Search results for ""Author Tom Osborne""

'Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit' is a singularly Canadian novel featuring crime, culture, and sports. Written in the vein of John Kennedy Toole ( 'Confederacy of Dunces') and JP Donleavy, 'Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit' is set in Vancouver during an early 80s Grey Cup weekend. Tourists and sports aficionados have descended on the city in record droves. There are, however, a few folks who have other interests and plans. Three small-time career crooks are planning a heist on one of the city's exclusive hotels. Enter Harry Pazik Jr., a good ole boy from Calgary, who is inadvertently swept up in the mayhem of the crooks' boondoggle. Meanwhile, across town at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, rehearsals of 'La Traviata' are in full swing. The 300-pound stage manager has toppled to the orchestra pit, crushing the tuba player, while Jorgen Thrapp, assistant to the Lighting Director, is busy behind the scenes with his dealings in drugs and numbers running for a crooked printer intent on making a killing on the big game. Everyone gets more than they bargained for in this slapstick Grey Cup-meets- 'Goodfellas' romp. "Only connect' was E.M. Forster's advice to writers, and Osborne connects like a mad electrician in a power plant." -The Vancouver Sun "Smart dialogue, fast action, and a mix of liquor and drugs fuel this clever tale." -North Shore News

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From the author of 'Dead Man In the Orchestra Pit' and 'Foozlers', comes another tale of madcap human folly. Louella Debra Poule is doing an eighteen-month stint on a weapons charge at a minimum security institution up BC's Fraser Valley. Her drug dealing, sort-of-boyfriend Jimmy Flood, and his sidekick, Blacky Harbottle, should have taken the rap, but with their list of "priors" and pending drug charges, a weapons offense would have put them in the slammer for quite a little stay. Louella did the "right thing"; she did what was expected of her by those on the street. Six months into Louella's sentence, her mother dies. Upon Louella's early release (recommended on good behaviour and for pursuing sincere in-roads to rehabilitation) she discovers that she has inherited a good deal of money and a nice condo in a treed and quiet suburb of Vancouver. It is here that Louella Poule sits in relative anonymity and safety, here that she decides to take some time away from the influence of her former "associates," tend her mother's garden, maintain her new-found sobriety, and reassess her life. But, as so often happens, her past comes a callin'. A story of addiction, rehabilitation, and finding meaning in life. " 'Budge' is one of the more quirky, unconventional, picaresque novels to come along in a while. It can be pleasurable, if the reader is willing to roll with Osborne's approach to prose, which is original, if not necessarily expedient. Osborne tends to dance all around a point before he makes it, and his paragraphs can go on for quite a bit, without necessarily being cumbersome. In comparison to similar authors, he's like Faulkner without the density, Stein without the obtuseness, or Thomas Wolfe without the extravagance; of those, he's closest to Wolfe. There's a rhythm to Budge's text that Osborne might not have achieved with a more minimalist approach. There's a sense he's luxuriating in the weaving of his narrative, repeating certain key phrases, winkingat the reader and leading him through a meandering, though focused plot. To fully appreciate 'Budge', we must relinquish our trust to Osborne, a somewhat loopy shaman. ...Tom Osborne warrants a great deal of praise for freshness of content, viewpoint, and plot. He knows how to use language with skill and verve. ..." -Foreword Reviews

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'Foozlers' is a 24-hour "Odyssey" that runs a juggernaut through the high- and lowlands of Vancouver. Jerry Lowe is the reluctant driver of a getaway car for two sketchy junkies on the make. A pair of cops spend a shift wobbling on the cusp of total breakdown. The groom-to-be in an Indian arranged marriage seeks an escape of the carnal variety. Soon, they will all intersect paths with a gas station attendant and a very "special" car wash operator. And somebody's got to do something about that noisy, bad-tempered cockatoo. 'Foozlers' chronicles that thin line between sane and insane behaviour, and the mayhem and unpredictability fuelled by the "Butterfly Effect"-strangers' paths crossing for only an instant but having explosive effects. By story's end, lives, or at least attitudes, will change. Sort of. "Like Blaise Cendrars' 'To the End of the World', John Kennedy Toole's 'A Confederacy of Dunces' and the whacked-out works of J.P. Donleavy, Terry Southern and William Burroughs, Foozlers is a madcap tour de force." -The Vancouver Sun "Irreverent, break-neck pace, and rollercoaster prose that's a lot of fun to ride" -Quill & Quire "It's a caper story with every element slightly off-kilter. And that's the charm of [ 'Foozlers'] . . . . Read it and laugh." - RainReview.com

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The back-to-back championships in 1994 and 1995 prompted more fans and media to take notice of the football program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. For Tom Osborne, then head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the added scrutiny was at times flattering and at other times problematic. On Solid Ground was written for the fan seeking greater insight into the Nebraska football program behind the scenes during the 1990s. Osborne presents not only an accurate portrayal of what happened to the team during those championship seasons but also his personal philosophy of life.While recounting how many of his players overcame great odds to achieve what they did both on and off the field, Osborne also straightforwardly addresses the heavy criticism the program received for the misbehavior of a few team members. On Solid Ground also considers the tension between those who believe an athlete in trouble should be made an example of and those who maintain that a structured environment is the best way to improve human behavior.

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