Whompyjawed: A Novel
by Mitch Cullin

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Book Summary Information

• ISBN13: 9780743202084
• Condition: New
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Book Reviews of Whompyjawed: A Novel

Book Review: Nothing whompyjawed about this terrific h.s. football novel
Summary: 5 Stars

It would be all to easy to caricaturize Willy Keeler's life: star football player, dates the gorgeous but virginal daughter of a repressive high-school principal, reluctant victim of paternal abandonment, observer of family disintegration, unknowing pawn of his football coach who is simultaneously paternalistic and cynically manipulative. These truths, however, grossly simplify the complexity and depth of the protagonist's life. Keeler, despite every inducement to play it safe, constantly questions his actions and tries to invent acceptable understandings of his life's direction. Football, Texas style, becomes a powerful metaphor of competition, deception and self-definition. Coach Bud's professed concern for Willy's future unravels under championship pressure; the adult's supposed maturity disintegrates as he blandly risks Willy's health for victory. Ultimately, Cullin destroys our culture's image of high-schoool football coaches as role models for innocent youth.

Willy's increased disaffection with his high-school sweetheart, Hanna, leads to a powerful sexual fantasy and attachment to one of his mother's abused, broken friends. The author's treatment of adult and adolescent sexuality is one of the novel's special achievements. As well, Cullin sympathetically examines the multi-faceted and disastrous consequences of a fractured family. In a manner reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson in "Winesburg, Ohio," the characters in "Whompyjawed" suddenly and unpredictably become alive to each other, briefly, but powerfully, illuminating their deepest selves to each other. Willy's mother's brief and pain-saturated soliloquy about her family's past is perhaps the best of many epiphanies streaking across the novel's pages.

Though many of the moments of this novel are whompyjawed askew -- odd or off-centered -- the novel rings true. "Whompyjawed" will remain with the reader long after its conclusion.

Summary of Whompyjawed: A Novel

Whompyjawed: 1.Askew, out of place 2.Off-center or crooked 3. (informal) a person of eccentric or questionable character;

Football is Willy Keeler's ticket out of West Texas, but only if he can keep the explosive combination of his intellect and hormones from destroying his high-school career. Not an easy task as he also contends with the endless demands of his girlfriend, mother, coach, and college recruiters. When a startling sexual encounter with a classmate and a consuming infatuation with one of his mother's friends threaten to shatter his fragile balance, Willy discovers that simply figuring out who he is may be the greatest challenge of all.

Reminiscent of The Catcher in the Rye and The Last Picture Show, Mitch Cullin's Whompyjawed is an unforgettable coming-of-age story, told with unparalleled humor and compassion.

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