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Downtown Owl

By A.H. Goldstein, Special to the Rocky

Published October 2, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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* Fiction. By Chuck Klosterman. Scribner, $24. Grade: B

Plot in a nutshell: In Klosterman's first foray into fiction, the author of sardonic, jaded explorations of heavy metal music and pop culture turns his biting wit on a more rural target.

In Downtown Owl, the setting is an insular North Dakota outpost where everyone knows everyone else's secrets and any departure from a narrow definition of "normal" is grounds for suspicion and scorn. It's an ambience straight out of Orwell, a dystopia that draws on more modern cues and motifs.

The novel is set across the waning months of 1983 and the beginning of 1984, but Klosterman does not describe a futuristic society in which the thought police run rampant. Instead, his main characters operate in a setting where there is little deviation from a rigid and unchanging way of life.

Against this backdrop, Klosterman follows the inner struggles and everyday conflicts of three main characters - a lifelong Owl resident in his 70s, a native high schooler trying to prove his grit, and a recent transplant from a bigger city. With well- honed, deadpan humor and microscopic attention to character development, the author explores the debilitating effects of a sheltered existence.

Sample of prose: Klosterman uses a high school student's reading of George Orwell's seminal text as a springboard for comparison to the effects of living in Owl. "More than anything else, the point that 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' kept ramming home was that Big Brother knew everything about everyone, and everyone just accepted this as part of being alive. . . . How was this remotely different from reality?. . . Very often, he knew the stories without having ever met the people they were about."

Pros: Klosterman has a skill for characterization and bringing his humor to bear on his narration.

Cons: The novel's structure, which bounces between different Owl residents' perspectives, sometimes becomes tangled and confused.

Final word: A dyspeptic and derisive character study set on a stage of small-town Americana.