Bill Simmons gets the credit for this one. I had heard Chuck Klosterman‘s name before, but really didn’t know much about him. Then I heard Simmons, aka The Sports Guy (I’m linking to his own site, not the ESPN one), chat with Klosterman for about 90 minutes in a two-part podcast late last month. Since we were headed to the beach around that time, I decided to pick up one of Klosterman’s books to read on vacation.

The books of essays which he is mostly known for were not available, but Downtown Owl, his one piece of fiction, was. That’s a fact I’m thankful for.

I guess I have a hard time envisioning life in a place like Owl, North Dakota. I know towns like that exist, where little of the outside world every really affects things, but I still find it hard to fathom. That’s why Klosterman’s story about the town fascinated me so much.

The fact that I knew a major blizzard rips through the town and kills several people before you even hit the first chapter didn’t affect the story at all. The focus centered around three characters, but you didn’t really know if they would fall victim to the storm or if the people around them were the ones unwittingly heading to their demise. That kept the action moving.

He continues to make his name with non-fiction (and I really want to read some), but I hope Klosterman takes us inside another fictional small town at some point in the future.