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Spooner by Pete Dexter
Spooner, of Pete Dexter's novel's title, is Warren Spooner, whose life's story follows many of the same events and places of the author's life. Spooner's life had an auspicious debut, when his better-looking twin brother who was his mother's favorite died at birth. His father died soon after, and several years later his mother married Calmer Ottosson, a man whose Navy career was cut short by a burial at sea that went disastrously wrong. Calmer has infinite patience with Spooner, who has a remarkable ability to find trouble. Spooner's life and career careens around the country, until he settles on a career as a newspaper columnist and author living on an island near Seattle. Spooner has received positive reviews with the New York Times saying, "The story of Spooner is the story of how Calmer made Spooner, and of how Spooner made himself. It’s also the story of why Pete Dexter writes, and of why he couldn’t stop writing this particular book. He ended his novel The Paperboy with the words: 'There are no intact men.' With Spooner, he demonstrates the impulse that keeps writers at their task: the longing to reassemble the whole; to see, however belatedly, who a person was, or could have been."
