Pop Culture Porn for Hipsters

Most people know Chuck Klosterman for his essays. And if you don’t know the essays, you should. Because they are awesome. How can you not love someone who can perfectly explain the modern definition of a hipster on the fly, at a book reading, as “You used to be able to tell the difference between hipsters and homeless people. Now, it's between hipsters and retards. I mean, either that guy in the corner in orange safety pants holding a protest sign and wearing a top hat is mentally disabled or he is the coolest fucking guy you will ever know." Yesssss.

So, I was very excited to learn that Klosterman has a novel (his first), called Downtown Owl. The premise is pretty basic. It follows three characters in their daily lives in the small, rural town of Owl, North Dakota – or the very epitome of flyover country – over the course of seven months in 1983. There’s Julia, a teacher from Minneapolis who is so bored that she spends every night getting drunk in order to forget that she’s a teacher living in Owl, North Dakota. There’s Mitch, a teenage boy who thinks the best thing going in his life is sleep and imagining a hypothetical fight between the high school’s resident giant vs. the high school’s resident psychopath. And, there’s Horace, a retired widower who lives for his daily trek to the coffee shop where he and a crew of crotchety old men have the same three conversations.

Downtown Owl is very decent and very readable. Klosterman is hilarious and he’s at his fiction writing best when he provides dialogue along with the characters’ internal monologues, creating a script of what he/she said versus what he/she meant. And there are some moving passages featuring Horace and the story of how he lost his wife and the bulk of his retirement savings.

But it’s also apparent this is a first novel, and Klosterman’s penchant for commentary and pop culture references appear throughout the book, with varying degrees of success. Some of the side characters are chiefly described in relation to their musical tastes, including Julia’s love interest, who only listens to the Rolling Stones. In fact, his and Julia’s first conversation is basically an opportunity for Klosterman to reminisce about ‘80s bands, with Julia suggesting a litany of popular records and songs that should be listened to by someone who likes the Rolling Stones. At that point, we lose the fiction and go back to Klosterman’s touch stone of music commentary. This is not to say the exchange isn't entertaining to read - it is. But it doesn't really have any meaningful place in the fictional narrative, doesn't advance the plot and doesn't provide any real insights into the characters.

All things considered, there are enough bright lights in this book to justify the read and show off the author’s talent for fiction writing. Downtown Owl doesn’t quite surpass Klosterman’s insights on why women in their 30s love John Cuscak (note, it’s because they still see him as Lloyd Dobler. Totes true.), but it shows potential.