WTR: The Big Door Prize by M.O. Walsh

*****

WTR (What’s Toby Reading)? provides unsolicited and unsponsored (I don’t get paid) opinions of books I have recently finished.

*****

I try to select books without much logical reasoning. This is, very likely, one of the only spontaneous aspects of my life. In fact, grabbing M.O. Walsh’s The Big Door Prize from the “New” section at the library boiled down to one key similarity between the author and I – our shared last name.

Like so many unconventional decisions I push my Type-A self to make, this one ended up spot-on.

“In Spite of Ourselves”; That John Prine Song

“Against all odds, honey. We’re the big door prize.”

The name of the book is derived from lyrics in a John Prine tune, “In Spite of Ourselves”, and introduced on one of the opening pages I leafed quickly through. After reading Walsh’s “Acknowledgements”, though, I YouTubed the video for the song to figure out the reference in connection to the book. (Trust me – do it. Before or after you read The Big Door Prize is up to you.)

The country-folk song is crude and goofy in spots – with a reference to “sniffing my undies” and “she gets it on like the Easter Bunny” – and a tender love story in others. This conflicted sensitivity in the song is, I gather, is a good description of The Big Door Prize.

What will you be when you grow up?

Set in a Louisiana town (Deerfield) readying itself to celebrate its bicentennial, The Big Door Prize introduces the reader to numerous characters and a fortune telling machine installed at a local grocery store, called DNAMIX, over the course of a few days. Preparations for the bicentennial celebration, though, have taken a back seat to the blue readouts from the DNAMIX machine.

One-by-one, townspeople provide a swabbed spit sample and file out of the store reading about the path their life may take from a blue slip of paper. Paying $2 to DNAMIX, they believe, will unlock their true potential. Citizens carry around their readouts and begin to change their lives to substantiate DNAMIX’s results.

These blue readouts range from outrageous (a magician), to odd (a scout), to ostentatious (a royal), to absolutely normal (a teacher). The town’s Mayor, in fact, buys a big truck, creates a saloon in his garage, and talks like a character from a John Wayne Western after DNAMIX determined his spit to be akin to that of a cowboy.

Alongside the story of the way the DNAMIX machine changes the aspirations of the people of Deerfield, Walsh creates a parallel narrative of a sinister revenge plot perpetrated by the scorned girlfriend of one of the main character’s twin brother who was tragically killed in a drunk driving accident. The DNAMIX-related madness seems a perfect diversion for the dark plot to unfold without much notice.

There is a specific dosage pattern that generico viagra on line http://amerikabulteni.com/category/haberler/editorun-sectikleri/sag/ is been given to you along with the pill or which is been advised to you by the physician. Men usually feel that bigger size penis is better for sexual activities but this is a completely sildenafil buy wrong thinking a normal size of a penis is a delicate structure that requires proper healthcare. They belong to a group of drugs called PDE5-inhibitors that work by boosting blood supply to the penile organ & thus helps with the effective circulation of the blood across the male organ, thereby cause cheap female viagra the attainment of the unacceptable excellence of the erection of male penis on sexual arousal. The tadalafil tablets prices natural ways to prevent erectile dysfunction is the best one.

The Big Door Prize stitches the stories of these characters together seamlessly to a bit of a “to be continued” ending. The end left me a bit unfulfilled – with many unanswered questions fit for a sequel. I gather, though, Walsh did so intentionally.

Maybe it is up to the reader to round out the longer-term impacts of the DNAMIX machine’s predictions on the good folks of Deerfield. And, just maybe, Walsh wanted to re-emphasize the idea of finding fulfillment through normal, daily chaos and uncertainty – that a “Happily Ever After” is rarely attained.

I closed the book with a feeling of simultaneously liking each character and wanting to know more, while thinking that each was absolutely crazy. Finishing the book, in fact, I re-listened John Prine’s tune, noticing a different lyric:

“We’re going to spite our nose right off of our faces. There won’t be nothin’ but big old hearts dancing in our eyes.”

What a song. What a story.