Nihilistic with a promise of something thereafter

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	• God Clobbers Us All Poe Ballantine Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts, LLC, 2004 - 196 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Short Fiction Still Best

Poe Ballentine is one of my favorite authors of nonfiction or short stories, but I he fell short of my perhaps elevated expections with this first novel. The characters and situations are intriquing, however, and I would recommend this as a good read for those familiar with Ballentine's work or anyone interested in an off-beat description of life on the fringe.

Never shirk a chance at an adventure

Big Pat Fillmore, the lonesome snorting alcoholic Blackfoot lesbian nurse's aide, who never shirks a chance at an adventure, is the unlikely best friend of Edgar Donahoe, cerebro-cool teen acidhead surfer of 1970's San Diego suburbia. God Clobbers Us All concerns itself with these two nurse's aides and how they deal with the emotional consequences of their accidental killing of a fellow worker. Within this framework is an excellent study of young people transformed by daily exposure to the verboten death and degeneration secrets of modern western society. "Chula sits close to me and nibbles my ear. Nurse's aides, in my experience, are the most sexually active group outside of nymphomaniacs, prostitutes, and meat packers. We also party hardier per capita than any other occupation, not only because we are poor and our futures are dull, but also because we see every night firsthand the terrible and heartbreaking things that are going to happen to us when we grow old." The novel, although it may appear to romanticize libertinism, is as good a text as any on the certain fate of the counterculture epicurean. It's also chilling testimony on the places where our worn out mothers and fathers are sent. This is a very fast read with a wonderful "feel" and many places to flex your laughing muscles. The prose is so effortless it's rather easy to sail over without registering any depth. Anyone accustomed to seeing Ballantine's tough, melancholy essays in The Sun, as I note in two languidly composed reviews below, might be better served by his outstanding essay collection, Things I Like About America.

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Nihilistic with a promise of something thereafter

This is a play in which the actors keep disappearing, (gone missing), while the set director dutifully keeps to his task of moving the scenery around, until no one is left. Still he is a really cool set director, someone like Robert Wilson maybe, (the structure of this novel should not disappoint anyone). The author has sense of humor, with pratfalls and pulling the rug out from under the audience; he distracts us from his Chandleresque task, to uncover San Diego, once know as America's Finest City, which is now America's most rotten city. It is the place Poe always warned us about, the place people go to dissipate away what little they have won from life. Here the best and the brightest immediately dive for the bottom, (to avoid the stench of rotting seaweed on the shore) with no hint, or promise that they will ever come up for air. Some are lost, but the rest arrive unsullied. Truthfullness remains the one salient feature of this story, and a promise of something thereafter.

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Joyous, heartbreaking writing

Poe Ballantine's writing breaks my heart. You'll catch yourself laughing at the little personal tragedies of his unique and vivid characters, and then sighing when you understand that life's never gonna be easy. In the end you may want to cry, feeling like you've lost your best friends. At least I did.

I can heartily recommend this book with no reservations. It's my opinion that Ballantine is one of the best writers of his generation: his prose style seems so simple and easy, which lets the reader get intimate with his characters. But at the same time the writing is very polished. It's chock full of keen observations from a writer's eye.

Go out and buy this one and then find an empty afternoon during which you can cozy up with a cup of tea and a blanket.

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What will you say on your death bed?

Say this for Poe Ballantine: His characters are youthful misfits, but they grapple with big questions. Their chaotic lives tend toward something, but the characters themselves don't necessarily understand toward what. Ballantine's affection and sympathy for them are evident in every line. His friends could be your friends. You will enjoy their company, and you will miss them after finishing the book.

reviews: page 1, 2

"God Clobbers Us All, by gum, I couldn't have said it better myself. He might've added, however, that this is only the beginning of our troubles. I almost split my tombstone laughing. This man Poe Ballantine can write the stockings off a schoolmarm."- Mark Twain

"What do I think about Poe Ballantine? I try to not to think about Poe Ballantine. I'm not much for blurbs either. I put them right up there with creative writing workshops. Hell of a good-looking cover, though. Now hand me that can of Schlitz and let me get back to work. All this talk about my death has got me in a funk." -Charles Bukowski

Eighteen-year-old Edgar Donahoe is a rest home nurse's aid surfer-boy adulterer who, along with his lesbian Blackfoot nurse's aid best friend, Pat Fillmore, becomes responsible for the disappearance of their fellow worker, Beverly Fey, after an LSD party gone awry. Set against the dilapidated halls of a San Diego rest home, Lemon Acres, in the 1970s, this story is the shimmering, hysterical and melancholy account of Edgar's struggles with romance, death, friendship, and an ill-advised affair with the wife of a maladjusted war veteran. Ballantine's own brand of delicious quirkiness and storytelling is smooth and compelling, and God Clobbers Us All is guaranteed to satisfy Ballantine fans, as well as convert those lucky enough to be discovering his work for the first time. Suggestive of Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac, Ballantine's first novel is offbeat, compelling, and fun!

Poe Ballantine lives in Chadron, Nebraska, and his work has appeared in The Sun and the Atlantic Monthly Online. In 1998, he won a Best American Short Story award. His debut collection, Things I Like About America was published in 2002.

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