Tristan
Egolf
2000
An
Alexandrine Couple About The Lessons Learned From Lord Of The Barnyard
Don’t
screw with geniuses – or any of their friends
they
can exact revenge – very creatively
The
full title is Lord of the Barnyard: Killing The Fatted Calf And Arming The
Aware In The Corn Belt. That is a
fucking ridiculous title. But the book is
truly amazing. I don’t use the following
term lightly (because I hate sounding like a pretentious kootie), but this book
is a tour de force.
 |
Corporal
Hicks from Aliens is actually
the 1st Google Image result for
“Pretentious Kootie.”
Which is really unfair,
considering Paul
Reiser was in that movie.
|
Lord
Of The Barnyard is nothing short of breathtaking. The prose is clean, descriptive, and brutally
honest. The depiction of a small
Kentucky town, the poultry industry, etc. will knock you down.
The
story itself is a 1st person narrative of a garbage man telling the story of
his friend (and the protagonist) John Kaltenbrunner. John is preternaturally, even mystically
intelligent. His brains are only matched
by his bad luck and completely anti-social personality traits.
The
early story concerns John’s terrible childhood in a farm community, his leaving
and much later returning, and his becoming a garbage man. Building to the climax, John, in an effort to
give the people he works with the human dignity they deserve (and engender them
some self-respect), leads a garbage strike.
Soon enough the town is crippled, businesses close, riots begin. The garbage men go into hiding as the town,
rotting under the putrid filth of its own trash, begins destroying itself. Basically all-out white trash anarchy. Can you think of a better Tuesday night?
 |
“white
trash anarchy” in a Google Image search
brought up this Salvador Dali
tattoo.
I’d rather have a Corporal Hicks
tattoo.
|
I
don’t want to give too much away.
Suffice to say there’s just enough believability in the settings and
characters to keep the story grounded, just enough excitement and intrigue to
keep it going, and just enough real world to make you wonder. It’s clear you’re intended to think about
what you would do without trash men, and about the way you see them. But don’t think too hard – it’s more about
awesome literature than social commentary.
Just buy this book and enjoy the Hell out of it. It really was one of the best books written in
2000, and should have, in this humble narrator’s opinion, been nominated for
the Pulitzer Prize.
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