One of my goals for 2015 is to read more. Check out the first book I read this year here and the second here.
The third book I've read this year is Famous Potatoes by Joe Cottonwood. I picked this book up off a stoop, a lovely and common occurrence in Brooklyn.
I had Famous Potatoes for a while before I actually started reading it. As well as trying to read more this year, I'm also trying to read books that I already have in the house. Since I get books from stoops and book sales pretty often, I now have a large collection at home to choose from! Everyone loves a good book stash. When I saw this book on a stoop in South Slope, I was immediately drawn to it's clearly 1970s jacket design. And when I saw it had an author's recommendation from Tom Robbins, I was hooked.
Follow Willy Carusoe's (nee Middlebrook) misadventures around our sometimes glorious, sometimes sad and dangerous, sometimes downright sexy, wide open country as he mingles with the locals, gets in with gangs and gamblers, and tries to do right by the love of his life. Famous Potatoes is a love story at heart, but you're not sure if the love interest is Willy's wife, women in general, or America it's self.
This novel has a great seventies vibe, and a meandering style, part prose, part stream of consciousness. I really enjoyed being transported back in time, but also seeing the themes and issues that are still common today. Willy is s bumbling but endearing character and you find yourself wishing him the best (but not sure that's what he'll end up getting).
I'd recommend this book to fans of 70s authors, beat culture, road trip or hitch-hiking stories, and good sexy fun.
Have you read this book? Or can you recommend other 1970s novels? Found anything good on a stoop or at a Little Free Library? Leave a comment below!