Me & Mr. Cigar
By (Author) Gibby Haynes
Soho Press
Soho Press
3rd August 2021
25th May 2021
United States
Young Adult
Fiction
FIC
Paperback
256
Width 139mm, Height 209mm
From the wild and wonderful mind of Gibby Haynes-world famous Butthole Surfers front man/lyricist and self-proclaimed eternal Texan adolescent-comes the surreal tale of seventeen-year-old Oscar Lester and his trusted dog, Mr. Cigar. Oscar and his dog have made a pretty good life for themselves, despite the fact that Oscar's family has all but vanished-his father is dead; his mother has a new boyfriend. His older sister, Rachel, fled five years ago . . . right after Mr. Cigar bit off her hand. Despite the freak accident, Oscar knows his dog is no menace. Mr. Cigar is a loyal protector- a supernatural creature that can exact revenge, communicate telepathically, and manipulate car doors and windows with ease. So, when Rachel-now twenty-two and an artist living in New York-calls out of the blue and claims she's being held hostage, Oscar sees an opportunity to make things right between them. He races north, intent on both saving Rachel and fleeing the mysterious evil forces targeting his dog. And it's only by embarking on this dual quest that Oscar starts to untangle his own life and understand the bizarre reality of Mr. Cigar. *Features original artwork by Gibby Haynes as full color endpapers and illustrations throughout the book.
AnLA WeeklyBook of the Month
AKirkus ReviewsBest Young Adult Novel of 2020
Praise for Me and Mr. Cigar
It takes a book as hilarious, bizarre, profane, and heartfelt as Me & Mr. Cigar to truly convey the surreality of coming of age as a teenage boy. This book hit this former teenage boy and new dog owner right in the heart, by way of the gut.
Jeff Zentner, Morris Award winning author of The Serpent King and Goodbye Days
This book is so wild, so mind-blowing, much fun to read, that I almost forgot it was fiction! (Itisfiction, right Mega-giant tech companies aren'treallyin cahoots with the government, right Flying alien creatures aren't really mistaken for lawnmowers . . . right Please, tell me this is fiction!) Fast-paced, brilliantly funny, irreverent, clever . . . AND its illustrated Me and Mr. Cigar is the quintessential teen read, and ipso facto a must-read for adults, too!
Garth Stein, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
In the book world we call it 'magical realism.' In the music world they call it 'psychedelic rock.' Gibby Haynes is very good at both, which he proves with his brilliant first novelMe and Mr. Cigar. This novel has it all: glimpses into Haynes's Texas childhood and teen years, a touch of his distinctive surrealism, and a heartfelt story which makes it a very good read."
Blake Nelson, author ofGirlandRecovery Road
I felt like I was diving into a YA written by Thomas Pynchon. It was a dang blast!
Geoff Herbach, bestselling author of Stupid Fast
Butthole Surfers Gibby Haynes wrote a YA book as weird as the bands music.
The AV Club
"Particularly odd."
Houston Chronicle
"Between the bindings ofMe & Mr. Cigardwells a strange chain of events indeed, but profane, tangible fantasy is what indie nation has come to expect from the wild heart of this Native Texan."
Austin Chronicle
"Could this be Haynes true medium"
Austin American-Statesman
This is a story of friendship and the complexities of family. Of retribution and forgiveness. And its hard to say much else without giving too much away . . . The bookdoesfeel rebellious and mildly dangerousthe sort of thing a young teen will delight in reading when the parents are downstairs watching TV, smiling at the fact that theyll never know the subversive nature of the prose because, lets face it, most parents dont read their teens Young Adult novels. But the flip-side is that there are real life lessons in here.
LA Weekly
[Haynes] has traded in the bullhorn-blasted vocals for a more nuanced, but just as outrageous, form of expression . . . Combines the coming-of-age edge of The Catcher in the Rye with the surrealism of David Lynch.
San Antonio Express-News
YA the Gibby Haynes way.
The HypeMagazine, Gift Guide
Are you sitting uncomfortably Butthole Surfers chaos magnet Gibby Haynes has written a YA novel . . . Its midway between a coming-of-age fable and a psychadelic road novel.
UNCUT Magazine
By far the weirdest book I have ever read.
The Nerd Daily
Me & Mr. Cigaris a mind-blowing, surrealistic novel about a boy and his dog . . .This wonderfulif completely odd book is unlike anything youve read before.
The Big Takeover
Haynes has concocted a compelling story. The cartoon chaos he used to create within the confines of a five-minute rock song were legend. Given 250 pages (divided into 90 speedy chapters), its bonkers.
Red Hook Star-Revue
Oscar is wreathed by a colorful supporting cast led by a pooch who is generally the brightest and most dangerous character in the room . . . As boy-and-his-dog tales go, a long, long way from Lassie.
Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
Hayness fast-paced debut is full of colorful characters and concepts.
Publishers Weekly
Gibby Haynes is a musician, visual artist, writer, and filmmaker best known as a founding member of the Butthole Surfers, whose outrageous concerts spawned a global cult following and whose albums have sold millions worldwide. He lives in Brooklyn with his family. Me & Mr. Cigar is his first novel.