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 enlarge | Author: Amy Sedaris
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $16.43
You Save: $10.52 (39%)
New (18) from $16.43
Avg. Customer Rating:  61 reviews
Sales Rank: 274948
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 4
Pages: 330
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.9 x 1
ISBN: 1565117727
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781565117723
ASIN: 1565117727
Publication Date: April 28, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Russell Hokes: Great Journalist or The Greatest Journalist? February 28, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Wigfield represents the very best of quintessential small-town Americana. Built at the base of the pricey-but-worthless Bulkwaller Dam, Wigfield boasts sixteen gentlemen's clubs (including the premier T-- Time Show Palace, The Bacon Strip, The T--- Shop and The Muffeteria), several junkyards, a community theater with a troupe of semi-trained rabbits, and even its own local rag, The Wigfield Sporadic. Like many charming small towns, Wigfield is under attack; but the threat lies not in urbanization, suburban sprawl, factory farming or the like. Rather, that which shaped the proud town of Wigfield will soon be unleashed upon it if the government goons have their way. The Bulkwaller Dam is scheduled to come down - oh noes!
Luckily, journalist Russell Hokes is on the case. Sent by Hyperion Books to document the plight of America's dying small towns in 50,000 words or more (it's in the contract), Hokes arrives in Wigfield just in time! Between immersing himself in Wigfieldian culture and sidestepping his publisher, can Hokes prevent the flooding of Wigfield? Does anyone really care?
WIGFIELD: THE CAN-DO TOWN THAT JUST MAY NOT is a supersillious satire of small-town America. Admittedly, the comic stylings of Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello aren't for everyone, but I pity the fools. If you like Strangers With Candy, The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, then you'll love the saga of WIGFIELD.
In fact, reporter Russell Hokes of WIGFIELD is clearly the prequel to one Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, of THE COLBERT REPORT fame. From his trusting of the gut to his scorn for books, Hokes is the vision of Dr. Colbert in his early days. Both characters are somewhat dim, self-centered, obtuse, lazy, selfish, racist/sexist/homophobic, upper-crust anti-intellectuals. Even the various skits featured in WIGFIELD resemble those used on THE COLBERT REPORT: at one point, Hokes interviews himself, a la "Formidable Opponent," while Hokes's chat with Representative Bill Farber plays like an installment of "Better Know a District." Throughout the book, you can imagine Stephen the pundit cutting his chops on the story of Wigfield in the visage of Hokes the journalist. Brilliant!
Much like Stephen Colbert's more recent I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU), WIGFIELD is clearly meant to be enjoyed as an audio recording. Colbert, Sedaris and Dinello give voice to all the characters themselves, at times crossing gender lines. Their collective range is just 360 degrees of awesome. Stephen as man-hating lesbian High Priestess Thea is simply priceless. WIGFIELD the book is hilarious as well, but the audio version will have you LOL!!!1!!!1-ing. If your library happens to have a copy of the print book, it's well worth a looksee, since there are a dozen or so photos of the comedians dressed up as their respective characters. Again, Stephen posing as a nearly-nekked Thea is - well, that alone is worth the price of the paperback. You'll want to blow that photo up and hang it above the fireplace, right next to the portrait(s) of Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA.
"America, bend over and relax, you're about to get a Truthoscopic examination."
 Colbert's Humor Fails In Pure Fiction February 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Perhaps I'm not a big enough fan of the Colbert Style of humor to appreciate this book. (Yes I realize there are multiple authors, but the humor is in his style)
I do enjoy his send ups of "serious" interviewees on Comedy Central, but in those instances I find the humor coming from a real situation -- i.e., someone who really believes what he or she is saying but is being led over a cliff by an interviewer who the audience knows is only playacting in his seriousness.
Extending this to a completely fictitious situation, where again the narrator is taking things seriously makes me wonder who is the butt of the joke. Is it the fictitious town of Wigfield (which defines trailer trash)? Is it the interviewer? Or is it us?
I've lost my rock in trying to understand this book. Is it a parody of small town America? Is it a parody of the documentaries on small town america? Or is it something else?
Now a bunch of the reviewers did like this book -- though it is a very extreme distribution (a lot of 1s and 5s)
There are occasional anecdotes in the book that do cut through the confusion, but overall there were many more misses and "huhs" than hits for me.
If you're a devoted fan of Colbert or of Sedaris' "Strangers With Candy" as the rave reviewers seem to be, perhaps you'll find my confusion as someone who just doesn't get the joke and you can completely ignore this review. However, if you're only a casual fan or unfamiliar with what to expect, give the downtown of Wigfield a pass and pull off at the next truck stop.
Every Word in this Book is Hilariously Awesome February 5, 2008
I read a decent amount of reviews before purchasing this book, and half of them were bad. I was quite hesitant to get Wigfield because of those reviews (and cuz of the cover). However, I love the trio that wrote it, so I figured I'd check it out. I'm so glad I did. This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. It's HUGELY politically incorrect, so if you're easily offended, I wouldn't recommend this book to you, but it's hilarious. Very funny stuff, very fun to read, and great if you're looking for something entertaining. This is definitely a great book worth checking out if you like the kind of humor that defines Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert.
 Funny but limited January 19, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is going to have to be a very mixed review. I found many parts of Wigfield hilarious, but on the other hand I was also disappointed in it. This is a book that I feel could have been much better. After all, there was no shortage of talent here -the three authors are all highly creative comedians. The book starts off very well. I laughed out loud at the first couple of chapters, and I had high hopes for the rest of the book. Then, about a quarter the way through, I became a little concerned, as the material was already starting to seem a bit thin. Yet, I can't say it tanked completely. There were still laughs in the remainder of the book, but they were really stretching the concept out. In a way, the authors were a little too much like Russell Hokes, the fictitious author of the narrative, who is desperately trying to reach his goal of writing 50,000 words, despite not having much to say.
Some reviewers have called Wigfield a satire on small town life. I don't think that is really accurate. It is really a satire about writing. The funniest part of the book, and I think the core of the novel, deals with the pretensions of an ordinary, not very intelligent or ethical guy who wants to make money as a writer without doing much research, thinking or even writing. In fact, the deliberately bad writing done by Russell Hokes is the cleverest part of the book. I think this actually went over the heads of some people who said the book is total garbage. If you take the time to absorb it, you can appreciate that it takes as much work, perhaps a bit more, to write as atrociously as Hokes as it does to write well. The book is chock full of absurdly hilarious descriptions, characterizations and metaphors. The introduction is also a very funny, rather cutting satire on the conceits of the literary world. Russell Hokes is the perfect bad writer for this piece of fake journalism. Unfortunately, the rest of the book does not live up to the promise of the introduction.
The problem is that the story itself is very limited in scope. Wigfield is not a real town, not even a real fake town. It is, rather, a kind of squatter's settlement. The running gag of the book is that the residents of Wigfield are only there because a dam is about to be destroyed, obliterating the "town," and, hopefully, allowing the residents to collect disaster relief. Much of the book consists of statements made by these faux citizens of Wigfield. Some of these statements are quite funny, but they soon become redundant. All of these characters basically fit the same mold -the redneck/trailer trash stereotype. Most of Wigfield's businesses are strip clubs, and virtually all the residents are uneducated, gun-toting, racist and more than half crazy.
Despite these limitations, Wigfield is still pretty funny. I only wish they had taken the promising character of Russell Hokes and given him a little more to work with. If, for example, Wigfield had been presented as a real small town, they could have gone a lot further with it. Many of the characters in Wigfield read like they were based on some low budget Hollywood movie about rednecks. There are many things about small town life that would make good satire, but Wigfield never gets beyond that single dimension. Colbert, Sedaris and Dinello actually did a good job in making the most out of this material, but they could have done a lot better.
It was Okay... December 28, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kind of ok to look at for about 15 minutes. Then never open again. Boring. (and I am a fan of the authors!)
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