''Boonville'' is a novel by

Robert Mailer Anderson Robert Mailer Anderson (born 1968) is an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, Grammy-nominated producer and activist. He is the author of the bestselling novel '' Boonville'', which takes place in the Northern California town of Boonvil ...

. It was published by Creative Arts Book Company (in association with ''

Zyzzyva ''Zyzzyva'' is a triannual magazine of writers and artists. It places an emphasis on showcasing emerging voices and never before published writers in addition to the already established. Based in San Francisco, it began publishing in 1985. ''ZYZ ...

'' magazine, as a "''Zyzzyva'' First Novel") in 2001, then reprinted by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...

in 2003. It is a San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller and was called one of the "Top 10 Literary Events of 2001."

Accolades

"It's the funniest first novel by an American writer to come my way since John Kennedy Toole's ''A Confederacy of Dunces.''" -Jonathan Yardley, ''Washington Post'' "A sardonic and beautifully imagined first novel...pages of well-tuned humor...

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is immediatel ...

an exemplary eye for emotional detail." -''San Francisco Weekly'' "A brilliant new voice-twitchy, corny, sly, cackling, and sad, but most of all, racing with vitality and goosing you to keep up. ''Boonville'' is the creepy and hilarious coming-of-age story the territory deserves-not your parents' ''Vineland,'' but your own." -Jonathan Lethem "A very sick man-and a very funny writer." -Carl Hiaasen

Synopsis

The novel tells the story of John Gibson, as he breaks up with his girlfriend and leaves

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

to move to the small town of

Boonville, California Boonville (formerly The Corners and Kendall's City) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Mendocino County, California, United States. It is located southwest of Ukiah, at an elevation of 381 feet (116 m). The population was 1,018 at the 2020 cen ...

, where he meets the resident of a commune, Sarah McKay. The book portrays the town in an often comedic manner, bringing to life a number of colorful

Mendocino County Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish for "of Mendoza) is a county located on the North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,601. The county seat is Ukiah. Mendocino County consists whol ...

residents including

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

rednecks ''Redneck'' is a derogatory term chiefly, but not exclusively, applied to white Americans perceived to be crass and unsophisticated, closely associated with rural whites of the Southern United States.Harold Wentworth, and Stuart Berg Flexner, '' ...

feminists Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male poi ...

, and commercial

marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...

cultivation.

Author comments

Anderson states in the book's preface, "So, any of the local residents who can read, and do read this novel, and take offense at the descriptions or content, instead of sucker-punching me while I'm in town trying to buy groceries with my wife and son, let me just buy you a drink and we'll call it even. As for the hippies in the county who may be upset at the depiction of hippies, I say, 'Tough shit, hippie.'"

References

2001 American novels Mendocino County, California Novels set in California {{2000s-novel-stub