Cheap Dead Solid Perfect (Book) (DAN JENKINS) Price

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Customer Reviews of Dead Solid Perfect

Jenkins is no liberal - his politics are straight out of the south. Having said that, the most sympathetic character in this book is a liberal woman, so I wouldn't call Dan Jenkins prejudiced.

What really comes through in this book is Jenkins' love of sport, and golf in particular, and for people who live life to the full without preaching, or listening to preachers. It's also a gripping story which will appeal to sports fans who must always stay to bitter end, just in case the sport offers up a million-to-one surprise ending, so that they can tell their grandchildren: "I was there".

The most important thing about Jenkins is that you feel that he cares - about his characters, and about sport. It's nice to have a bit of passion in a book, and maybe passion is by definition politically incorrect.

Absolutely the funniest book I have ever read.
An incredibly funny account of golf, shapely adorables, gambling hustles and general all around characters. I laughed out loud so hard I cried a couple of times. The bit about Kenny Lee Puckett and Spec Reynolds creating a fictional West Texas town in order to bet on the football team and try and pull one over on their bookie is pure genius(dont worry, I gave nothing away). In todays smoothed over, politically correct world this throwback is actually quite unlike anything you will read. I have read this book twice I liked it so much. Order one used if you cant get it new.

Second-rate Jenkins
As a huge fan of Semi-Tough from way back (as well as a huge golf fan), I was looking forward to this follow-up. Like Semi-Tough, Dead Solid Perfect is raunchy, tasteless, sexist,racist, and VERY politically incorrect. Unlike Semi-Tough however, which was consistently hilarious throughout, Dead Solid Perfect is only fitfully amusing at best.

It's hard to put a finger on what exactly went wrong here. Part of it I think is that while Semi-Tough seemed to have a genuine (if obviously exaggerated) locker room verisimilitude, Dead Solid just doesn't seem to ring as true. This despite the fact that Jenkins was/is if anything far better known and revered as a writer about professional golf than he ever was about the NFL (college football was his other main beat at Sports Illustrated). Perhaps this is because in Semi Tough, many of the supporting characters were narrator Billy Clyde Puckett's teammates, whereas in Dead Solid Perfect they are mostly the protagonist's ex-wives and (to a lesser extent) old high school and Fort Worth cronies. The end result is less a novel about golf, and more about a man with a colourful personal life who happens to be a professional golfer.

That wouldn't really matter much if the book were funnier. But, as mentioned, Dead Solid Perfect is very uneven. Jenkins seems to think that eccentric characters with odd names are funny in and of themselves, and that you don't have to actually give them anything funny to do or say. Instead he relies on goofy Texas aphorisms (which start to wear out their welcome long before the book is over) and occasionally REALLY racist and/or sexist remarks that add little to the package but seem designed to show us what a bold, swaggering, iconoclast the author is.

The trick in writing humour (not to mention playing good golf) is to "never let them see you sweat". Unfortunately, Dead Solid Perfect sees Dan Jenkins sweating way too hard to follow up on a classic, to considerably less effect. Of course I could be wrong there. Maybe the problem is that with this book is that Jenkins wasn't really trying AT ALL.