World Literature, Fiction Subjects

Western Swing

Name: Western Swing
Author: Tim Sandlin
ISBN: 9781402241772

by Tim Sandlin

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Overview

"What propels Western Swing is a cheerfully unfashionable conviction that in spite of past mistakes, lost hopes, and emotional pain, these two people belong together." -New York Times Book Review

Lana Sue has had too many husbands and too little success as a country-western singer. Loren Paul's a semi-successful writer presently sitting on top of a western Wyoming mountain waiting for Cosmic answers.

Together or apart, Loren Paul and Lana Sue are modern folk heroes on this deliciously ribald saga of the new Wild West-a spirited tale of love and loss, of country music and coming home.

"The humor of Western Swing is the key to Tim Sandlin's memorable characters...a wonderful and satisfying experience." -Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Sandlin's is a book about running into the sun and keeping on, with humor, passion, and faith, no matter how you burn or mess up." -Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Tim Sandlin writes about crazy people. Not scary crazies, but the kind of interesting, funny eccentrics with whom the reader would like to spend an evening drinking beer...Western Swing is funny, wise and a bubbling joy to read." -Kansas City Star

"Ongoing life is what this book is all about...Sandlin's voice is a wry mix of cynicism and innocence. Add to that a well developed sense of the bizarre, and you have a book that's fun to read, brimming with high-spirited zaniness."-St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About the Author, Tim Sandlin

Reviewers have variously compared Tim Sandlin to Jack Kerouac, Tom Robbins, Larry McMurtry, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, and a few other writers you've probably heard of. He has published nine novels and a book of columns. He wrote eleven screenplays for hire, two of which have been made into movies. He lives with his family in Jackson, Wyoming, where he is director of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference. His "Sandlinistas" follow him at www.timsandlin.com.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Loren Paul, a 35-year-old writer of westerns, sits on an isolated Wyoming mountaintop in a semi-delirious state from a long fast, waiting for divine guidance. He is literally waiting to hear from God, since he feels that God has a lot of explaining to do. Loren wants to know, for example, why his only child disappeared on a camping trip many years ago, a tragedy that led to the death of his first wife. And why has his second and current wife, Lana Sue, a sexy and free-spirited country-and-western singer, taken to the open road, forsaking their idyllic domestic nest? Despite the end-of-the-line sense of desperation evoked by this situation, this is a droll and high-spirited novel about the eccentric lives and loves of Loren and his footloose wife. For just as Loren sits on a mountaintop aerie reflecting on his life, Lana Sue, whose past seems the embodiment of the country-and-western songs she adores, is off on her own odyssey of self-discovery. Her route, however, is a little different: she seeks headlong solace in the sweet oblivion of one-night stands, although quickly gets herself entangled in a relationship that tests her plucky cowgirl mettle to its fullest. There is something of the loopy invention and drollery of Tom Robbins in Sandlin's voice. Particularly in the early parts of the book, Sandlin Sex and Sunsets overindulges his fondness for whimsy, but once the narrative gets underway he reveals solid storytelling talent and the ability to create two vividly sympathetic characters whose adventures have something of the grit and pathos of a funky country-and-western ballad. April

Library Journal

In the Tom Robbins-Rita Mae Brown tradition of humor comes this hilarious novel of Loren Paul, a Western writer who is currently atop a mountain seeking answers to cosmic questions, and his wife, Lana Sue, a much-married country-and-western singer. She leaves Loren, and they take turns telling their stories; so while Loren remembers his past and muses on the meaning of life, Lana Sue starts out on a series of one-night stands that eventually involve an almost suicide, murderous intentions, and lots of raunch. This is a Western in the most modern sense, and humor is definitely ``black.'' The dialogue is snappy, the characters richly drawn, and the detail such that we know not only the kind of gum but how many sticks. Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Lib., Seaside, Cal.