Margins
The Fan Man book cover
The Fan Man
1974
First Published
4.02
Average Rating
191
Number of Pages

The Fan Man is a comic novel published in 1974 by the American writer William Kotzwinkle. It is told in the first-person by the narrator, Horse Badorties, a down-at-the-heels hippie living a life of drug-fueled befuddlement in New York City c. 1970. The book is written in a colorful, vernacular "hippie-speak" and tells the story of the main character's hapless attempts to put together a benefit concert featuring his own hand-picked choir of 15-year-old girls. Horse is a somewhat tragic, though historically humorous, character with echoes of other famous characters in popular culture such as Reverend Jim Ignatowski of Taxi fame. In his inability to follow anything through to completion he displays symptoms of attention-deficit disorder though this could equally be drug-induced. His defining characteristic is his joy in renting or commandeering apartments which he fills with street-scavenged junk articles until full to bursting he moves on to his next "pad". The name "fan man" is a reference to another of his traits; the collecting of fans of all shapes and sizes.

Avg Rating
4.02
Number of Ratings
1,497
5 STARS
40%
4 STARS
33%
3 STARS
18%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
3%
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Author

William Kotzwinkle
William Kotzwinkle
Author · 34 books
William Kotzwinkle is a two-time recipient of the National Magazine Award for Fiction, a winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Prix Litteraire des Bouquinistes des Quais de Paris, the PETA Award for Children's Books, and a Book Critics Circle award nominee. His work has been translated into dozens of languages.
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