Kornwolf: A Novel - Softcover

Egolf, Tristan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802170161 ISBN 13: 9780802170163

Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat, 2005

Synopsis

Tristan Egolf's new novel is a book about the return of an old curse — the Kornwolf, a ferocious werewolf whose nocturnal rampaging becomes increasingly impossible to ignore. Kornwolf takes the reader for a good old-fashioned romp in the stubble — a journey through the slums and honky tundra of rural Pennsylvania, where nothing quite passes for good or bad, sublime or dismal, discrete or brash. And then the monotony breaks. Something — a freak of creation — is running amok in the fields. To solve the mystery, three generations of prodigal sons — a writer and hometown boy who swore he'd never come back to Penn's Woods; a middle-aged former pugilist who runs a decrepit boxing gym; and a misfit, mute, beaten-down Amish boy — are brought together by the light of a blue moon, in a town called Blue Ball. On one level this is a masterfully orchestrated, hilarious, and compelling take on the classic horror yarn, on another, Kornwolf is a social satire of suburban sprawl, closed minds, and all manners and varieties of self-satisfaction — Amish, civilian, or... other — in the best tradition of Tom Robbins and George Saunders.

About this title

About the Author

Tristan Egolf was the author of Lord of the Barnyard and Skirt and the Fiddle. His novels were translated into many foreign languages. He resided in Paris, Amsterdam, rural Kentucky, Oxford, MS, Philadelphia, New York City, and Cape Cod, among other places, and worked as a dog walker, gorilla-suited singing-telegramist, busker, dishwasher, frontman of a band, and booking agent of an avant-garde dance troupe. He was born in 1971. At the time of his death in May 2005 he was living in Lancaster, PA, a city with a sizeable Amish population, and working on a rock opera, the literary/arts website Windmills Online, which currently maintains a tribute page for him, and finishing the novel Kornwolf. He leaves behind a fiancee and two year old daughter.

Reviews

Depending on the phases of the moon, Ephraim, antihero of this caustic, exuberant novel, changes from a meek Amish lad into a hideous, foul-smelling werewolf with a taste for Satanic thrash-metal and an uncanny resemblance to Richard Nixon. Pursued by a cynical reporter, a sympathetic boxing coach with a mysterious past and a horde of vigilantes, Ephraim rampages through the barns and cornfields of the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside, as well as the exurban subdivisions and Sprawl-Marts that are gnawing away at it. As he lopes toward a prophesied Halloween bloodbath, his howl gives voice to the hidden violence and sexual transgressions of the orderly, pacifist Amish, the "hedonic enchantments" with which consumer culture seduces the young and deranges settled communities, or perhaps an anarchic devilry that neither traditional religion nor modern capitalism can tame. This is familiar teen-werewolf territory, but Egolf, who committed suicide earlier this year, infuses it with deadpan wit and sardonic social satire, both sympathizing with and lampooning the Amish resistance—and occasional surrender—to the corruption of "English" society. Like Stephen King, Egolf (Lord of the Barnyard) pokes the dark, squalid underbelly of smalltown life, but adds an edge of punk derision. Although Egolf's climax plunges into lurid melodrama, he delivers a smart, stylish supernatural fable with an infectious bite. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In the third novel by Egolf, who took his own life last year, a rough beast is slouching through the hills of rural Pennsylvania, with glowing eyes, a pompadour, and a strong resemblance to Richard Nixon. This is good news for Owen Brynmor, a reporter who has recently returned to his hated home town, which he recalls as a soulless place where public schooling was "a daily incentive to go on a shooting spree." He gleefully concocts a shaggy-werewolf story for the local paper, hoping to disrupt the peace, and little suspecting that the lycanthrope really does exist. By day, he's a mute Amish boy; by night, an avenging spirit out of German myth. Egolf's frantic novel reads as if it had been written all at once, in a white heat, and its coherence suffers accordingly. Still, the voice is unforgettable, at times attaining the incantatory power of Whitman's "barbaric yawp."
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Egolf's recent suicide robbed us of a most gifted contemporary satirist. In his third and final novel, he impressively demonstrates why his witty voice will be missed. It is a boldly original modern fantasy that follows the tracks of a rampaging Amish werewolf--you read that correctly--through the backwoods of the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside. When he isn't plowing his family's meager fields, teenage Ephraim finds himself waking up naked in the middle of cornfields, wondering where and how he has spent the night. Meanwhile, in nearby Blue Ball, a chilling photo of something hairy and vaguely resembling Richard Nixon is creating a buzz to the effect that the legendary Kornwolf of local renown has finally returned. Ephraim's bestial trail will eventually cross those of two returning prodigal sons of Blue Ball--a young reporter and a boxing manager, who team to avert the Kornwolf's prophesied final rampage on Halloween. Egolf's potent mixture of ribald supernaturalism and dark satire of modern culture should attract Stephen King fans. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802170161
• ISBN 13: 9780802170163
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400