false 10175 6 Wigfield is in peril. The Bulkwaller Dam, which towers over the tiny town, is scheduled to be destroyed which would in turn wipe out Wigfield. Journalist Russell Hokes travels there to profile the brave and honest citizens who are struggling to save their community. Well, sort of. Actually, Wigfield is not so much a town as a series of ramshackle strip clubs and used-auto-parts stores, lacking any kind of civic infrastructure whatsoever. And its people are not so much "brave and honest" as "brutal," "homicidal," and "lacking any redeeming virtue whatsoever." Similarly, to call Hokes, who narrates his own struggles to gather accumulate 50,000 words, a "journalist" is at best an exaggeration and at worst an abomination against the institution of journalism itself. The world of <I>Wigfield</I>, as concocted by the brilliant Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello, and Amy Sedaris (creators of the Comedy Central series <I>Strangers with Candy</I>), is somewhat reminiscent of the slice-of-life small-town humor of Christopher Guest's <I>Waiting for Guffman</I>. But instead of putting on a musical, as the Guffman folks did, the people of Wigfield busy themselves trying to acquire government handouts and stabbing each other to death. When the government rebuffs their efforts, based on the fact that they're not technically a town, they come up with a plan to get paid anyway. Wigfield's residents (as played by Colbert, Dinello, and Sedaris) are portrayed in a series of compellingly grotesque portraits by renowned designer and photographer Todd Oldham. The humor of the book--much like the town's mentality--is dense, as nearly every sentence contains one or several grimly hilarious references. Fans of feel-good whimsy are advised to navigate toward lighter fare but social pariahs, disgraced journalists, brooding malcontented sociopaths, and anyone who enjoys dark, twisted, and profoundly funny writing will find a home in <I>Wigfield</I>. <I>--John Moe</I> 2784465 19 5 2004 Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not total:1178|5:251|4:356|3:378|2:148|1:45| 1178 4154 1582 184 1 2 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Sep 10 11:51:56 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 11 15:43:54 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 1 false false Mon Apr 16 08:27:44 -0700 2007 Wed Nov 21 19:23:29 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false false Mon Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 00:00:12 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 00:09:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jun 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 09 17:31:40 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 09 17:32:53 -0700 2009 The authors are well-known comedians. The photographer is a famous designer. The result is unlike anything the genre of humorous fiction has seen before. The book tells, sort of, the story of Wigfield, a small town that realizes it's in danger when the government wants to...more...]]> 2 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 06 13:29:06 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 06 13:31:47 -0800 2007
I'm not exactly cons...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Feb 18 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 13:57:29 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 13:59:28 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 5 2 false false Wed Jul 29 02:10:48 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 03:05:08 -0700 2009
first of all, if you know any of the collaborative authors, (amy sedaris, stephen colbert, and paul dinello)and you think you like them... but subsequently managed to hate this book, or felt the...more...]]> 3 0 false true Wed Mar 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 14 16:24:44 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 18 10:04:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Sep 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 26 08:13:08 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 10 17:37:37 -0700 2009
That's why I loved this book.

It's pretty stupid. Ridiculous. Perverted at times. But contains many classic lines, like this (from Cinnamon):

"I can't help the starving people of India because I don't know wha...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Apr 08 08:19:30 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 08:21:59 -0700 2009
The downside is that three authors are doing the voices o...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jun 12 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Thu Jul 17 07:23:22 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 17 07:23:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 10 08:59:39 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 10 09:11:23 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Mar 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Nov 07 11:57:22 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 24 11:47:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Fri Dec 21 07:55:45 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 21 07:56:29 -0800 2007
It sounded clever, a wanna-be writer documenting a community's struggles against a State mandate to tear down the local dam, which would flood them out.

It turned out to be mean-spirited and sem...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Sep 06 08:33:33 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 06 08:41:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jan 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 12:25:17 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 06:22:42 -0800 2009 and the act of writing itself, with its bottomless bag of cliches and mixed metaphors, thrown together by a self-defined "writer" who doesn't like to write.

The first quarter of the book had me laughing to t...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Mar 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 17:07:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 02 17:50:29 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 27 04:42:35 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 15 18:04:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Feb 23 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 18:02:10 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 19:22:28 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 29 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 19:22:15 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 30 04:27:13 -0800 2009 more...]]>