Synopsis
Struggling with his wife's desertion and questions about who his father really is, Sam Callahan finds support from his practical daughter Shannon, who researches Sam's paternity and sets off the adventure of Sam's life
Reviews
Some consider it a social blunder to use the wrong fork, but Sam Callahan, the narrator of this ribald and tangled yarn, would never make such a mundane faux pas. For Sam, every goof is a doozy?and his missteps are at least as comic and bawdy as they are tragic. Sandlin provides his bumbling hero with an appropriately quirky past: it's 1984, Sam is 33 and his second wife has just left him. He lives in North Carolina with his 19-year-old daughter, born to him and an eighth-grade classmate. (The earlier parts of Sam's life were chronicled in Skipped Parts and Sorrow Floats.) Sam never knew his birth father's identity: his mother claims to have been gang-raped by five high-school football players, which has left Sam with an abhorrence of men and of conventional sex as well. The impending divorce puts Sam in a mind to get his life together, so he spontaneously introduces himself to four out of five of his possible dads (and?big oops?to the unsuspecting widow of the fifth). He fails to consider the repercussions this will have in the men's families; he's attacked by two of his possible half-brothers, seduced by his could-be stepmother and charmed by his potential half-sister. To say that Sam brings on his own calamities would be an understatement, yet his absurd logic in matters of romance, lust and paternity is oddly endearing. The characters in this third installment of Sandlin's GroVont Trilogy don't spend much time in GroVont, Wyo.?in fact, Sam doesn't escape west until after the climax of his tawdry tale. Still, Sam would be a literal riot in any state, and, as rendered by Sandlin, his voice is an effective blend of flippancy and compassion. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The third novel in Sandlin's GroVont Trilogy, following Skipped Parts (1991) and Sorrow Floats (1992), finds the indefatigable Sam Callahan mourning the defection of his second wife, Wanda. In an attempt to shake off the doldrums, Sam embarks on a comic quest to find the father he never knew, but since he was conceived during a night of drunken debauchery, he comes up with a list of five possible dads. He barges in on one family after another, opening all conversations with "Hi, Pops," and soon has five families in turmoil. Alternately ducking down alleys to avoid angry "relatives" and engaging in a lusty affair with one of his newfound "stepmothers," Sam no longer has time to wallow in emotional angst. Social Blunders is a weird, funny, raunchy novel that veers wildly from pathos to slapstick and back again, and it's surprisingly effective. Sam can toss off facile one-liners with the best of them, but the despair at the heart of his search for his father is never too far from the surface. Sandlin weds an outrageous plot with emotionally whacked-out characters and comes up with a loopy inquiry into the meaning of fatherhood. Joanne Wilkinson
Sam Callahan's mother told him she was raped by four football players when she was 14. One of them is his father, but which? She lied; actually, she paid them for sex. Anyway, Sam contacts each of the men and causes endless trouble. Soon, an affair with the wife of one man, an attraction to the daughter of another, and an attempted suicide have Sam running for his life. Wonderful characters spout outrageous dialog and perform even more outrageous acts. Sandlin's wild, wonderful, and wickedly funny romps conclude the trilogy that began with Skipped Parts (Ivy Bks., 1989) and continued in Sorrow Floats (LJ 8/92). Social Blunders can be read independently of the previous volumes. The tale is a little naughty, a little sentimental, and completely entertaining. Highly recommended.?Robert H. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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