Social Blunders
A Novel
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"Wild , wonderful, and wickedly funny...Highly recommended." - Library Journal
One of five men could be Sam Callahan's father. Is knowing the truth worth the havoc he'll cause trying to find out?
Laid low by divorce-the result of an endless stream of poor choices-Sam decides it's time he met his dad. But his quest to meet the men and discover the truth does more than just shake up the five likely suspects-it pretty much napalms the lives of everyone he meets.
A comic novel of dysfunctional family and raucous debauchery, fans of Nick Hornby, Jack Kerouac, Tom Robbins, Larry McMurtry, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Hiaasen will appreciate Sandlin's humor and Sam's journey.
Other books in Tim Sandlin's GroVant Trilogy:
Skipped Parts, Book 1
Sorrow Floats, Book 2
Social Blunders, Book 3
Lydia, Book 4
What readers are saying about Social Blunders:
"one of the funniest writers alive."
"I am a huge fan of Nick Hornby and Richard Russo, and Tim Sandlin belongs in their club."
"Besides being hilarious and lewd (a very good start), the novel is quite touching."
"Sandlin's narrative voice combines the absurdity of Tom Robbins, the pithy social observation of Douglas Coupland, the male sexual wanderlust of Phillip Roth."
"Rollicking raunchy raucous debaucherous dysfunctional good time fun-- with genuine heart and emotion mixed in for good measure"
"absolutely hysterical and touching. I haven't looked at treadmills the same way since!"
What reviewers are saying about Social Blunders:
"A story of grand faux pas and dazzling dysfunction...a wildly satirical look at the absurdities of modern life." -The New York Times Book Review
"Ribald... comic and bawdy...oddly endearing...an effective blend of flippancy and compassion." -Publishers Weekly
"Tim Sandlin only gets better. Social Blunders is an affecting book...It is fiction to be savored." -Larry McMurtry
"A weird, funny, raunchy novel that veers wildly from pathos to slapstick and back again, and it's surprisingly effective." -Booklist
What everyone is saying about Tim Sandlin:
"Tim Sandlin's stuff is as tight and funny as anyone doing this comedy novel thing." -Christopher Moore
"His prose, his characters, all amazing."
"A story of grand faux pas and dazzling dysfunction...a wildly satirical look at the absurdities of modern life." -The New York Times Book Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Some consider it a social blunder to use the wrong fork, but Sam Callahan, the narrator of this ribald and tangled yarn, would never make such a mundane faux pas. For Sam, every goof is a doozy--and his missteps are at least as comic and bawdy as they are tragic. Sandlin provides his bumbling hero with an appropriately quirky past: it's 1984, Sam is 33 and his second wife has just left him. He lives in North Carolina with his 19-year-old daughter, born to him and an eighth-grade classmate. (The earlier parts of Sam's life were chronicled in Skipped Parts and Sorrow Floats.) Sam never knew his birth father's identity: his mother claims to have been gang-raped by five high-school football players, which has left Sam with an abhorrence of men and of conventional sex as well. The impending divorce puts Sam in a mind to get his life together, so he spontaneously introduces himself to four out of five of his possible dads (and--big oops--to the unsuspecting widow of the fifth). He fails to consider the repercussions this will have in the men's families; he's attacked by two of his possible half-brothers, seduced by his could-be stepmother and charmed by his potential half-sister. To say that Sam brings on his own calamities would be an understatement, yet his absurd logic in matters of romance, lust and paternity is oddly endearing. The characters in this third installment of Sandlin's GroVont Trilogy don't spend much time in GroVont, Wyo.--in fact, Sam doesn't escape west until after the climax of his tawdry tale. Still, Sam would be a literal riot in any state, and, as rendered by Sandlin, his voice is an effective blend of flippancy and compassion. Author tour.
