New in Paperback: Spooner by Pete Dexter

Out today in paper, National Book Award-winning Pete Dexter’s tragicomic Spooner (Grand Central). The author of Paris Trout approaches his fiction with the same abandon. From January Magazine’s 2009 look at the hardcover edition of this book:

Dexter is vivacious and his voice is light and bright but he manages at the same time to bring his words home with some weight. Not everyone can manage this neat feat: light and bright and weight.

To my mind, the story in Spooner is less important than the journey. We are immersed in the troubled life of Georgia-born Warren Spooner. A coming-of-age story on one level. The tale of the possible connections between men on another. But this is Pete Dexter, so it’s really none of those things. And more.

There are whispers that Spooner is at least semi-autobiographical. “The novel he was born to write,” says his publisher. Never mind that: the book is terrific. If you’ve not read this National Book Award-winning author before, Spooner is a great place to start.