Wonderdog - Hardcover

Majors, Inman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031233138X ISBN 13: 9780312331382

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004

Synopsis

With Wonderdog, Inman Majors brings us the unlikely Dev Degraw, son of the iconoclastic governor of the state and former child actor on the historically bad television drama "Bayou Dog." Dev inhabits Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama, ferocious wiener dogs, butter-eating contests, jackleg lawyers, and one-eyed stalkers. It's in this funky Southern milieu that Dev moves among the denizens of Tuscaloosa's local watering holes, the political bigwigs of the state capital, and the sundry elements of B-movie Hollywood.

As the story unfolds, Dev is trying his underachieving best to stay out of his father's heated bid for re-election, as well as a co-star's incomprehensible plans to organize a "Bayou Dog" cast reunion. Fortunately for the reader, his efforts to remain uninvolved in the political fray and as far away as possible from his TV alter ego are foiled by one comic entanglement after another: star-crossed love affairs, a halfhearted legal practice, and an ex-wife dating a male cheerleader. As he tries to rectify past glories with more recent foibles, we come to know the Dev who, knowingly or unknowingly, gets thrust upon a career path that will at last begin to define him. The result is a tour de force of American revelry.

Written with verbal energy, lyricism, and a knife-sharp eye for comedic detail, Wonderdog is a hilarious Dr. Frankenstein concoction of Henry the IV, Kingsley Amis, and John Kennedy Toole. But Inman Majors has created a comedy all his own, one that springs from a love of human speech and compassion for the minor geniuses in the dusty corners of life. Here, with Wonderdog, Majors sets out to examine the comic vagaries of the human condition. What he ends up with is a wholly original work of fiction, breathing new life into the Southern comedy along the way.

About this title

Book Description

If (Barry) Hannah is Southern Fiction's Howlin' Wolf, then Majors may well prove to be its B.B. King...Quick-witted and irreverent.

From the Back Cover

"Wonderdog reads as if narrated by the ne'er-do-well, incorrigible, and brilliant wastrel cousin of Walker Percy's Binx Bolling. But Inman Majors has a brilliant voice all his own--cockeyed, very funny, and deeply cognizant of the tender mercies. This book's a hell of a read. I loved it."
- Brad Watson, author of The Heaven of Mercury

"Inman Majors shows why politics will drive a governor's ex-spouse into hiding in a house trailer, and their wiseacre son crazy. A knowing and funny book."
- Ann Richards, former governor of Texas

"Wonderdog reads like Charles Portis cross-pollinated with full-tilt Barry Hannah, but Majors's voice is his own, and his picaresque tale of Dev DeGraw and his adventures among the various highlifes and lowlifes of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, linger in the mind long after the last page is turned."--William Gay, author of The Long Home and Provinces of Night

"Wonderdog is a hilariously unruly novel in the fine tradition of Padgett Powell--smart, Southern, inventive, and mean. Majors has written a seriously funny book."
- James Whorton, author of Approximately Heaven

"I ventured a cautious nose between the covers of Wonderdog, and immediately this voice, this outrageous voice, reminded me, for some reason, of Old Jones in A Confederacy of Dunces. Maybe I shot a look over my shoulder a time or two--okay, maybe I gawked--at the characters parading by, but I wasn't about to get up until the crazy tale was told."
- Sonny Brewer, author of The Poet of Tolstoy Park and editor of Stories from the Blue Moon Café

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 031233138X
• ISBN 13: 9780312331382
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304