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Loading... Why Dogs Chase Cars: Tales of a Beleaguered Boyhood (Shannon Ravenel Books)by George Singleton
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Singleton is a F*ucking Genius ( ) The stories follow Mendal Dawes pretty much chronologically through his boyhood in Forty-Five, South Carolina, a town of “cheating, lying, and stealing business and civic leaders,” a town from which he longs to escape, and is encouraged to escape. Questionably raised by his highly eccentric father, Mendal might be the smartest person in town. “I wasn’t three years old before I’d done about everything scary outside of flying upside down in a crop duster or shaking hands with Republicans.” His clairvoyant dad purloins or obtains all manner of junk and buries it in the back yard so Mendal can sell it later after a large increase in value. He buries fake toxic waste barrels on land behind their house to play a trick on future developers. But it’s not all fun and games. “My father, in an attempt to make me know that people lived differently than we did, went out of his way to find albinos, one-armed men, burn victims, waterheads, and vegetarians for me to meet.” In a couple of stories Mendal has returned to town as a mostly functioning adult, but it doesn’t seem permanent. These stories bring back a simpler time when endemic racism, corruption, poverty and drunk drivers were the main things to worry about in the south. The humor is sharp and wicked with little diamonds sprinkled throughout. As always, George Singleton’s writing is a joy to read. no reviews | add a review
These fourteen funny stories tell the tale of a beleaguered boyhood down home where the dogs still run loose. As a boy growing up in the tiny backwater town of Forty-Five, South Carolina (where everybody is pretty much one beer short of a six-pack), all Mendal Dawes wants is out. It's not just his hometown that's hopeless. Mendal's father is just as bad. Embarrassing his son to death nearly every day, Mr. Dawes is a parenting guide's bad example. He buries stuff in the backyard--fake toxic barrels, imitation Burma Shave signs (BIRD ON A WIRE, BIRD ON A PERCH, FLY TOWARD HEAVEN, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH), yardstick collections. He calls Mendal "Fuzznuts" and makes him recite Marx and Durkheim daily and befriend a classmate rumored to have head lice. Mendal Dawes is a boy itching to get out of town, to take the high road and leave the South and his dingbat dad far behind--just like those car-chasing dogs. But bottom line, this funky, sometimes outrageous, and always very human tale is really about how Mendal discovers that neither he nor the dogs actually want to catch a ride, that the hand that has fed them has a lot more to offer. On the way to watching that light dawn, we also get to watch the Dawes's precarious relationship with a place whose "gene pool [is] so shallow that it wouldn't take a Dr. Scholl's insert to keep one's soles dry." To be consistently funny is a great gift. To be funny and cynical and empathetic all at the same time is George Singleton's special gift, put brilliantly into play in this new collection. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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