A college kid endowed with hypnotic powers keeps telling himself there's got to be more waiting for him after graduation than family in the neighborhood and an okay catering job. Maybe he just needs to get his story straight. Kenny McLuher is far from his native Wisconsin, in his last year at the University of Virginia, majoring in history with no idea what he's going to do with it. At his catering job, Kenny's old Southern folktales keep putting his co-workers to sleep, and in Kenny's dreams President Abraham Lincoln ...
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A college kid endowed with hypnotic powers keeps telling himself there's got to be more waiting for him after graduation than family in the neighborhood and an okay catering job. Maybe he just needs to get his story straight. Kenny McLuher is far from his native Wisconsin, in his last year at the University of Virginia, majoring in history with no idea what he's going to do with it. At his catering job, Kenny's old Southern folktales keep putting his co-workers to sleep, and in Kenny's dreams President Abraham Lincoln sure seems to be trying to tell him something. Maybe the pieces will come back together after graduation when Kenny returns to Madison, where he can ask the big question: What is home, anyway?
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Add this copy of Settle Down to cart. $12.72, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2025 by Ten16 Press.
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New. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 260 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Settle Down to cart. $14.57, new condition, Sold by Warriors SG rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Somerset, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2025 by Ten16 Press.
Add this copy of Settle Down to cart. $29.18, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2025 by Ten16 Press.
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New. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 260 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
In his new novel Settle Down, Ritt Deitz comes up with a unique take on what is essentially a coming-of-age tale and supernatural mystery rolled into one. At the heart of the narrative is our protagonist, Kenny, a working-class kid with a catering job. It�s the late 1980s, and Kenny is also a student at the University of Virginia. From the outside, Kenny lives a normal life that is as indistinguishable and unremarkable as the life of any other college kid. He enjoys hanging out with his pals, Logan and Wayne, and he tells his friend Tracy how excited he is about graduation. He may feel a bit out of sorts, but what young kid at college for the first time doesn�t?
But odd things start to occur. The first time it happens, Kenny slips into his storyteller mode and starts narrating a tale with the voice of Uncle Remus. Oddly enough, when he enters this mode, both Kenny and the listeners slip into a sort of trance:
Logan, on the other hand, was now fighting just to stay awake. The deep Hollywood-Sambo voice was morphine to him. Wayne�s half-protest acknowledged, Kenny�s performance was now free to do what it had apparently been designed to do in the first place: put Logan softly to sleep.
Weird stuff, followed by more weirdness: a dream visit from Abraham Lincoln and Kenââ?¬â?¢s father. The two discuss the history of the region, the Shawnee and Cherokee peoples, and in a very funny exchange, Kenny asks why the hell they made him recite that ghastly Uncle Remus Tar Baby story. Apparently, Kenââ?¬â?¢s father, Harlan, used to use that voice, and feeling threatened, Harlan speaks up: ââ?¬Å"Iââ?¬â?¢m not prejudicedââ?¬Â¦Ã¢â?¬Â?
Lincoln says that he had been directing what happened to Kenny, and that while he would not remember this dream, it would happen again when he was finally ââ?¬Å"home.ââ?¬Â?
The third storytelling sequence is even odder. This time, Kenny recounts the tale of Paul Bunyan, but instead, Wayne falls into the trance as the narrator and takes over the storytelling:
ââ?¬Å"You probably know it,ââ?¬Â? said Wayne. ââ?¬Å"I may have told it to you, about the Great Up North. Maybe we were paddlinââ?¬â?¢ up in the Boundary Waters.ââ?¬Â? He sounded a little like Laurent. Up in da Boundary Wadders. ââ?¬Å"Itââ?¬â?¢s the story of big Paul Bunyan, that great lumberjack of the North, who changed everything for us out here in the camps, donââ?¬â?¢t ya know.ââ?¬Â? Dole-cha nole.
Yes, apparently Kenny�s powers are transferable.
I love the absurdity, the wit, the playfulness, and the nonsense of these story-trance sessions. It keeps things humming.
Throughout the novel, we get to learn a lot about the importance of heritage, identity, and the role narration and oral history play in our lives, especially insofar as race is concerned. There�s also a nice subplot, the story of Kenny�s relationship with his niece, Taylor, who is sort of his anchor or lodestar.
In the end, Kenny does have a final dream where he meets his father again, as well as the historian Knox Chiffonier, and we do get the feeling that Kenny has grown from the process, has come to understand his identity, American history, and the myth and reality behind issues like race and slavery. Settle Down by Ritt Deitz tackles big questions in an interesting and unique way, and each reader will be able to tease meaning out of the narrative in a different manner, depending on their relationship to both the country and the narrative process itself.
