Boonville: A Novel - Softcover

Anderson, Robert Mailer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060516216 ISBN 13: 9780060516215

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2003

Synopsis

Surrounded by misfits, rednecks, and counterculture burnouts, John Gibson—the reluctant heir of an alcoholic grandmother—and Sarah McKay—a commune-reared "hippie-by-association"—search for self and community in the hole-of-a-town Boonville. As they try to assemble from the late-twentieth-century jumble of life the facts of sexuality, love, and death, and face the possibility of an existence without God, John and Sarah learn what happens when they dare to try to make art from their lives.

About this title

From the Author:

This is a work of fiction; any character's resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. Although the town of Boonville is real and I did live there and graduate from high school and drink beer and play sports and read Dos Passos and write for the local paper and my first girlfriend (although I never really called her my girlfriend) tried to kill me there by driving into oncoming traffic at the intersection of Highway 128 and Mountain View Road and my heroes have always been cowboys and I do truly love the Anderson Valley, there's no way to accurately portray this place. Nobody would believe the real truth. It's too violent and weird. And this is not some thinly veiled autobiography. I repeat, this is a work of fiction. I tried my best to get at some "higher truth." I think we all know the inherent problems in that undertaking. So, any of the local residents who can read, and do read this novel, and take offense at the descriptions or content,! instead of sucker-punching me while I'm in town trying to buy you a drink and we'll call it even. As for the hippies in the county who may be upset at the depiction of hippies, I say, "Tough shit, hippie." Anyone willing to identify themselves as a hippie here in the 21st century has their head up their ass and gets what they deserve.

From the Inside Flap:

"Robert Mailer Anderson is a very sick man - and a very funny writer." Carl Hiaasen

"Because I think Boonville by Robert Mailer Anderson is terrific, I am obliged to state that he is not a relative. He has, however, written a most exciting first novel and gives more than a few signs that he could become a member of that vanishing American breed - a major novelist." Norman Mailer

"Robert Mailer Anderson is a young writer of energy, style, and wit." Martin Cruz Smith

"Robert Mailer Anderson's a brilliant new voice - twitchy, corny, sly, cackling and sad, but most of all, racing with vitality and goosing you to keep up. Boonville is the creepy and hilarious coming-of-age story the territory deserves - not your parent's Vineland, but your own." Jonathan Lethem

"Boonville offers a quirky slice of California that's not for the faint of heart. Anderson is a bold, bright, funny writer who keeps the pages turning." Bill Barich

"Boonville Heralds the debut of an engaging, clear-eyed new talent. Anderson has achieved an engrossing vision of tangled lives on the edge of the world, and done it on an ambitious scale. He has drawn the Northern California counterculture scene, its mores and wildnesses, with a fresh, original hand. Best of all, he is writing as one of the rare members of his emerging generation that brings a true moral and philosophical depth to his edgy subject matter." Naomi Wolf

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060516216
• ISBN 13: 9780060516215
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272