Synopses & Reviews
Warren Spooner was born after a prolonged delivery in a makeshift delivery room in a doctor's office in Milledgeville, Georgia, on the first Saturday of December, 1956. His father died shortly afterward, long before Spooner had even a memory of his face, and was replaced eventually by a once-brilliant young naval officer, Calmer Ottosson, recently court-martialed out of service. This is the story of the lifelong tie between the two men, poles apart, of Spooner's troubled childhood, troubled adolescence, violent and troubled adulthood and Calmer Ottosson's inexhaustible patience, undertaking a life-long struggle to salvage his stepson, a man he will never understand.
Review
"Dexter's prose is razor sharp, and every page has at least one zinger. The Georgia section in particular will remind readers of the great Harry Crews. Don't miss this." Library Journal (starred review)
Review
"So, this book is different! Not exactly what Pete Dexter usually writes, but madly interesting in what it sets out to do. I freely admit to a bias: As far as I'm concerned, Dexter can do no wrong." The Washington Post Book World
Review
"This is vintage Dexter, offering gems of writing and observation on nearly every page....For all the author's riotous humor, much of the material is black as anthracite, and burns just as hot. Spooner reaffirms Dexter's place in the first ranks of contemporary novelists." Denver Post
Review
"Spooner is a fat book, and it has an episodic quality that is its strength and weakness....[W]hatever it might lack in narrative drive, Spooner more than makes up for in feeling and in linguistic riches." The Portland Oregonian
Review
"Pete Dexter, writing of the part played by love in the exuberant life of his hero, Spooner, and the fatal inevitability of the compromises that make life bearable, has given us a novel of picaresque vitality — outlandish, anecdotal, profuse, funny, profound." Susanna Moore, author of My Old Sweetheart and In the Cut
Review
"Spooner, his funniest novel, is driven by spare, pitch-perfect sentences....Part of the beauty of Spooner is its droll, working-class lack of ambition — at least ambition as it's popularly practiced." USA Today
About the Author
Pete Dexter is the author of the National Book Award-winning novel Paris Trout and five other novels: God's Pocket, Deadwood, Brotherly Love, The Paperboy, and Train. He has been a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Sacramento Bee, and has contributed to many magazines, including Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and Playboy. His screenplays include Rush and Mulholland Falls. Dexter was born in Michigan and raised in Georgia, Illinois, and eastern South Dakota. He lives on an island off the coast of Washington.