Dead Solid Perfect by Dan Jenkins Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Dead Solid Perfect
Book Review: Fish in a Barrel
Summary: 3 Stars
Attacking golf for its snobbery and élitism is like taking a shotgun to a barrel-load of fish. The target is too big, too obvious, too easy. Of course the accusation contains a retired, monocle-wearing kernel of truth. I have written myself of a preposterous episode at Aldeburgh Golf Club one Thursday lunchtime a few summers back, when some friends and I wandered into an otherwise empty clubhouse before playing 18 holes. We were all dressed casually but fairly smartly, yet were told by the secretary that to eat a sandwich in the bar we needed jackets and ties. He had some which he dished out, but the jackets were too short in the arms, the ties too wide, the shades all wrong. We could not have looked more like clowns had we taken to the course on monocycles. But nonsense like that is becoming the exception rather than the rule. Many golf clubs still operate a no jeans-no trainers rule, but that's fair enough; a gentle dress code encourages conformity in more important areas, like treating the course with respect, and alerting fellow-golfers that the ball you have just belted in completely the wrong direction might be about to hit them smack between the eyes.Book Review: One Solid Drive Down the Fairway
Summary: 4 Stars
Dan Jenkins tees it up and drives it straight down the fairway in this oftentimes very dark comedy concerning the professional golf tour.
The 1974 novel centers on Kenny Lee Puckett, who is a swinger in many ways, from the links to the 19th hole. Puckett plays the tour like a rock star, but is propelled into the spotlight of the national stage when he makes a remarkable run for a major title.
The majority of the characters are chasing life as much as they are pursuing a paycheck on tour, but their flaws is what makes this sports novel a tap-in for eagle on the last hole.
Book Review: One of a kind
Summary: 4 Stars
Although this book did not surpass "You've Gotta Play Hurt" in my estimation, Jenkins is no less racy and raunchy and hilarious in Dead Solid Perfect.I have no doubt that this book could have been written this year and still rings true, although maybe not all the dope smoking.
Like many of Jenkins' books, the story revolves around the Texas mystique and a man who can ace his avocation but fail miserably in his personal life. This book mixes enough politics, gambling, golf and sex to become one of the funniest books out there.
Jenkins' style is love-him-or-hate-him, but you if like this one, you'll be searching more used bookstores for other books that are out-of-print.
Book Review: Outstanding!
Summary: 5 Stars
Dan Jenkins strings together this hilarious take on the life of a PGA Tour golfer with deeper social issues and rolls it all together into a dimpled ball of fun.Book Review: Second-rate Jenkins
Summary: 2 Stars
As a huge fan of Semi-Tough from way back (as well as a huge golf fan), I was looking forward to this follow-up. Like Semi-Tough, Dead Solid Perfect is raunchy, tasteless, sexist,racist, and VERY politically incorrect. Unlike Semi-Tough however, which was consistently hilarious throughout, Dead Solid Perfect is only fitfully amusing at best.It's hard to put a finger on what exactly went wrong here. Part of it I think is that while Semi-Tough seemed to have a genuine (if obviously exaggerated) locker room verisimilitude, Dead Solid just doesn't seem to ring as true. This despite the fact that Jenkins was/is if anything far better known and revered as a writer about professional golf than he ever was about the NFL (college football was his other main beat at Sports Illustrated). Perhaps this is because in Semi Tough, many of the supporting characters were narrator Billy Clyde Puckett's teammates, whereas in Dead Solid Perfect they are mostly the protagonist's ex-wives and (to a lesser extent) old high school and Fort Worth cronies. The end result is less a novel about golf, and more about a man with a colourful personal life who happens to be a professional golfer.
That wouldn't really matter much if the book were funnier. But, as mentioned, Dead Solid Perfect is very uneven. Jenkins seems to think that eccentric characters with odd names are funny in and of themselves, and that you don't have to actually give them anything funny to do or say. Instead he relies on goofy Texas aphorisms (which start to wear out their welcome long before the book is over) and occasionally REALLY racist and/or sexist remarks that add little to the package but seem designed to show us what a bold, swaggering, iconoclast the author is.
The trick in writing humour (not to mention playing good golf) is to "never let them see you sweat". Unfortunately, Dead Solid Perfect sees Dan Jenkins sweating way too hard to follow up on a classic, to considerably less effect. Of course I could be wrong there. Maybe the problem is that with this book is that Jenkins wasn't really trying AT ALL.