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Travel Naturally
Few naturist writings have the ability to amuse like Allen Parker's Nudist Guy and Yankee Gal. As the antics of Chester
and Karalyn bring redneck humor to a roar, you'll find yourself in church, wondering, which older lady is "Ms. Edie."
Examining those things that go wrong in life with a drawl, Parker has concocted a delightful array of characters exemplifying
a cultural phenomenon.
Chester and Karalyn have a teenage son who gives us a glimpse into the life of a kid being raised in a nudist environment.
Slipping quietly from antic to antic, Chester's life is a tribute to Parker's subtlety. We learn during a doctor visit that
he's made no great secret of his nude life. At the barber shop his practice of nude living comes up in a challenge to throw
the best 4th of July party with all the trimmings.
It's easy to be carried along, find relatives and friend among characters, and generally appreciate Nudist Guy and
Yankee Gal as the work of someone adept at spinning a tale and evoking hilarious mental images. Interspersed among the naked
stories are tales of "good ol boy" fun, bringing "The Dukes of Hazzard" theme song to mind. For naturists
this is a fun read, but more importantly, it could be a most gentle conversation starter as a gift to a friend you haven't
had the nerve to enlighten about your naturist lifestyle.
Midwest Book Review
Our favorite nudist Chester is back with more humorous renderings of his life, family and friends, and the zany situations
he manages to get himself into. Lots of physical slapstick with this one along with plenty of colorful, wacky characters to
go along with Chester. It seems Chester's wife and son are the only "normal" people in the whole bunch and their
reactions to Chester's antics not only evoke nods of approval but plenty of laughs.
Christy Tillery French
Reviewer
Midwest Book Review
Drive By Booking
Dawno
Full Disclosure: Allen is a member of Absolute Write forums, as am I. We've had a number of conversations via AW and email
going back a couple of years now. He's got a great sense of humor and a wonderful attitude about life and writing which comes
through in his contributions to the various threads on the boards. I count Allen as one of my online friends.
About a year ago he sent me a copy of his book A Mouse Among Us. I had the occasion to sit in a hospital emergency waiting
room for several hours one day, and used that time to finish reading through the book there, heedless of the occasional glare
that came my way when I laughed out loud at a passage. A Mouse Among us is Allen's second book featuring the nudist, Chester.
I have not had the opportunity to read the first book in the series, A Nudist Among Us which introduces Chester and his immediate
family to an unsuspecting world. A Mouse Among Us was full of Chester's family and childhood reminiscences, along with humorous
insight into a unique culture that includes Baptists, hillbillies, and nudity. Chester is a Southerner - but I can't help
but feel that he's not entirely representative of the citizenry south of the Mason-Dixon line.
The subject of this review is Allen's third book about Chester, the Nudist Guy, and his family. This book, like A Mouse
Among Us, and I assume A Nudist Among Us, as well, is a collection of short stories, slices of life, set in present day Virginia.
In the introduction to his book, Allen assures us that while there's a "small piece of all of us" in Chester,
he's a completely fictional character. I'll take Allen at his word, but he's created a complex and fully realized character
in Chester, so I can understand how some folk might wonder about the autobiographical feel to the writing.
Moving on - the stories in the book remind me of half-hour sitcoms, in fact reviews of his earlier work compare Chester's
experiences to "I Love Lucy", which I think may be a fair assessment. Each story reveals an idiosyncracy of the
main character, there's conflict as a result of said quirk, which is eventually resolved after mis-haps and usually some embarrassment
on somebody's behalf, and it's not always Chester. There's a definite slapstick feel to the stories centered around Mountain
Mist moonshine's effect on judgement, to say nothing of the stories that have fireworks in them.
Because, like in the typical sitcom, there isn't necessarily a linear flow from story to story, Nudist Guy and Yankee
Gal is a challenging book to read all at one sitting. The break in continuity is a bit distracting if you try to take it all
in one go. After reading the first two stories back to back, I took breaks between the rest of them to clear the mental palate
before reading on.
As in sitcoms, sometimes the story is about Chester's efforts to keep a situation from collapsing in utter ruin. Chester
usually contributes to further chaos with each attempt to fix the problem, as in the stories "The Chicken's Little Revenge"
which centers around the annual church picnic, or "The Fourth of July" which is about a nudist celebration of our
nation's birthday, complete with fireworks. Other times it's about the importunities life (or his wife) thrusts upon him and
his sometimes futile attempts to retain a modicum of dignity, as in "The Gym", "Doctor's Visit" and "The
Baptistry". The "Civil War Family Reunion" is a variation of the 'fish out of water' premise, where the Southern
Chester manages to create turmoil at his Yankee wife's family reunion.
Aside from the occasional perplexing use of a word, the book was fairly well copy-edited, I didn't run across a lot of
typos or punctuation errors, things that always throw me out of a story. I'm not well acquainted with small press books, yet,
so I don't know what one should expect in general regarding other editorial input. Allen's voice is that of a homey, folksy,
storyteller regaling his audience with another doozy of a yarn with all the exaggerations and occasional meanderings typical
of those tales. Sometimes that translates to the written word better than other times. As a result of that propensity, it
seems to me, there were passages that could have been cut or tightened and others that, I felt, needed a bit more exposition
and this, I believe, is where a good editor comes in.
All told, this is a warm-hearted and funny book that gives a glimpse into a different way of life than I'm familar with,
being a generic protestant Yankee who keeps fully clothed when not in the shower. I enjoyed reading it and hope many others
will as well.
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