Downtown Owl is Chuck Klosterman’s first novel. I have been
a fan of his non-fiction writing for some time now, and when I discovered that
he had penned a novel I decided to put it on my must-read list. Downtown Owl is
sold as a snapshot of a small town, and while this is basically true, it made
for a very uninteresting read.
Downtown Owl is told through three different perspectives:
Horace, Julia and Mitch. Horace is the typical widower who goes to the coffee
shop at the same time everyday and talks with other men about the people who
live in town. Janet is new to Owl and has come to teach history at the public
school. She soon becomes the object of every single man’s desire and therefore
spends the evenings getting drunk on the free drinks that they buy her. Mitch
is a, somewhat, typical high school kid who spends time with his friends and
plays football. The only strange thing about Mitch is that he is obsessed with
his football coach/English teacher.
I believe that Downtown Owl has the basis for a good story,
but unfortunately Chuck Klosterman doesn’t really flesh out a plot. Nothing
actually happens in this book until about 20 pages before the end. There is a
lot of remembering things that happened in the past, but nothing actually
happens. There also isn’t any character development at all. All three
characters start and end in the same way, but I guess that is what happens when
you don’t have a plot. In the end you read these three perspectives on life in
a small town and in the end it all seems pointless.
I will say that there were some things that I enjoyed. For
the most part I liked Klosterman’s writing style. Sometimes it seems a little
bit to “flowery” or pompous for a novel, but it did seem like he at least knew
about the subject that he was writing about. I grew up in a small town and from
time to time the situations in the book felt familiar, however, I don’t believe
that is enough to make this book readable.
I the end I was disappointed by Downtown Owl. I high expectations
for a novel by Chuck Klosterman and I feel like he let me down. It was a
struggle to actually finish this book. I wanted to find out if the book was
going anywhere and it didn’t. While Downtown Owl did paint a good picture of
small town life it didn’t have a plot or character development. I don’t
recommend this book to anyone; even if you are a fan of Chuck Klosterman’s
other writing.
