Little Red Rooster

Burris Weems is not your typical 16 year old High School teenager. He has flunked out of school, doesn't have a girlfriend and feels alienated by Society. He spends a great deal of time in nocturnal walks trying to make some sense of his life and talking into a tape recorder which he stole from Radio Shack a year earlier. He has an eccentric mother and a recently married sister who is the only female cab driver in his home town of Buford. Then Burris makes a friend who introduces him to his wife and her transexual father , Gene. Gene has recently undergone what is referred to these days as "Gender Reassignment" and now deeply regrets his actions. Then Burris loses his virginity , Gene commits suicide and his new found friends have packed up their car and moved away to Tumcarry or so Burris thinks. Then he is on a roller coaster ride which covers seven States with Gene's body in the trunk of his car.This book is reminiscent of Holden Caulfield in "Catcher In The Rye" but unlike Caulfield Burris does not blame the rest of the world for his shortcomings and is fully aware of his own occasional inadequacy at all times.This is a wondrous book about the Coming Of Age and the Loss of Innocence which is expertly handled by Greg Matthews who is a Master of his Craft.The end of the book sees Burris a little sadder but a lot wiser. I was delighted to learn that Burris returns in the author's next book "The Gold Flake Hydrant". This book is a gem and I was lucky enough to read it in one sitting.Mr. Matthews captures the often lost voice of teenage youth and the Themes of Good Loving Gone Bad in a highly enteratining style which is a Testament to his writing skills. The author has now returned back to his Native Australia and I say "Welcome Home Greg. We all missed you!!!"

I just finished this book recently. I've been a big Matthews fan and loved Power in the Blood and One True Thing. This novel was something rare. It was pretty much a blatant ( ) of Catcher in the Rye, but he pulled it off so well that I think it may have been even better. The cast of odd characters are fantastic and Matthews masterfully holds up the structure of the novel(The whole thing is Burris Weems speaking into his stolen tape recorder). If you haven't read anything by Greg Matthews start now. You won't be dissapointed. He's probably the best kept secret in literature today.

This book is redolent of Salenger's Catcher In The Rye. It's about 16 year-old Burris Weems, who reminds me a lot of Holden Caulfeild, but he's not such a whiner. He's very intelligent and highly observent, but lacking in ambition. He stole a microcassette recorder from a Radio Shack on the day he learned that he'd failed the last semester, and will be held back a year. He begins talking into it....and that is how the book is written. He talks about his Mother, who sells paintings of Jesus and Elvis on black velvet, and of his cab-driving sister, and of the Father he never knew, who died in Viet Nam, and how he was born the very moment Neil Armstrong stepped on the lunar surface and blew his famous lines, and such. Then he meets a guy at a Summer job in a box factory, who introduces him to his wife and her transexual father, and unintentionally sets the story into high gear. As he talks about all these things into his mini-recorder there is no hint of the wild adventure ahead, so this book will catch the reader off guard at every twisted turn, and provoke explosive laughter out of the blue. This book is a rare treasure, that few know about. Matthews has written one hell of a book, and it deserves more recognition. Upbeat, witty, funny, shocking, and original.