Downtown Owl
Encyclopedia
Downtown Owl: A Novel is a novel written by Chuck Klosterman
, first published by Scribner
in 2008
. It is the author's first all-fictional publication.
, in which three characters are intangibly connected. Horace is an old man who spends his afternoons in the local coffee shop with other old men, shaking dice to see who pays for coffee, and talking about politics, religion, and memorable Owl football teams of the past. Mitch is a stoic high school backup quarterback who is depressed for no apparent reason. Julia is the newest resident of Owl. She moved to the small town to teach history and spends much of her free time at the local bars (where she meets local celebrity Vance Druid). The town has about 850 residents and is semi-isolated from 1980s music and culture. As a climax, the three main characters are caught in a sudden blizzard
--Horace and Julia stuck in their cars and Mitch outdoors.
In the end, Mitch dies of exposure in a vast field, and Julia dies of carbon monoxide poisoning in her car. Only Horace manages to crawl back to his home and survive. The novel ends with a newspaper article about the death of star athlete Chris "Grendel" Sellers, which inaccurately depicts him as a kind human being and overshadows the deaths of the other characters completely. Even he is marginalized as the article is cut off mid sentence by the phrase "continued on page C11"'
Chuck Klosterman
Charles John "Chuck" Klosterman is an American author and essayist who has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and The Washington Post, and has written books focusing on American popular culture....
, first published by Scribner
Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...
in 2008
2008 in literature
The year 2008 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 1 - In the 2008 New Year Honours, Hanif Kureishi , Jenny Uglow , Peter Vansittart and Debjani Chatterjee are all rewarded for "services to literature".*June 15 - Gore Vidal, asked in a New York Times...
. It is the author's first all-fictional publication.
Plot outline
The story describes the fictional town of Owl, North DakotaNorth Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
, in which three characters are intangibly connected. Horace is an old man who spends his afternoons in the local coffee shop with other old men, shaking dice to see who pays for coffee, and talking about politics, religion, and memorable Owl football teams of the past. Mitch is a stoic high school backup quarterback who is depressed for no apparent reason. Julia is the newest resident of Owl. She moved to the small town to teach history and spends much of her free time at the local bars (where she meets local celebrity Vance Druid). The town has about 850 residents and is semi-isolated from 1980s music and culture. As a climax, the three main characters are caught in a sudden blizzard
Blizzard
A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds. By definition, the difference between blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have winds in excess of with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or...
--Horace and Julia stuck in their cars and Mitch outdoors.
In the end, Mitch dies of exposure in a vast field, and Julia dies of carbon monoxide poisoning in her car. Only Horace manages to crawl back to his home and survive. The novel ends with a newspaper article about the death of star athlete Chris "Grendel" Sellers, which inaccurately depicts him as a kind human being and overshadows the deaths of the other characters completely. Even he is marginalized as the article is cut off mid sentence by the phrase "continued on page C11"'
Reception
External links
- Downtown Owl at Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...