Sam Neumann let himself be persuaded, by a friend, to spend a summer working as seasonal labor in Denali. To his great disgust, he found himself assigned to work in a gas station, his idea of the lowest possible form of labor.
This book is the story of three months of dull work, lots of alcohol consumption, interactions with people both irritating and intriguing, camping trips apparently most notable for rain and instant mashed potatoes, and a quasi-romantic relationship that might have been more successful had he not been under the impression that men are not permitted to have emotions.
The book has its amusing moments – Neumann has a wry and sarcastic style, and isn’t afraid to say what he really thinks. His sense of humor is all the more appealing for being directed at himself at least half the time, and he freely acknowledges the times when he behaves like a jerk to other people. At his best, he can be pretty entertaining, which is saying a lot given that he is describing three months in which, honestly, not much happens.
At times, though, he rambles on, devoting pages of writing to repetitive accounts of goofing off at work during the day and getting drunk at night, with long sidetracks involving detailed commentary on everything from his parents’ thrift to the NBA draft. This can be amusing in places, but it gets a bit tiresome about halfway through the book. Also, the author frequently comes across as self-pitying, even whiny, especially when discussing his job or the uniform he is forced to wear (who knew that a denim shirt could be such an occasion for mental and emotional trauma?). Other people sometimes come across as caricatures, portrayed mainly for their appeal as characters rather than as three-dimensional human beings.
If your sense of humor verges on (or revels in) the sarcastic, and you enjoy watching drunk people do stupid things and listening to people tell you in no uncertain terms exactly what they think on every subject they can come up with, you will enjoy this book. Otherwise, you may want to look elsewhere.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader