SPOONER

Former Philadelphia Daily News collumnist Pete Dexter proves again with his new novel Spooner that he's an even better novelist than newspaperman.

The book is a kind of fictional memoir . . .  funny, quirky, earthy and honest to the bone. If it doesn't make you laugh, sign up for therapy. If it offends you, seek God's forgiveness.

 Dexter should sell more books that Dan Brown. He won't, and that only proves Spooner has a dead-on-accurate view of the world.

 The best review for "Spoooner" is Dexter's introduction to the uncorrected, pre-publication copy distributed to book reviewers and book sellers.

"As far as I know," writes the author, "sometime in November of last year, the book you have in your hands was three years late. There are many reasons it was three years late, probably the most conspicuous being that it was once 250 pages or so longer than the version you hold, and it takes maybe half a year to write an extra 250 pages, and at least twice that to subtract them back out. I realize this leaves another year and a half unaccounted for, and all I can say about that, readers, is get in line. Whole decades are missing from my life, and I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have it any other way."

The book delivers more surpriises than an acid trip and and more than a few sentences that should become classics. My favorite line sums up Spooner's reaction to the passing of an a town's respected (but phony) superintendent fo schools. "Can the world ever have enough doctors of education?"

Review by R.A.Walker