"Downtown Owl" by Chuck Klosterman

Downtown Owl was certainly a better place to be than wherever I was in my last book. I'm still struggling with ambivalence about the ending (I think it ought to have made me feel something; is it okay that it didn't? I'm not sure if that says something about me or about the book) but I enjoyed the meandering journey it took to get there.

Set in a small town in North Dakota, we know from the outset that the citizens of Owl have a "killer blizzard" in their future. But when we're taken back to the beginning of football season the previous August, we quickly forget what Owl doesn't know is coming. In this town where all 850 residents seem to know everything about each other, we become privy to many of their stories and some of their secrets.

Owl is full of intriguing people (would a random selection of Americans really be this interesting?), and Klosterman manages to avoid the trap of creating characters who are quirky merely for the sake of being quirky. Somehow everyone in Owl is believable and even somewhat normal, all without being boring.

Klosterman also seamlessly blends reality and fiction. Owl does not exist; the blizzard (which hit on February 4, 1984) really happened. The characters who narrate the story are made up; one who everyone in town seems to obsess over, but who we never meet, is an actual historical figure (Gordon Kahl).

Klosterman is 2.5 of 2.5 with me. Sam did a great job by choosing this book for my birthday!

"The Visible Man" by Chuck Klosterman

This is the story of an Austin, Texas therapist and her treatment of one specific patient: a man who can make himself become invisible. Not a man who thinks he can make himself invisible, or who has delusions of invisibility, but a former scientist who had been part of a now-scrapped government project, and who secretly and unofficially completed the work after the project was discontinued.

Chuck Klosterman comes up with great what-if questions. (Seriously. You should check this out--we've had a lot of fun with it.) So, what would you do if you could become invisible? Would you use your powers for good or evil? The "visible man" strongly believes that no human can honestly and purely behave according to their true personality unless completely alone, and he feels compelled to study people being themselves... by quietly breaking into their houses and observing them in their (supposed) solitude. Somehow he believes this is a good use of his power, but not everyone would be able to see his point of view.

The story intertwines the evolution of an odd patient/therapist relationship with the stories the man tells of situations he has witnessed during his surreptitious "research". He was privy to some unusual scenarios, which seemed only too limited--certainly not in scope, but in number. I wished there had been more! I wouldn't mind reading more Klosterman books, if I can assume his others measure up.