666. The Fan Man

The Fan Man
William Kotzwinkle
1974
Around 190 pages

I was hoping our Satanic entry would be a bit more impressive. Instead we get another comic novel that falls flat. Oh well, at least it was short.

Our protagonist is named Horse Badorties, and I'm already tired. He likes fans and is putting together a benefit concert featuring teenage girls. Honestly, I would watch it if it was a Bravo show, but I wasn't that interested in the prose. The lowlight for me was definitely a chapter when Horse says the word "dorky" approximately 15000 times. 

In another writer's hands, I might have been much more sympathetic to Horse as a character, but the humor here didn't land for me. Whatever the goal, repeating the same phrase thousands of times is obnoxious. Maybe he had a word count to reach and panicked. We've all been there.

Obscure for a reason.

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

Kotzwinkle wrote the novelization of E.T.

UP NEXT: Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow