First The Front Yard War Review!

 

Years ago, I took pictures of Crazy Carl Robinson's lawn when he was living in Iowa, USA.  I stopped by to see him soon after I had given a paper on the symbolism of the front yard at the popular culture conference in Chicago.  I think I was planning at the time to expand the paper into a larger work, though I didn't know then that it would be a novel.  Anyway, the pictures have waited patiently for over a decade now, so it seems fitting to finally use one to illustrate the first review of The Front Yard War (available as an ebook--PDF or EPUB--from me directly for $5--PayPal wredfright AT yahoo DOTT com-- and on Amazon; the print version is coming probably early next year--until then you can always print out the PDF, probably cheaper anyway--more ebook retailers will also be coming next year) since the first reviewer is Carl!  I like this photo in particular because of the way the dandelions were growing sideways out of the bricks.  Carl was renting then, if I remember correctly, so he wasn't in charge of the landscaping.  That would be the responsibility of his landlord, and he must have been a cool landlord at least as far as the dandelions were concerned.  Usually, just from walking down a street, you can tell the good folks from the lawns that have dandelions on them.  Probably not 100% true, but it's a good rule of thumb to go by in when you don't have much other data to draw upon.  Anyway, I'm delighted that Carl is the first one to review the new novel.  He and King Karl Wenclas--oddly enough, they have the same sounding first name--are probably the two best living literary critics, albeit unconventional ones, in America.  And though Carl may be slightly biased since I've known him for so long, but as you can tell from the review, he doesn't hold much back, so if he thought it sucked, we'd know.  Here's the review.  Thanks, Carl!  Check out his own books as well.  They're great!:

THE-MAMA’S-BOY-WHO-TAKES-CARE-OF-HIS-ELDERLY/DEMENTED-MOTHER-WHO-NEEDS-A-$7400-FERRIS-LAWNMOWER-TO-SIGNIFY-SOMETHING-TO-SOMEBODY-SOMEWHERE (AKA: A REVIEW OF WRED FRIGHT’S “YARD”)

full disclosure: i paid $7400 for a no-turn ferris riding lawnmower last spring…..my dad passed away 2 years ago and i was obliged to move home to take care of my 84-year-old mother….i have 6.5 acres of grass to cut and the rats chewed the fuel line on my dad’s 1984 wheelhorse……before his death, my dad had been paying our redneck neighbor (who-tells-every-male-that-his-son-has-a-giant-cock) $1500 a season to cut our grass…..if you’re curious, my redneck neighbor has a yard the size of a matchbook (which he could cut with a push mower in 45 minutes) yet his lawnmower costs $9300….2 carpetbagging lesbians from dc just moved in next door and they use a lawn service to cut their grass---and if my dad paid $1500 a season, i bet they pay $4500…..my high school is across the street and every country fuck driving down the road could tell you if i accidentally ran over a begonia in may…..my mom has sundowners and dementia and she wasn’t necessarily sane in 2000….she punches me in the face every 3-4 days, she calls her sisters and threatens suicide every 3-4 days and sometimes she hallucinates that i’m an evil female nurse…..in 2024, i’m down to signifying my identity as a human being on social media---and yes, there’s a picture of me in a straw hat next to the $7400 ferris…..i’d love to online-signify that I have a beautiful wife and a red, chubby-cheeked daughter…..i’d love to signify that i’m teaching at uva and turning down invitations to sorority parties…..i’d love to signify that i’m 57 and still going to football games and music festivals, but i spend my days inside the mental institution listening to my mother threaten to call 911 if i open a blind or leave pee in the toilet…..i don’t want to signify the social status attached to owning a $7400 lawn mower, but it doesn’t feel like i have anything else going on in 2024-----and i think that’s part of wred fright’s point in “yard”…..and if you want an official statement on my yard, i would like it to be green and full of bumblebees and groundhogs……and assuming my mother passes before i do (and spots in my head are more stroke-numb every day), i don’t plan on building any gazebos in the shape of my profile---my yard would be: groundhogs, bumblebees and me (if i were free)

i must confess that i’m not really in the mood to write a book review of “yard” right now, but i’m pleased that wred fright has retained the title of comic strip superhero for the working class….i’m the kind of asshole who reads the last page of a book first and i think wred fright’s afterword serves as a fine introduction to the overall meaning of his novel…..does your yard really belong to you?----it does in the sense that your social media page belongs to you…..at one point, wred fright compares the “american mania for lawns” to estates in great britain and i think that’s as good a place as any to begin to understand wred fright’s message for us…..in many respects, “yard” is more of a cultural read of america/americans than it is of our respective yards….do you notice the pink flamingos in the-creep-down-the-street’s yard?---wred fright does…..do you feel sorry for the-old-man-who-wonders-if-this-will-be-his-last-summer?----wred fright does……do you wave at the-kia-driving-bitch and the-woman-who-doesn’t-want-to-be-a-cougar when they drive through the neighborhood?----wred fright doesn’t want to, but he’s horny, so he does….wred fright can also predict how well-manicured a-woman-who-eats-cookies-on-the-toilet’s lawn will be and he knows how many days it’ll take the city of cleveland to give you a ticket for length of your weeds (per the parma township rulebook)…..wred fright knows the date/time of when rand paul fought with his neighbor over lawn care and he could write a dissertation (with 101 citations) of every time republicans and democrats went to battle over lawn care pesticides in sweet home mogadore

in a review of wred fright’s work during the bush administration, i described wred fright as a “comic strip character making his way through the wasteland of modern america”…..in a review during the obama years, i compared wred fright to fred armisen in a “portlandia” skit entitled “early onset grumpiness”……well, our loveable grumblebunny continues to fight the good fight during the terror that has been the joe biden administration (which in retrospect, might be the worst of all)……i used to assume that wred fright erred on the side of being a democrat, but now i realize that wred fright is fair/balanced in his criticism of all things (and yes, i realize that the buzz words, “fair” and “balanced” used to be associated with fox news, but kids in 2024 don’t even know what fox news or cable tv is)….you could call wred fright an old (working class) punk, but i truly believe that his perspective is as fair and balanced as that of any writer that i have ever encountered....in his most recent novel, wred fright’s critique of american lawn care comes across as a light/breezy satire of america’s obsession with all things “yard”……wred fright doesn’t pull any punches and his treatment of modern treehuggers is as valid as his treatment of trust fund babies is as valid of his treatment of a divorced couple waging suburban war over who cuts the grass in the wife’s front yard…..more importantly, wred fright isn’t mean/nasty in his depiction of the yards and/or mindsets of his friend and neighbors…wred fright (as grumblebunny) is simply going for a walk through the neighborhood and describing what he sees……his satire remind me of the work of “bloom county” creator, berkeley breathed----and seeing things through the eyes of wred fright in 2024 is comparable to seeing things from the perspective of opus-the-penguin in 1984……opus is simply telling us the truth as he sees it, but opus is never heavy-handed and the characters he meets never seem unredeemable (except maybe in a cartoon way)…..i’d like to write more, but my mom’s 2 favorite hobbies in 2024 = 1) drowning stink bugs in the toilet and 2) driving around making fun of poor peoples’ yards----and c rob gets kinda excited when 6-7 cars-on-blocks in someone’s yard pisses her off…..would cutter john pay $7400 for a riding lawn mower?----no, but steve dallas might----bill-the-cat too----and under a cartoon microscope, lawn care in ronald reagan’s america doesn’t seem all that different from lawn care in sleepy joe biden’s america…..

Agree with Crazy Carl?  Disagree?  Read the novel and write your own review!