Downtown Owl

Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman

I didn’t even know who Chuck Klosterman was when I picked up this book, but after listening to just a few minutes of Downtown Owl, I had to check to see who he was and if he went to high school with me. He didn’t — as he’s from North Dakota — but Downtown Owl was so jarringly and surprisingly familiar to me that I had to make sure.  Set in 1983 and 1984 in the cold, flat plains of fictional Owl, ND, this book captures small town plains life almost perfectly.  At least it does for that time frame.

The residents of Owl converse and care deeply about the weather, crops, the high school sports teams, the bars, and the fact that the local movie theatre is closing down.  (Check, check, check, double check.)  The day doesn’t seem complete if the farmers don’t get together and talk about all these important events over coffee every day. (Triple check.)  And last but not least, the English teacher is having the high school classes read 1984 in 1984. (Quadruple check.)  Klosterman could have been telling this story about my own hometown in the very year of 1984 when I, too, was reading 1984 as a high school sophomore.  Eerily familiar, I tell you! Oh, and the music, too.  All the popular music of the day gets a mention, and that was a nice blast from the past as well.

The three main characters in the book are Mitch, a high school student on the football team; Julia, a young, brand new teacher who is the new celebrity in town; and Horace, a 70ish widower whose wife died of insomnia.  I really don’t want to say too much about the characters because they each have their own unique voice and slant on living in Owl that is best experienced yourself.  If you want to know more about them, read the book!

The book does have quite a bit of bad language in it, one scene of animal cruelty that was graphically described, and an ending I wasn’t sure if I liked or not, BUT…  I will definitely be looking into Klosterman’s next novel, particularly if it contains plains people in a plains town.

2008, 288 pp.
Rating: 4/5