Wonderdog

At last, the American writer who appreciates Ralph Malph as the American writer should of the humor! This is story of governor-elect (in the matter of insanity) Dev Degraw and four dogs, the wiener dogs of torment meeting the eerie parallel of the (late, great) Thor (now fetching Pa in heaven!) and his not-pale imitative descendent, Comet, who may be the title dog. I quote "may be" title dog, for is Dev Degraw not the symbolic title dog of himself? Why the D here, and why the D there? Perhaps Dev's name should be Dog Dog to make Biminim's d-light complete? For Dev is a dog as surely as man is a dog and as surely as Inman Majors is genius! Must not man be dog to run for the Head of the Heart of Dixie? Can you not see George Wallace as wiener dog #1 and Fob James as wiener dog #2? All hail again Inman Majors (I.M. yall), and may you not fill your threesome with Bunny Akins and Odelle Bailey!

This novel belongs in that fine class of novels about southern men of once excellent promise slipping through the seams of societal and patriarchal expectations. While reminding one of Binx Bolling in Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer," the titular character in Cormac McCarthy's "Suttree," and a host of Barry Hannah characters, the laconic, lazy, drunken, wiseassed Dev Degraw is still a unique and original character in his own right. "Wonderdog" manages to walk that most elusive tightrope between outright comedy and satire and a literary novel of manners, and it succeeds wonderfully. Majors' style is lyrical and laconical, stream of consciousness melded to the sardonic aside, as if a more lucid James Joyce had stumbled from Dublin to an SEC college town on a football weekend and ended up crashing a few frat parties. The son of the state's aging state governor, a Democrat who is losing his power base, Dev is too busy watching his own life fall apart to be much help to his father. Instead, he enjoys letting his law practice disintegrate day by day, haunting college bars at night, and badgering his band of Tuscaloosa brothers, a motley assortment including a Ph D candidate obsessed with sexualizing parentheticals, a butter-eating poet, and a barfly in denial of his sexualit, who roll through this novel like a sudden storm come up over the lowlands. Majors sends up the gadfly who can never leave college, state politics, the legal profession, and the very concept of celebrity. For those of you who only want fiction with scrubbed floors, neatened corners, and no loose ends, I'm sure that John Grisham or Tom Clancy or Genre Hack of Your Choice will have a new book out in the next few seconds. For those of us who see life as a spinning sphere of chaos, though, and who kind of like it that way, this is the novel for us.

With "Wonderdog" Inman Majors has once again written a novel full of outrageous characters that will make you laugh aloud and ponder the workings of this wacky world. These characters and their antics will stay with you long after you've closed the book, and you'll never think of sweater vests or sticks of butter in the same way again. In particular, I enjoyed the voice of the narrator, a fast-talking, fast thinking wit whose humor comes fast and subtle, the sharp perceptions and wisdom catching you unawares and surprising you as good fiction should. The plot resists predictability and sentimentality, propelling you forward through a tumultuous week in the life of Dev DeGraw, on whom the crown of inherited fame rests precariously. I'm waiting for a sequel.

This is an outrageously funny book. The lead character, Dev Degraw, is the grown up son of the long standing governor of Alabama, and he's able to get in all kinds of trouble, intended and unintended, including wiener dog attacks, butter eating contests, backwoods craps games, and a heated one-on-one putt-putt match for high stakes. The book is not afraid to revel in Dev's masculinity with his faults and strengths. There is poignancy to the story which is subtly revealed, but the book's value to me is laughing along with, and frankly sometimes at, the antics of the reluctant winner, Dev Degraw. A little racy for some, but I highly recommend it.

Who wrote this review? Oprah? Did the reviewer read the same book I did? Sure, its not a book for your wife's book club, but "poignant" chick-lit is pretty much covered out there. This book is one of the funniest books I have ever read (in fact, my wife made me leave the room any time I was reading it because she was getting irritated by my constant horse laughs), and one of the bravest. The author apparently felt no-need to shoe-horn in sentimentality, and the result is a raw, real experience. Nonetheless it's a very well written novel, whose rawness comes from its honesty and its point of view, not haphazard writing. The reviewer seams not to understand the difference between self-pitying and self-mocking, the biggest difference being that self-mocking is a lot funnier. And a lot of the action does take place in bars, but I like bars - and so do a lot of other people, by the looks of things. Read this book - there is nothing like it on the shelves of the McBookstores out there, unfortunately. And that probably won't change as long as the publishing world keeps printing safe books for safe people.