School Board Author:Mike Freedman "School Board is a total joy to read, as full of sass and subversive brass as its 18-year-old hero, the political neophyte and Houston school board candidate Tucker 'Catfish' Davis ... I hope School Board is the first of many more to come from this gifted young writer."-Ben Fountain, author of National Book Critics Circle Award winner Billy Lynn... more »?s Long Halftime Walk and Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
?Into the riotous cavalcade of great American literary characters tumbles a new class clown, Tucker 'Catfish' Davis, high school senior and aspiring politician. One part Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces, one part Hazel Motes from Wise Blood, and several parts Willie Stark from All the King's Men, Catfish Davis is a singular presence on the page. Mike Freedman hasn't just written the funniest book about a school board election, he's written the kind of David-and-Goliath story that gets all of us 'little people' cheering and laughing in equal measure.?-David Abrams, author of Fobbit
Set in Houston, Texas, in the last year of the twentieth century, School Board is a roaring comic allegory for the coming post-9/11 world. At the center of the tale is quixotic high school senior class president Tucker "Catfish" Davis, who has never encountered a fight he didn't take on. Events soon have Tucker challenging school board incumbent Walker Moore, a senior executive at an Enron-like company. Tucker, inspired by a long line of Louisiana populist heroes, uses Huey Long?style tactics to protect the "little folks" of Houston.In the wild days that follow, Tucker gains traction in his long-shot bid for school board by guerilla campaigning against a tax reinvestment zoning bill that his opponent, local leaders, and Walker's energy company all support. With the help of his classmates, an indicted Louisiana governor resembling Edwin Edwards, and an ex-Green Beret oilman trained in waging unconventional warfare, Tucker makes it the school board race of the century.Written by a veteran of the recent war, School Board is an entertaining debut novel that heralds the arrival of a sharp satirical voice attuned to the absurdities of contemporary America. It is also the story of Houston, revealing the diversity, madness, and glory found« less