Nickolas Butler. (2014). Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel. St. Martin's Publishing Group.

Nickolas Butler. 2014. Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel. St. Martin's Publishing Group.

Nickolas Butler, Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel. St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2014.

Nickolas Butler. Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel. St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2014.

OverDrive Product Record

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1. • value: Wisconsin
2. • value: Homecoming
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35. • value: contemporary novels
36. • value: boyhood friends
37. • value: shotguns
38. • value: rural poor
39. • value: Rural settings
40. • value: dear friend
41. • value: deeply in love
42. • value: small town librarian
43. • value: small town church
44. • value: town librarian
45. • value: Quiet Places
46. • value: bar setting
47. • value: winter in summer
48. • value: betrayals and rivalries
49. • value: rare friendship
50. • value: small rural community
51. • value: novels about book critics
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creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Butler, Nickolas
   • bioText: NICKOLAS BUTLER was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His writings have appeared in: Narrative Magazine, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review Online, The Progressive, The Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and the Iowa Writer's Workshop, he currently lives in Wisconsin with his wife and their two children. Shotgun Lovesongs is his first novel.
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Thomas Dunne Books

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2014-03-11T00:00:00-04:00

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title

Shotgun Lovesongs

fullDescription

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Impressively original." —The New York Times
"Sparkles in every way. A love letter to the open lonely American heartland...A must-read." —People
"The kind of book that restores your faith in humanity." —Toronto Star
Welcome to Little Wing.
It's a place like hundreds of others, nothing special, really. But for four friends—all born and raised in this small Wisconsin town—it is home. And now they are men, coming into their own or struggling to do so.
One of them never left, still working the family farm that has been tilled for generations. But others felt the need to move on, with varying degrees of success. One trades commodities, another took to the rodeo circuit, and one of them even hit it big as a rock star. And then there's Beth, a woman who has meant something special in each of their lives.
Now all four are brought together for a wedding. Little Wing seems even smaller than before. While lifelong bonds are still strong, there are stresses—among the friends, between husbands and wives. There will be heartbreak, but there will also be hope, healing, even heroism as these memorable people learn the true meaning of adult friendship and love.
Seldom has the American heartland been so richly and accurately portrayed. Though the town may have changed, the one thing that hasn't is the beauty of the Wisconsin farmland, the lure of which, in Nickolas Butler's hands, emerges as a vibrant character in the story. Shotgun Lovesongs is that rare work of fiction that evokes a specific time and place yet movingly describes the universal human condition. It is, in short, a truly remarkable book—a novel that once read will never be forgotten.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: The New York Times
   • content:

     "Shotgun Lovesongs is about a hometown in Wisconsin and the close band of friends who will always feel its magnetic pull. ... The most lyrical parts of this big-hearted book are about how all the characters, including the star, are almost physically drawn to the town and one another. ... Impressively original."

2. • premium: False
   • source: People
   • content: "Sparkles in every way. A love letter to the open lonely American heartland...A must-read."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Minneapolis Star Tribune
   • content: "We all have them, right? Those songs that indelibly mark the milestones in our lives? Songs that stir up our deepest feelings and remind us of who we are. ... Only the best, most emotionally resonant novels work in the same way. Nickolas Butler's Shotgun Lovesongs is one of those novels."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Reedsburg Times-Press
   • content: "Totally smitten. That was me, within four pages of the beginning of Shotgun Lovesongs. ... This is one of those books you step into, but never want to leave."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Toronto Star
   • content: "The kind of book that restores your faith in humanity."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Wilkes Barre Times-Leader
   • content: "A dreamy novel that leaves readers with a lasting impression about friendship and its purpose -- to teach, inspire, and, most of all, fill our hearts with love."
7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     December 2, 2013
     Butler uses multiple narrators to tell the story of a group of friends, born and raised in Little Wing, Wis., in this affecting but precious debut novel. The book opens with Hank, who became a farmer and stayed in the small town to raise a family with his wife Beth. Lee, the indie rocker who made it big but regularly comes back to Little Wing, has his say, along with Kip, who traded commodities in Chicago but has moved back. And Ronnie is a little “slow,” damaged by rodeo riding. Their voices and their memories create a rich, overlapping narrative that is, at bottom, a love letter to the Midwest and its small, mostly forgotten towns. The characters are in that restless period of their early 30s: Hank and Beth have a family, but both long for something different (including more money); Lee gets married and divorced and wrestles with fame (the title of the book refers to a bestselling album of his); Kip is trying to write the next chapter of his life. The author romanticizes the landscape and the notion of community—as if such ideals were limited to small town, agrarian dreams. More seriously, his characters are too similar—all of them too lyrical and too insightful. Butler’s prose is often beautiful, and the narrative churns along well, but the book just isn’t convincing enough to get the reader to buy all the way in. First printing: 150,000 copies.

8. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from January 15, 2014
     A debut novel that delves so deeply into the small-town heartland that readers will accept its flaws as part of its charm. "Write what you know" is the first dictum directed toward aspiring fiction writers, and there's no doubt that Butler knows his fictional Little Wing inside out. It's a Wisconsin farm town not far from Eau Claire, where the author was raised, and it holds a central place in the hearts of those who came of age there--particularly the four men who were boyhood friends and who narrate the novel's alternating chapters, along with the fifth, a woman who was the childhood sweetheart of at least two of them. Beth and Henry are the married couple who remained to farm in Little Wing and, despite their financial struggles, are in some ways the envy of the others. Lee, who is Henry's best friend, has become "America's most famous flannel-wearing indie troubadour," an artist so successful he hobnobs with those that others know mainly from celebrity magazines. But he only feels at home in Little Wing, where he found his voice and wrote the songs on the album that catapulted him to fame (and gives the novel its title). Kip made millions for others and did well for himself as a broker in Chicago but has returned to Little Wing to restore its mill as a commercial center and to show off the beautiful woman who will be his wife. Ronny left town as a rodeo rider and an alcoholic and has returned to recover after a brain-damaging mishap. There are four weddings in the novel, a few separations, a bunch of drunken adventures and confessions, and a fairly preposterous ending. But there is also a profound empathy for the characters and the small-town dynamic that the reader will likely share, an appreciation for what "America was, or could be." Despite some soap-opera machinations and occasional literary overreach, the novel will strike a responsive chord in any reader who has found his life reflected in a Bob Seger song.

     COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     October 15, 2013
     The hearty Midwest, which thrums and beats through tiny Little Wing, Wisconsinan Anytown, USA, if there ever was oneassumes the whole soul of Butler's fetching debut, if only to end up proving how unassuming it is. Chapters are voiced alternately by five longtime friends: there are Henry and Beth, married and tethered to their farm and kids; gold-hearted Ronny, babied by the others after a spell of rough living as a rodeo king; Kip, who's restoring Little Wing's decrepit old mill after pulling down millions in Chicago; and Lee, the newly successful musician whose haunting first album lends the novel its name. In bars and under stars, through this small group of those who've never left, those who regret leaving, and those who wish they had the town in their rearview mirror, Butler examines just what it means to be from a placeand if sharing that from-some-place is more a reason to stay in touch, or a reason not to. Readers can feel the winter cold on the other side of the neon sign and hear the peanut shells crunching underfoot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

10. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      October 1, 2013
      

      The publisher's biggest winter title, this debut features four friends raised in Little Wing, WI, three of whom had left to become a rock star, a commodities star, and a rodeo star. Now they come together again as new husbands and fathers to try to figure things out. "This book does for Wisconsin what Larry McMurtry did for Texas in The Last Picture Show," proclaims the publicist, so listen up.

      Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

11. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      December 1, 2013
      

      Leland (Lee) Sutton left his tiny Wisconsin town when he became a famous rocker but returns when the pressures of fame and an unsuccessful marriage are too much for him. Butler's debut novel uses multiple narrators and a nonchronological structure to tell the story of Lee and his circle of friends; best friend Henry (Hank), a farmer with a hidden talent for painting; Hank's wife, Beth, who had a brief, secret romance with Lee; outwardly arrogant but inwardly insecure stock trader Kip; and lost soul Ronny, a former rodeo rider and recovering alcoholic. VERDICT While not ignoring the economic hardships of contemporary rural life, Butler stacks the deck a bit in favor of small-town values vs. big city shallowness. Overall, though, this is a warm and absorbing depiction of male friendship. Lee and Hank's compassion toward Ronny is particularly touching, and Beth, the sole female narrator, is as nuanced and believable a character as her male counterparts. With the author's connection to indie musician Bon Iver and a movie deal already in the works, expect interest and demand. [See Prepub Alert, 9/9/13.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

      Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Impressively original." —The New York Times
"Sparkles in every way. A love letter to the open lonely American heartland...A must-read." —People
"The kind of book that restores your faith in humanity." —Toronto Star
Welcome to Little Wing.
It's a place like hundreds of others, nothing special, really. But for four friends—all born and raised in this small Wisconsin town—it is home. And now they are men, coming into their own or struggling to do so.
One of them never left, still working the family farm that has been tilled for generations. But others felt the need to move on, with varying degrees of success. One trades commodities, another took to the rodeo circuit, and one of them even hit it big as a rock star. And then there's Beth, a woman who has meant something special in each of their lives.
Now all four are brought together for a wedding. Little Wing seems even...

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