Callisto
By Torsten Krol
(Harper Perennial, Paperback, 9780061672941, 437pp.)
Publication Date: January 29, 2009
Categories: General
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Odell Deefus, who's not the sharpest tool in the shed, has one goal: to "try my hardest to be a good soldier against the mad dog Islamites." But while driving to an army enlistment office in Callisto, Kansas, his '78 Chevy breaks down on the side of a country road, and it's only the beginning of his troubles. When he accepts a local's offer of shelter until the car is repaired, things go from bad to worse—worse as in murder, drug dealers, tenacious televangelists . . . and finding himself a prime target of the FBI, which thinks he's a member of a terrorist sleeper cell. And none of it bodes well for his unrequited crush on Condoleezza Rice. But fear, rash judgments, and extreme reactions are simply the norm in a post-9/11 world. Odell will just have to deal with it.
Torsten Krol is the author of Callisto. Nothing further is known about him.
"Callisto is wickedly well-plotted and just plain funny... Deefus is an extraordinary character...like a grown-up Holden Caulfield in a crueler, more dangerous world."
-John Barlow, author of Eating Mammals and Intoxicated
"Funny, suspenseful, scary and, most importantly, the best portrayal of an American Innocent since Forrest Gump."
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[Odell's] navet becomes a sharpened satirical tool as he confronts the flaws in the institutions he treasures... Readers...will enjoy the romp."
-Publishers Weekly
"Callisto is an absolute joy and a rare pleasure. A work of stark raving genius. Imagine a collaboration by Sinclair Lewis, John Kennedy Toole, and Stephen Colbert-but funnier."
-Adam Davies, author of The Frog King
"Torsten Krol pulls no punches with his modern farce.... He's crafted the perfect foil in Odell.... Callisto is a funny, smart and well-timed novel."
-San Diego Union-Tribune
"A witty sendup of the anxieties that make Americans so dangerous...barbed with enough tragedy to sting.... A macabre farce, a la the Coen brothers."
-Washington Post Book World
"There's plenty to love.... Krol's best twist in a plot packed with them: our identification with his clumsy charmer becomes at once the scariest and most appealing thing about the book."
-New York Times Book Review
"Odell has one of those narrative voices that grabs you out of the gate and never lets go. Think The Good Soldier Swiek with a touch of Confederacy of Dunces and maybe even a little Catcher in the Rye."
-Booklist (starred review)
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