Tom Bodett

This one's a little different as it's about the individual people of Homer and their adventures. Bodett gets awfully intimate and omniscient - if this is non-fiction, how does he actually know what each person thought all through those private moments? Well, it is kinder than GK's Lake Woebegone fiction, so maybe they were willing to share. Or maybe it is fiction. I dunno.

Short and sweet, and a little more wise than one would expect from someone tagged with the word 'folksy.' This can be show more considered the third book of a series, with As Far as you can go without a Passport first, and small Comforts second. Of course they do stand alone too.

I did read all three in one week and am taking advantage of copy'n'paste for the reviews. show less

The Freefall of Webster Cummings
When trying to classify “The Freefall of Webster Cummings,” the reader will have a hard time distinguishing it. The book is really funny and very witty, but it also has a very serious and sentimental edge. It is mostly driven by its characters. It is hardly realistic, but it never quite stretches into fantasy, as all the events, while incredibly improbable, are possible.

Through the first few chapters, the book introduces over 5 parallel stories featuring show more different characters that seem to have never met. Throughout each of their stories the author slowly develops these characters, most importantly often pointing out a flaw of theirs or a conflict in their life. Starting with the centerpiece characters, the book introduces Ed Flannigan, a witty, cynical, one-armed man with a way of pointing out the downside of everything with his jokes, Webster Cummings, who never knew his family but was called the luckiest man alive for his incredible survival of falling off a plane, and Oliver, a homeless man who oddly enough seems to be the most content with his life. Other interesting and quirky characters add extra humor and charisma, with such as the Bedfinger-Hooples, a married couple who ended up living thousands of miles away from each other because they felt their jobs were too important and some incredibly exaggeratedly strange characters that are friends of Oliver, the homeless man. These extras really help bring the story together, even if they are not involved in its major events. The reader soon learns that all of these characters, whether important or not, have a hole of some sorts in their lives that they are trying desperately to fill one way or another. It is usually this very thing that leads the characters to each other. In particular, Webster’s search for his family leads him to the Flannigans, because they are actually fairly close relatives of his.
Through a couple of intentionally ridiculously exaggerated (but well written) and even almost superhuman events, all of these characters are tied together, either through a relationship they did not know they had or simply coincidental circumstances. By the time Webster discovers that Ed Flannigan was his unknown cousin, an old gypsy they met was his unknown mother, and Oliver, the old, happy city tramp was his unknown father the story is hardly believable at all.
However, if this book’s exaggerated story is what the reader remembers the most from this book, then the reader did not take from it what he was supposed to. The most important aspect of this book is the well crafted characters and plot line, with the exaggerated events only acting as supplements to keep the reader interested. Although the book sometimes suffers from its own ambition to introduce so many characters at once and try to find a solution for all of them, Bodett succeeds with such a difficult undertaking better than anyone else could. With the help of a slightly fantasized plot and set of characters, Bodett delivers one of the funniest, quirkiest, and yet most sincere books I have read in a long time. show less

Bodett's strength is his humor. This is written as a drama, lacking that wonderful slyness in all his previous books. I know he can manage it along with drama, as he did in Norman Tuttle. So I'm wondering why the miss.

I might be more forgiving if it were another, less talented author.
The story itself was interesting enough and the climax scene had me breathless with anxiety.

Culled from his radio program of the same name, "The End of the Road" is a charming, amusing and often touching collection of stories of the odd and interesting characters who live in a small Alaskan town.