{"id":5061,"date":"2020-08-21T12:42:24","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T18:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=5061"},"modified":"2020-08-21T12:42:24","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T18:42:24","slug":"the-gopher-king-by-gojan-nikolich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=5061","title":{"rendered":"The Gopher King by Gojan Nikolich"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Quirky and darkly humorous, this is literary fiction at best\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nikolich\u2019s fantastic debut not only showcases his powers of setting, character, and description but also shines light on his skill of giving a dark story a distinctive and humorous flair. A wildfire and murder of a young woman in Bull River Falls flares the small-town newspaper publisher and a Vietnam veteran Stan Przewalski\u2019s PTSD symptom further. Medications and the past trauma make it impossible to distinguish reality from fantasy. So, when Chaz, a quirky gopher, seeks Stan\u2019s help in his fight against unscrupulous real estate developers, Stan sees his opportunity at redemption. The chaos that seem to take hold of the plot\u2014 as the alternative narrative shuffles between the present and Stan\u2019s flashbacks to the Vietnam combined with multiple plot threads driven by other characters \u2014 become all the more surreal as Stan\u2019s frustrating but ultimately fantastic journey is powered by Chaz and Dora\u2019s idiosyncrasies. The fantastic sense of place, memorable characters, and a stylish prose makes this a page-turner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gopher King<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Gojan Nikolich<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black Rose Writing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy now<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pub date November 12, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISBN 978-1684335732<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price $20.95 (USD) Paperback<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quirky and darkly humorous, this is literary fiction at best\u2026. Nikolich\u2019s fantastic debut not only showcases his powers of setting, character, and description but also shines light on his skill of giving a dark story a distinctive and humorous flair. A wildfire and murder of a young woman in Bull River Falls flares the small-town newspaper publisher and a Vietnam veteran Stan Przewalski\u2019s PTSD symptom further. Medications and the past trauma make it impossible to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":5062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[56739],"tags":[38100332,24777292,7223,726,40309533,3328,178,7224,1747,1320398,610903656,54306025,1008073,856121,309,349],"class_list":["post-5061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-reviews","tag-amreading","tag-amwriting","tag-author","tag-authors","tag-book-review-website","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-fiction-book-reviews","tag-indie-books-review","tag-indieauthor","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-1jD","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/gopher-king.jpg?fit=313%2C475&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5064,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions\/5064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}