Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt [Taschenbuch]

And the final answer is unfortunately, no. What starts off as a comic farce a three-point throw away from those pillars of literature -- a book that looks like it will be Faulkneresque in its portrayal of downtrodden America -- ends up giving birth to childs of farce, ugliness, and bad writing, squeezing out the beautiful miss comic. Potential becomes reality, and the reality of Lord of the Barnyard becomes pathetic.

It becomes quite tedious indeed to read about the protagonist Kaltenbrunner's continuous nature of suffering; not that there is anything wrong with that, of course, but only because Egolf uses the same descriptive flourishes to describe it. By about page 300, the book's overwrought and overused expressions make the novel downright unreadable.

The great Spencer Tracy once said, "Never let 'em catch you acting," and unfortunately, Egolf applies not this advice to his field, flashing us several times with the nakedness of his storywriting. And it isn't pretty.

Perhaps only because the 400 plus page tome is bald of any dialogue, the writing itself is the sole focus, and Egolf sways into extremely hackneyed prose and constant literary cliches. Some of the author's most frequent phrases, "Baker Lay" or "felling giants" sound like something that would come from a whiny 14 year old kid in his first creative writing class. This malady of utilizing vague cliches also could be called by its more frequently used name -- bad writing. And Barnyard flatlines.

Still, I have to give the author some props for writing a first novel with such brash and vigorous sensibilities. Ironically, Lord of the Barnyard -- a book about a trailer trash town named Baker -- has some class, and the brilliant premise itself makes the end result all the more maddening. That is, it just ain't very good.

And the final answer is -- unfortunately, no. What starts off as a comic farce a three-point throw away from those pillars of literature -- a book that looks like it will be Faulkneresque in its portrayal of downtrodden America -- ends up giving birth to childs of farce, ugliness, and bad writing, squeezing out the beautiful miss comic. Potential becomes reality, and the reality of Lord of the Barnyard becomes pathetic.

It becomes quite tedious indeed to read about the book protagonist Kaltenbrunner's continuous nature of suffering; not that there is anything wrong with that, of course, but only because Egolf uses the same descriptive flourishes to describe it.

The great Spencer Tracy once said, "Never let 'em catch you acting," and unfortunately, Egolf applies not this advice to his field, flashing us several times with the nakedness of his storywriting. And it isn't pretty.

Perhaps only because the 400 plus page tome is bald of any dialogue, the writing itself is the sole focus, and Egolf sways into extremely young prose and constant literary cliches. Some of the author's most frequent phrases, "Baker Lay" or "felling giants" sound like something that would come from a whiny 14 year old kid in his first creative writing class. This malady of utilizing vague cliches also could be called by its more frequently used name -- bad writing.

Still, I have to give the author some props for writing a first novel with such brash and vigorous sensibilities. Ironically, Lord of the Barnyard -- a book about a trailer trash town named Baker -- has some class, and the brilliant premise itself makes the end result all the more maddening. That is, it just ain't very good.

The troll comment will make more sense when you read the book.