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

Tristan Egolf's first novel is an unsparing view of life in a town where inbred Appalachia and Middle America overlap and intermingle. John Kaltenbrunner, an only child, is born on the heels of his father's death. At an unusually early age, the boy shows a flair for farming and a desire to be left alone, two things that make people pick on him in increasingly vicious ways. John's life plan is to drop out of school when he hits 16 and mind his own business. But he loses everything, alienates everyone, and through a series of increasingly outrageous mishaps winds up serving three years work-release felony time on a river barge. When he comes home to Baker, no one recognizes him:

John had expected, maybe even hoped for, a little something more to herald his arrival--some burning crosses or lynch mobs on the lawn, a coven of Methodists to picket his re-entry, a banner-wielding committee from the school board, anything at all. But to his disbelief, he found the streets quiet and empty.

The streets don't stay that way for long as the tale truly turns on the garbage strike organized by John and his gang of fellow misfits. As a result, Baker comes apart at the seams and all the citizenry reveal their true natures. In his singular debut, Tristan Egolf demonstrates an unschooled flair for storytelling, which earned him accolades--and even a comparison to Céline--when the novel was published in France. True, his characters are cutouts with few surprises, including dialogue (there isn't any). But there is plenty of room in these pages to admire a wild and imaginative look at a slice of life cut from the underbelly of Middle America. --Schuyler Engle -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

The contrary spirits of Sinclair Lewis and Thomas Pynchon, as well as of John Kennedy Toole, hover over this unruly first novel: a satirical mock-epic of Middle America and, at least in part, a boldly imagined allegory of the struggles of American labor. The storys told by an admiring ``disciple'' of John Kaltenbrunner, a farm boy who grows up fatherless and friendless in the town of Baker (where, years before, Kaltenbrunner pre had discovered prehistoric remainsa fact that eventually, and surprisingly, figures in the novel's action). Beginning with a sly Prologue in which his protagonist's birth is ``explained'' in a manner reminiscent of frontier tall-tales, Egolf contrives a deliriously overheated story of an introverted and stubborn outcast whose mistreatment by disapproving neighbors transforms him into a militant workers'-rights advocate. Egolf writes knowledgeably, at times lyrically, of the exhausting monotony and compensatory satisfactions of hard manual labor, while simultaneously exhausting the reader with over-the-top accounts of Kaltenbrunner's pitched battles with Baker's smugly complacent vested interests. The climax occurs when Our Hero, having been driven from his home, returns as a trash collector and not long afterward organizes his fellow workers for the final conflictwhich ends in a cemetery. The wonderfully named Lord of the Barnyard achieved US publication in a roundabout way, its globetrotting young author having been''discovered and sponsored by French writer Patrick Modiano. The novel appeared first in England, but for all its narrative energy and impressive knowledge of the workaday world, Egolfs debut isn't the overlooked masterpiece some are calling it: Egolf too frequently fails to dramatize, indulging instead in lengthy (and, to be fair, frequently hilarious) summary jeremiads. And, thank heaven, his book is much more than an imitation of the overrated Confederacy of Dunces. Egolf has a real subject and the ability and will to write about it passionately. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

In this monumental debut novel, bad luck follows John Kaltenbrunner as he struggles to live quietly apart from the mediocrity in the blue-collar Midwest town of Baker, best described as a "dysfunctional bureaucratic quagmire." In a series of elaborate events, John loses his family's farm to the treacheries of a Methodist congregation. In retaliation he destroys the property and is sentenced to three years in a work release program. After doing his time he returns to Baker and organizes a strike of the town's garbage workers for the cause implied in the book's subtitle, bringing the town to its knees. The dramatic conclusion entitles this novel to join the ranks of other master-plots of the whimsical and absurd. Egolf's storytelling is compelling, and his rich palette of similes and metaphors makes this an entertaining and disturbing portrait of small-town America. Highly recommended.
-?David A. Berona, Univ. of New England, Biddleford, ME
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Tristan Egolfs Erstlingsroman ist eine grotesk-komische und berührend zornige Abrechnung mit Konformismus und Borniertheit der Provinz. Und da hat es John Kaltenbrunner schlecht erwischt. Wer in Baker, dem hinterwäldlerischen Industriekaff aufwächst, hat es vorzugsweise mit "Fabrikratten, Trolls, Schmalzköppen und Methodistenvetteln" zu tun. Und die Letztgenannten wollen John um sein Erbe bringen, versuchen seiner todkranken Mutter das von ihm aufgebaute florierende Gefügel- und Schafzuchtunternehmen abzuschwatzen. John Kaltenbrunner ist zwar erst fünfzehn, aber er ist nicht dumm; er kämpft um sein Erbe, bis kein Stein mehr auf dem anderen steht. Dies ist die Lebensgeschichte des John Kaltenbrunner. Wilde Spekulationen umranken die Legende vom genialischen, zähen "Ziegenjungen", der, allein mit seiner verwitweten, lethargischen Mutter lebend, eigenhändig aus der heruntergekommenen Farm der Familie in wenigen Jahren ein florierendes Geflügel- und Schafzuchtunternehmen macht. So einer kann nur anecken, in der Schule, im ganzen Leben. Schon gar, wenn er in Baker aufwächst, einem hinterwäldlerischen Industriekaff im Corn Belt, bewohnt von "Fabrikratten, Trolls, Schmalzköppen und Methodistenvetteln". Letztere bringen ihn um die Früchte seiner Arbeit; als Johns Mutter unheilbar erkrankt, sorgen die frommen Bettkantenhockerinnen routiniert dafür, dass die Sterbende ihnen rechtzeitig alles überschreibt. Klar, dass John sich wehrt. Auch wenn kein Stein auf dem andern bleibt und Bakers geballte Ordnungsmacht anrücken muss. Da ist unser Held gerade mal fünfzehn. Auch die weiteren Stationen dieser modernen Outlaw-Ballade verlaufen d rastisch. Nach jahrelanger Achterbahnfahrt führt ihn sein Leben schließlich zur Müllabfuhr, wo der schweigsame, unheimliche junge Mann seine geduckten Kollegen in einen Müllstreik führt, der die Stadt einen heißen Sommer lang in apokalyptische Zustände stürzt. Tristan Egolfs international erfolgreicher Erstlingsroman ist eine grotesk-komische und berührend zornige Abrechnung mit Konformismus und Borniertheit der Provinz. Und eine grimmige Ermunterung, sich niemals unterkriegen zu lassen.

A humorous and subersive view of Middle America begins in the last Ice Age, ends in today's Midwest, and includes dam disasters, bar brawls, factory rats, and the picaresque adventures of farmboy John Kaltenbrunner.

Tristan Egolf, 1971 in Pennsylvania geboren, spielte, nachdem er das College geschmissen hatte in einer Punkrockband, reiste quer durchs Land und lebte eine Zeitlang in Indiana. Er begann mit der Niederschrift seines ersten Romans "Monument für John Kaltenbrunner", während er mit seiner Gitarre durch Europa zog. Zur Zeit lebt er in New York.