Downtown Owl, by Chuck Klosterman

Book 13

I picked up Downtown Owl, because I read Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs a couple of years ago and liked it a lot.  Downtown Owl, however, is a novel about small town North Dakota.  Not sure what my fascination is with North Dakota.

It is one of those books that changes Point of View each chapter.  The main three characters are a high school jock, a new-to-town teacher and a senior citizen who prefers to mind his own business.  So.  From these three people, and a few interjections from a charming cast of supporting characters, a tale is told.

The climax of the book is a blizzard hitting town on what had been a warm February day.  Wait - I thought - the novel is set in 1984.  Wasn't there a big, bad blizzard... (goes to check the Internet)?  Yes.  There really was a big, bad blizzard in 1984.  Either way, I knew that what remained of this book wasn't whether Julia bags Vance Druid or whether Cubby Candy can beat up Grendel.  It is who lives and who dies.

I read The Children's Blizzard a couple of years ago - a non fiction about the Midwest blizzard of 1888.  So named because it came on so suddenly that the children walking home from school were caught and many died.  The end of Downtown Owl felt like reading that again.  Who lived and who died?

Klosterman did a fine job of making me care.  Bastard.