Allan Wolf, storyteller extraordinaire

Asheville is known for its literary Wolf(e)s.

There was the one who wrote (at tedious length) Look Homeward Angel and other onerous drivel, but whom the Chamber of Commerce adores. Come to Asheville! Home of Thomas Wolfe! No, he couldn’t write his way out of a wet paper bag, but he was FAMOUS! Asheville LOVES famous writers.

After 27 years here I have only met one person who admits to actually reading the entirety of Look Homeward. Wolfe was obviously paid by the word, and they didn’t have to be good ones.

Then there is the one who can write. Allan Wolf. Really write. Author of text books and slam poetry, Wolf turned his hand to a delightful children’s book, The Blood Hungry Spleen, which laid out human biology in tasty verse, and then penned, New Found Land, the best treatment of the Lewis & Clarke expedition ever to see print. And in a multiplicity of voices.

Now he’s got another offering: Zane’s Trace. No, I haven’t read it, yet. But I have never been disappointed in Mr. Wolf’s efforts and would be shocked and amazed if this one fails.

From the publisher’s description:

“Zane Guesswind has just killed his grandfather, or so he believes. So he steals the 1969 Plymouth Barracuda his long-gone father left behind and takes off on a manic trip to his mother’s grave to kill himself. Armed with a six-pack of Mountain Dew, a jumbo pack of Sharpies (for scribbling all over the dashboard), and a loaded gun in the trunk, he’s headed to Zanesville, Ohio, with no rearview mirror and no more worries. On the way, he meets Libba, a young hitchhiker who shares his destination, and other mystic and mysterious characters. With each encounter, and every mile marker he passes, Zane gets farther from the life he knows — but closer to figuring out who he really is.
A coming-of-age road story with a supernatural twist — and a compulsively readable poetic novel about identity and belonging.”

Allan will be at Asheville’s Malaprop’s Bookstore and Cafe on Oct. 28 at 3 p.m.
Allan’s readings are not to be missed.

~ by bothwellsblog on September 3, 2007.