The Call: A Novel (in case you couldn't figure that out on your own)

AUTHOR: Yannick Murphy
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: Fiction
What the title means: The main character, a poor large-animal veterinarian, takes calls from his neighbors all around their rural town, for sick horses and lame goats and the occasional cow in the
basement. 

How this book works: Short sections describing an initial action, such as "what I said" and "what she ate" and "things I did not want to do" and "what I dug through the junk drawer in the kitchen for".
What I said: I sense bull.
What the critics said: It "explores marriage, parenthood, small-town life, medicine, and hope with a sensitivity, skill, and fearlessness that will rattle your bones."

What I said: Okay, fine, I'll read it.
What happens: the main character drives all around the town treating animals and preparing his son to go hunting.  Fights with wife, who is either a real harpy or married to a lazy pain in the ass.

What I said: This episode of "Police Women of Memphis" is way interesting.

What happens next: Narrator goes hunting with his son, who gets shot out of his blind by a wayward hunter and ends up in a coma.  A spaceship shows up.  Hovers around the house.  Family looks at it, shrugs, and goes back inside.

What I said: Who in the what now?
What happens next: Kid stays in coma for a while.  Kid wakes up out of coma.  Family joins swimming team.  Narrator and wife discuss his "levels" a lot.  Somebody calls and hangs up, then calls and hangs up.  Narrator becomes obsessed with who shot his son but doesn't do anything about it.  Spaceman comes out of ship and introduces him as the narrator's biological son, the result of his donating sperm 25 years ago. 
What I said: You have got to be freaking kidding me.
What the critics said: "A triumph of quiet humor and understated beauty."
What I said: A triumph of bull.
What happens next: Spaceman and family chat about how he's from Philadelphia and had a very nice childhood.  Spaceman says aliens have decided narrator is going to help them save their dying animal species, then never brings it up again.  Spaceman and narrator go out on some calls.  Spaceman reveals that he needs a kidney. 

What I said: How the freaking hell is he a spaceman if he's from Philadelphia?

What happens next: Wife rants and raves about how narrator can't do it. Narrator does it. Wife forgives him. Life goes back to normal.

What I said: Thank goodness that crap is over.
LENGTH: 223 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Not in content or format.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: What I said: NOT.