Snapper - Softcover

Kimberling, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0755396197 ISBN 13: 9780755396191

Publisher: Tinder Press, 2013

Synopsis

With wry humour and real freshness, SNAPPER charts the disastrous love affair between career birdwatcher Nathan Lochmueller and the place that made him.

Set in a brilliantly observed rural Indiana, 'the bastard son of the Midwest', SNAPPER is a book about birdwatching, a woman who won't stay true, and a pick-up truck that won't start. Here turtles eat alligators for breakfast, Klansmen skulk in the undergrowth, and truckers drop into the diner of a town named Santa Claus to ensure that no child's Christmas letter goes unanswered, while Nathan grapples with the eternal question: should I stay, or should I go? Kimberling's vision of small-town life is as characterful as Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, but bristling with the tensions of race, class, poverty and prejudice, it makes for a bracing read.

About this title

Review:

"Brian Kimberling's debut novel, "Snapper", captures the high lonesome beauty of a songbird's canorous call. Nathan Lochmueller, an amateur ornithologist and future falconer, adventures through the Indiana wilds heartsick with Yeatsian love but full of good humor and stumbling grace. As Nathan searches for starlings, he teaches us all to care more deeply about the wonders and dangers of the natural world. "Snapper" is a brilliant field study, a soulful guide to the humble glories and enduring legacies of the Great Midwest. Brian Kimberling is a writer of serious wit and wisdom." --Amber Dermont, author of "The Starboard Sea" and "Damage Control""Brian Kimberling is an amazingly talented and wise writer. "Snapper" is filled with sly humor and uncommon grace and some of the most memorable characters to appear in fiction in recent years."--Donald Ray Pollock, author of "The Devil All the Time""[A] catchy, well-written debut novel. . . . [An] accomplished, ironic Midwest coming-of-age tale." --"Publishers Weekly""In those awkward, drifting, post-college years, when many young men find themselves working behind a counter, Nathan Lochmueller learns he has a gift for tracking songbirds. . . . Told with precise and memorable prose in beautifully rendered, time-shifted vignettes, "Snapper "richly evokes the emotions of coming to adulthood. Nathan's fascination with the physical world and with living an authentic and meaningful life, his disdain for jingoistic environmentalism, and his struggle to find balance between the cloistered liberalism of college towns and the conservatism of small towns are thoughtfully explored. All this and it's funny, too. . . . Kimberling writes gracefully about absurdity, showing a rich feeling for the whole range of human tragicomedy. A delightful debut."--"Booklist", starred review

Book Description:

A birdwatcher's guide to the human heart - an unconventional coming of age story from an unforgettable new voice that will appeal to fans of David Vann and Annie Proulx.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tinder Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0755396197
• ISBN 13: 9780755396191
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240