| Todd Sentell |
|
|
|
| Friday, 19 October 2007 | |
Nominated for Georgia Author of the Year In the alluring history of world literature, Todd Sentell is the first native Georgian and Atlantan to publish a sports-related novel ... comic golf ... comic tennis ... comic bowling or otherwise ... and Toonamint of Champions is seriously funny. In other words, Deliverance wasn't written for canoeing enthusiasts, if you know what we mean. He's also an award winning magazine writer. His wildly comic golf novel, "Toonamint of Champions: How LaJuanita Mumps Got to Join Augusta National Golf Club Real Easy" was released in April, 2007 by Kunati Books. It's already been hailed as a social satirical masterpiece and its quirky style and tone has been compared to Mark Twain, P.G. Wodehouse, and James Thurber ... those three hip cats writing, however, under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms. In other words, in Toonamint of Champions, an extreme social satire, people who scream for attention ... intentionally or otherwise ... end up getting a whole lot of it. For many years, Todd was director of sales and marketing of one of Atlanta's swankiest private golf clubs ... beyond the guard shack, an hourly source of horrifying behavior by alcohol and ego-addled well dressed rich white men—and some of their secretaries—not to be believed. It was a lot of fun for everybody, except for the poor gal in accounts receivable. When Todd's not writing, he's a one-on-one specialist, substitute teacher, and guest lecturer at a school for kids with learning disabilities where he teaches social skills and everyday etiquette. In the literary world, that's what we call ironic as all get out. tsentell@millsprings.org Teresa Weaver of ATLANTA MAGAZINE ... Todd Sentell is definitely a local author to watch. Toonamint of Champions has a lot of great creative energy in it. Very offbeat and very funny. (Author's Note: Thanks, Teresa, but my dear, sweet mother still won't read the book. She's changed her name, wears dark sunglasses even at night, and has changed churches.) Brad Klein of GOLFWEEK ... Todd Sentell’s fictional “Toonamint of Champions” is like a convergence of NBC’s “The Office” and the Golf Channel’s “Big Break." The narrative is antic in the extreme and occasionally hysterical in its savage characterization of a certain oleaginous Southern golf gentility. Bill Ott of BOOKLIST ... Golf inspires its share of mystical celebration, but it also provides fertile ground for low comedy—take Caddyshack, or the novels of Dan Jenkins and Rick Reilly. When it comes to over-the-top slapstick, though, golf journalist Sentell makes Jenkins and Reilly look like somber social realists out of the Emile Zola school. Four Stars from Wayne Cunningham of FOREWORD ... Where else but in Sentell’s bubbly imagination could a kooky hero like Waymon Poodle from Mullet Luv, Georgia rise to the top? Mike Sussman of WORDSMITHS BOOKS ... I've become a fan of other comedic authors, including Carl Hiaasen and Christopher Moore, but I think a new book has taken over the crown as my favorite funny book. Sentell has filled his story with bigger than life characters, and I was literally laughing on almost every page … his is a unique writing style that's basically full of run-on sentences, but his wordplay is fantastic. It's sort of like Elmore Leonard, except nobody gets shot at the end of each sentence. Jack Keunzie of WIS TV ... Toonamint of Champions ... It's a wacky excursion. I see a screenplay there. Bill Ott of BOOKLIST… The Masters golf tournament has taken a beating … in Todd Sentell’s Toonamint of Champions, a broad satire in which the tournament and its fat-cat sponsors take a royal lampooning. TOONAMINT OF CHAMPIONS ... GET REAL READY FOR SOME SOUTHERN FRIED GOLF MISCHIEF! "Hilarity for adults . . . Funnier than Caddyshack ... perhaps the funniest novel of the year." —Films and Books Magazine |
| < Prev |
|---|
