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Famous Potatoes — Joe Cottonwood
“An engaging picaresque novel of a young man on the run. A warm, well-told story of a likable character with a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” -- Publisher's Weekly
Willy Middlebrook is a nice boy from the suburbs, a Vietnam vet, a college drop-out majoring in Human Kindness. Framed for the murder of a cop, Willy goes on the lam from the law, crisscrossing America with hopeful heart and broken balls, encountering the people of the humble cafes and dusty bars, underground: “They have rough brown skin and soft wrinkled eyes. They are round and they are usually dirty. They are hard because they have to be, but if you warm them they get soft and you can make them sweet.”
“Like the smudged chrome of a truck-stop diner, Famous Potatoes is an element of a new American realism, and Cottonwood has made it an engaging trip.” -- Chicago Tribune
It's the early 1970s, a time when only bad people get tattoos, long distance calls cost a small fortune, and an IBM 360 computer with a few hundred kilobytes was enough to run a bank.
“Cottonwood [has] charm--wry, loping, never cute. And, even more crucial, there is Cottonwood's genuine people-liking, which makes Willy's complications seem less dire; the troubled travels become a nice excuse to meet more interesting folks. Laid-back--but not too much--and attractive.” -- Kirkus
“Blessed with that wonderfully extravagant and original talent for telling tall tales, Joe Cottonwood weaves a whopper that catches you up and rockets you overland as Willy hitches himself on to one crazy adventure after another. . . Willy 'Crusoe' Middlebrook, anonymous fugitive, naive suburbanite, sexual suicide, husband on the run from Philadelphia and St. Louis to the sky-high Rockies of Idaho . . . “ -- Black Swan
“Philadelphia may never be the same again.” -- Cleveland Plain Dealer
Willy Middlebrook is a nice boy from the suburbs, a Vietnam vet, a college drop-out majoring in Human Kindness. Framed for the murder of a cop, Willy goes on the lam from the law, crisscrossing America with hopeful heart and broken balls, encountering the people of the humble cafes and dusty bars, underground: “They have rough brown skin and soft wrinkled eyes. They are round and they are usually dirty. They are hard because they have to be, but if you warm them they get soft and you can make them sweet.”
“Like the smudged chrome of a truck-stop diner, Famous Potatoes is an element of a new American realism, and Cottonwood has made it an engaging trip.” -- Chicago Tribune
It's the early 1970s, a time when only bad people get tattoos, long distance calls cost a small fortune, and an IBM 360 computer with a few hundred kilobytes was enough to run a bank.
“Cottonwood [has] charm--wry, loping, never cute. And, even more crucial, there is Cottonwood's genuine people-liking, which makes Willy's complications seem less dire; the troubled travels become a nice excuse to meet more interesting folks. Laid-back--but not too much--and attractive.” -- Kirkus
“Blessed with that wonderfully extravagant and original talent for telling tall tales, Joe Cottonwood weaves a whopper that catches you up and rockets you overland as Willy hitches himself on to one crazy adventure after another. . . Willy 'Crusoe' Middlebrook, anonymous fugitive, naive suburbanite, sexual suicide, husband on the run from Philadelphia and St. Louis to the sky-high Rockies of Idaho . . . “ -- Black Swan
“Philadelphia may never be the same again.” -- Cleveland Plain Dealer
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