Ovenman

by Jeff Parker, Sam Lipsyte, Jeff Parker

Skateboarder, restaurant worker, and punk rocker wannabe, the antihero of Jeff Parker's uproariously funny debut novel adds a new twist to the classic coming-of-age story. Our hero, When Thinfinger,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977698920
• ISBN13: 9780977698929
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Tin House Books
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

excellent!

Outstanding first novel from a writer with a great eye for detail. I can't say that I've ever read anything quite like it...Jeff Parker really nails his characters and sense of place from the first page. The writing is tight, dark, propulsive and very funny...I finished this in one sitting. Can't wait for the next one.

Fantastic

I laughed, I cried, I immediately grabbed my Huffy with the orange banana seat and tried popping wheelies...you know, cause that's a turn-on. I look forward to the next one!

great reading

A very enjoyable, quirky novel. Nearly every line in the novel is entertaining, nicely spun, with unusual word choices. This is a sort of updated Catcher in the Rye in terms of current intense youth jargon. The characters are zany, and full of strange energey and surprising thoughts and offhand remarks that contain quite a bit of provocative truth--for example, ". . . it tasted like generic industrial laundry detergent, the kind that really cleans."

Diabolically funny

Jeff Parker's debut novel is a kick in the teeth. Bold and ballsy, it's also very, very funny. Laugh out loud funny. Chortle and choke on water kind of funny. Protagonist When Thinfinger, the kind of oddly named anti-hero every teenager wants to be and every parent has nightmares about, is a slacker everyman adorned in hideous tattoos (splotches that run the length of his arms and might be bushes) going where life takes him. Mostly life takes him to parties and mostly it makes him drunk. He wakes up nearly every morning having no idea what he did the night before. It's an amusing beer-induced fugue state. And in true Memento fashion, When covers himself in hastily scrawled (and poorly spelled) Post It notes detailing his night before antics. The one thing When is good at, besides screwing up and getting wrecked, is working the oven at Piecemeal pizzeria. When is a professional, expert at cutting slices and intimate with the layout of the oven. And he takes his job seriously. So seriously, he thinks it's entirely reasonable for him to skim money off the top any chance he gets. Maybe even rob the place. Surrounding When are a bevy of oddly appealing misfits: his best friend who sells him back his stuff and might just be responsible for When's terrible tattoos, his girlfriend who hides knifes around the apartment 'cause she dreams that he tries to stab her, and Skinhead Rick who carries a live grenade around. Not to mention hippie freaks, skater bums, a guy who scars himself and restaurateurs who make the Sopranos seem quaint. This motley cast inhabits a down and out 1990's Florida college town and Parker's prose is so fierce you can practically smell the rot. Risky, acerbic and delirious, Ovenman is a triumph of style and wit. Call it coming-of-age if you will but Parker's novel is less about finding one's self than it is about milieu and attitude. It's about busting up the alphabet and kicking tail. There is no easy box to check here, no simple turn of phrase to summarize. Ovenman is a rare chimera - both revolting odd and yet oddly familiar. Read this and weep, suckers.

Check it out!

Please note: Jeff Parker is my brother. That being said, these reviews are not the reviews of this poster. They were borrowed from the author's myspace page at: http://www.myspace.com/iamovenman "Jeff Parker is a writer who understands that voice is the doorway to all true beauty in fiction. Tight, wry, dark, and deeply funny--he is a master of the hyper-compressed sentence that explodes with more meaning and nuance than should be possible. Ovenman is a welcome addition to the literature of the lovably hapless by a young writer with talent to burn." --George Saunders, author of Pastoralia and In Persuasion Nation "Funny, soulful, and energetic, Ovenman is wonderful." --Mary Gaitskill, author of Veronica "Rarely are mopping and pizza dough so pleasingly rendered. Even inside When's world of chaos, Parker's novel pushes forward with grace. This is a delight of a debut." --Aimee Bender, author of Willful Creatures and An Invisible Sign of My Own "Mr. Parker has written a weirdly attractive life of people one thought had no life, the pierced and tatted Xtremes. Creepy, convincing, hooty, and fun. The movie will be scary." --Padgett Powell, author of Edisto "In his utterly original Ovenman, Parker has created a time capsule of the nineties in Central Florida and an ode to the mysteries and hopes and acrobatics of youth. When Thinfinger, the skateboarding philosopher at the heart of this terrific novel, is brilliantly acerbic and uncommonly insightful. And awfully, awfully funny. Here's a brief note of which I hope he'd approve: This novel really cooks. Read it tonight." --Bret Anthony Johnston, Director of Creative Writing, Harvard University Also by Jeff Parker: The Back of the Line