Praise for Poe Ballantine
Love & Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere
Poe Ballantine is the most soulful, insightful, funny, and altogether luminous “under-known” writer in America. He knocks my socks off, even when I’m barefoot.
TOM ROBBINS, author of Villa Incognito
Ballantine’s writing is secure insecurity at its best, muscular and minimal, self-deprecating on the one hand, full of the self’s soul on the other.
LAUREN SLATER, author of Lying
Poe Ballantine is brilliant, sensitive, unique, and universal. Reading his work is inspiring, agitating, and invigorating. He is utterly transparent on the page, a rare thing. He’s like a bird that’s almost but not quite extinct. This is his best book ever.
CHERYL STRAYED, author of Wild
If the delights of either Poe Ballantine or Chadron, Nebraska were a secret, that is over now. Love & Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere is an unprecedented combination of all of the following: true crime page-turner, violently funny portrait of a tiny Western town, field guide to saving a bilingual marriage and raising an autistic child, sutra on living with open mind and big heart. Many of the sentences start on earth and end somewhere in beat-poet heaven. Ballantine comes ever closer to being my favorite creative nonfiction writer and this is why.
MARION WINIK, NPR correspondent, author of Above Us Only Sky and The Glen Rock Book of the Dead
501 Minutes to Christ
Name an author we all need to read? Poe Ballantine’s exquisitely funky 501 Minutes to Christ.
TOM ROBBINS, Author of Jitterbug Perfume
Ballantine is never far from the trenches … the essays are readable and entertaining and contain occasional moments of startling beauty and insight. Still, the themes of addiction (to substances, people, new starts, the prospect of fame), dissatisfaction, and nihilism may limit the work’s appeal; as with writers such as Chuck Palahniuk, some will become rabid devotees, while others will be turned off.
LIBRARY JOURNAL
Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire
It’s a downmarket version of Ben Kunkel’s Indecision, with less surety but real vibrancy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ballantine’s genial, reckless narrator is part Huck Finn, part Hunter S. Thompson. And in a few pages he’s charming you, more than any “pot-smoking, card-playing, music-loving, late night party hound” really should.
THE SEATTLE TIMES
This second novel from Ballantine initially conjures images of Lord of the Flies, but then you would have to add about ten years to the protagonists’ ages and make them sex-crazed, gold-seeking alcoholics.
LIBRARY JOURNAL
Poe Ballantine, in this sequel to God Clobbers Us All, reveals that he is a writer with a keen ear and a blistering wit – it’s a prime opportunity to observe a writer’s joyful wallow in the decadence of words.
THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE
Edgar’s supersize pal Mountain is the best of the author’s creations: “He possesses a merry and absurd sweetness … combined with a body mass that can block out the sun.”
BOOKLIST
Ballantine’s second novel is … memorable … funny and smart.
PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY
Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire has the same amped tone and subtropical setting as Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary but less of the gonzo arrogance and more of that good ol’ American angst. The prose is poised on the brink of perfection, and the plot twists into an unexpected yet perfect conclusion that makes scotch and roadkill seem almost palatable.
SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN
God Clobbers Us All
It’s impossible not to be charmed by the narrator of Poe Ballantine’s comic and sparklingly intelligent God Clobbers Us All.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ballantine’s novel is an entertaining coming-of-age story.
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Calmer than Bukowski, less portentous than Kerouac, more hopeful than West, Poe Ballantine may not be sitting at the table of his mentors, but perhaps he deserves his own after all.
THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
It’s a compelling, quirky read.
THE OREGONIAN
Poe Ballantine has created an extremely fast page-turner. Edgar, in first-person narrative, is instantly likeable, and his constant misadventures flow seamlessly. Ballantine paints southern California with voluptuous detail.
WILLAMETTE WEEK
God Clobbers Us All succeed[s] on the strength of its characterization and Ballantine’s appreciation for the true-life denizens of the Lemon Acres rest home. The gritty daily details of occupants of a home for the dying have a stark vibrancy that cannot help but grab one’s attention, and the off-hours drug, surf, and screw obsessions of its young narrator, Edgar Donahoe, and his coworkers have a genuine sheen that captivates almost as effectively.
THE ABSINTHE LITERARY REVIEW
A wry and ergoty experience.
GOBSHITE QUARTERLY
Things I Like About America
Ballantine never shrinks from taking us along for the drunken, drug-infested ride he braves in most of his travels. The payoff – and there is one – lies in his self-deprecating humor and acerbic social commentary, which he leaves us with before heading further up the dark highway.
THE INDY BOOKSHELF
Part social commentary, part collective biography, this guided tour may not be comfortable, but one thing’s for sure: You will be at home.
WILLAMETTE WEEK
Meet the new guide on the lonesome highway. Poe Ballantine’s wry voice, clear eye, hilarious accounts and lyrical language bring us up short by reminding us that America has always been about flight, and for most of its citizens it has been about defeat. His wanderings, drifters, bad motels, cheap wine, dead-end jobs and drugs take us home, the home Betty Crocker never lived in. We’re on the road again, but this time we know better than to hope for a rumbling V-8 and any answers blowing in the wind. The bus has been a long time coming, but thank God it has arrived with Mr. Ballantine aboard. Sit down, give him a listen and make your own list of Things I Like About America.
CHARLES BOWDEN, author of Blues for Cannibals and Blood Orchid
Poe Ballantine reminds us that in a country full of identical strip malls and chain restaurants, there’s still room for adventure. He finds the humor in situations most would find unbearable and flourishes like a modern-day Kerouac. It’s a book to cherish and pass on to friends.
MARK JUDE POIRIER, author of Unsung Heroes of American Industry and Goats
Poe Ballantine makes writing really well seem effortless, even as he’s telling us how painful writing
