Slouching Towards Kalamazoo

By Peter De Vries

Book Overview

It is 1963 in an unnamed town in North Dakota, and Anthony Thrasher is languishing for a second year in eighth grade. Prematurely sophisticated, young Anthony spends too much time reading Joyce, Eliot, and Dylan Thomas but not enough time studying the War of 1812 or obtuse triangles. A tutor is hired, and this "modern Hester Prynne" offers Anthony lessons that ultimately free him from eighth grade and situate her on the cusp of the American sexual revolution. Anthony's restless adolescent voice is perfectly suited to De Vries's blend of erudite wit and silliness-not to mention his fascination with both language and female anatomy-and it propels Slouching Towards Kalamazoo through theological debates and quandaries both dermatological and ethical, while soaring on the De Vriesian hallmark of scrambling conventional wisdom for comic effect.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140070702
• ISBN13: 9780140070705
• Release Date: July 1984
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 241 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Absolutly hilarious; cleverly written

I just finished this book. I could not put it down. Peter De Vries is a brillaint comic writer. I put him up there with Woody Allen. His characters were so void of common sense yet "book smart". The situation with Tony getting his teacher pregnant in one passionate moment was the funniest thing I ever read. It never struck me as "dirty" or off color. The way the two of them handled the "delicate situation" was side splittingly funny. I have to say that when Tony starting reciting the "chief products of Venezuela" I almost fell on the floor laughing. I was also very taken by his father and the way the author described how he would read from books to his wife and Tony. The expression he would use in his voice could almost be "heard" by me because the author described it so well. My favorite line from the book was in the beginning. Tony's teacher had assigned "The Scarlet letter". The mayor being a "percursor to todays Moral Majority" said,"We're gonna tighten our Bible Belt! "We're gonna show'em we're the buckle of the belt". I live in a very conservative state and it would be something I just might hear and have to giggle. I highly recommend this book. It is a winner.

A book to make you laugh out loud

This book kept me laughing out loud all the way through. Even on re-reading, it's still funny. Very witting, very erudite. Great fun for anybody who's a bit on the bookish side. Without giving too much of the plot away -- an affair between an English teacher and a student, and they keep correcting each other's grammar & vocabulary & epigrams during intimate moments. Fun book!

allusions and nonsense abound in this glib, wacked-out tale

Man, why is this guy out of print? This stuff is great! A truly humorous, satirical novel, this surpasses almost anything written in the last twentyt yuears that I have read in its wit and uncanny shenanigans.