Snapper (Kimberling) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Mr. Kimberling grew up in the Hoosier state, and the book captures the place with wry humor, affection for its woodlands and exasperation with its provincialism.
New York Times


Reading Brian Kimberling's debut novel, Snapper, is a fascinating and disorienting experience…Like Indiana's leaves, the colors of Kimberling's book are vivid, often startling, and so myriad that it's sometimes difficult to focus on all of them…[Nathan] Lochmueller is a wanderer at heart, and his tales of southern Indiana flit from event to event and character to character like the songbirds he studies.
Jennifer Miller - Washington Post


Poignant as well as thought-provoking—a delightful departure from the ordinary.... It’s quite a feat, to keep readers reading on the strength of laughter. Kimberling...turns the trick effortlessly.
Seattle Times


Brian Kimberling’s Snapper is a phenomenal book, quietly profound and as entertaining as any book I’ve read in the past five years.... Kimberling articulates, better than anyone I’ve read, the sorrow that arises from trying to find the magic of one’s youth with the original ingredients.
Weston Cutter - Minneapolis Star Tribune


This kind of small-town adolescence is uniquely American, and it’s a lifestyle that’s rapidly vanishing. Brian Kimberling perfectly captures this experience in his debut novel, Snapper.... Kimberling writes about all of this in a voice part John Audubon, part Holden Caulfield but uniquely his own. The book’s pace is leisurely, the mood is sometimes melancholy, and readers will finish the final page feeling thoroughly satisfied. CNN.com


[A] hilarious debut novel. (10 Titles to Pick Up Now)
Oprah Magazine


Brian Kimberling's debut novel, Snapper, is a lovely, loose-limbed collection of stories about an aimless ornithologist.
First Reads - NPR.com

[C]atchy, well-written debut novel. Nathan Lochmueller, a recent philosophy graduate, takes a low-paying job as a songbird researcher at his alma mater, Indiana University, during the mid-1990s.... Nathan, past 30 and still aimless, pins his hopes on a lead to work at a Vermont raptor hospital, but his love-hate relationship with Indiana makes it difficult to move away.... [An] accomplished, ironic Midwest coming-of-age tale.
Publishers Weekly


When a publicist says that a book is punch-in-the-gut-affecting and she wants to scream it from the rooftops, I sit up and listen. Now I'm sold on this debut. The topic might seem improbable—Nathan Lochmueller is a bird researcher in southern Indiana—but...the characters immediately attract.
Library Journal


In those awkward, drifting, post-college years, when many young men find themselves working behind a counter, Nathan Lochmueller learns he has a gift for tracking songbirds.... Told with precise and memorable prose in beautifully rendered, time-shifted vignettes, Snapper richly evokes the emotions of coming to adulthood.... Kimberling writes gracefully about absurdity, showing a rich feeling for the whole range of human tragicomedy. A delightful debut.
Booklist


A sad-sack ornithologist navigates the wilds of southern Indiana and its quirky denizens. Kimberling's debut is a collection of linked stories narrated by Nathan Lochmueller, a smart but mostly luckless man who stumbles into a job monitoring bird patterns.... This book has enough of a story arc that the fact that it's not a full-fledged novel is somewhat frustrating...a more intricately structured tale could give his character more resonance. A well-turned debut that airdrops its characters into an appealingly offbeat milieu.
Kirkus Reviews