumping through it with the foolhardiest aplomb, taking the risk more riskily time and time and again, and that very thought of mine somehow encapsulates this finale of that aforementioned Mayhem journey on the Orphan Train: “Why can’t I get one single person to just tell me what in blazes happened out there?”
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.
Above is one of its observations.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.
Above is one of its observations.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews