Mike Magnuson (MFA, 1997)
Harper Collins, 2002
ISBN: 9780060193720
Part farce, part treatise on what it means to be a man in America today, Lummox: The Evolution of a Man is the outrageous true-life tale of a twentysomething man stumbling through the Reagan years, trying to figure out what it means to be a “man’s man” during the period when feminists are gaining greater control over America’s institutions.
The lummox is Mike Magnuson, your friendly neighborhood big guy with a foul mouth, a spare tire around his midsection, and a tender heart, and these are his years working in factories, hanging out in taverns, befriending reprobates, going to college, having trouble with the law, and living with crazy jazz musicians and with lesbian separatists. When a mysterious phantom enters his life, he sets himself on a quest to discover the true meaning of lummoxness, and what he learns along the way is both shocking and hilarious.
This is a book that will leave you laughing out loud in recognition and cheering for lummoxes everywhere.