Duane Happens!

About the Book

LONG DESCRIPTION OF DUANE HAPPENS

A very wise man once said, “The only purpose of education is survival with human dignity.”  Can a small-town boy survive with human dignity in the big-time bustle of a modern university?  Probably so, if you leave out the dignity and just go with the survival part.

Even then it’s an uphill battle for naïve, bumbling Duane, the central character in this highly autobiographical sketch.  Duane is something of a sad sack, always doing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.  He is painfully aware of his shortcomings, and describes himself as “a nerd and a loser.”  

In one of his English classes, Duane meets a sweet co-ed named Sylvia.  They fall in love, and begin living together in Duane’s off-campus house.  Alas, when the year is over and they go to their respective homes for the summer, Duane loses all contact with her.  He is beside himself with worry, but finally decides to get on with his life.  

After graduation Duane takes a job teaching in a small town, where things don’t go much better for him.  He finally leaves teaching and begins playing his guitar on the nightclub circuit with his band.    This causes him to meet Sylvia again, and - - - I’m not going to spoil the ending for you.  You’ll just have to read it for yourself.

DUANE HAPPENS is a hilariously funny book.  Not since “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” has there been such a book packed with rollicking belly laughs from cover to cover.  Even the chapters in which the author mounts a blistering attack on the educational profession are funny.  It is graphic in nature, and contains explicit language and sex.  

It begins as a satire of the university scene, turns into a satire of the educational profession, then becomes a merciless critique.  It winds up being a love story, so Mr. Smith freely admits he doesn’t know how to categorize his own book.  “I guess you could call it an autobiographical fantasy,” he says.  “I’ve always wanted to do some of those things, so I simply wrote my fantasies.”

About the Author

Duane Smith is a retired schoolteacher who now operates Ghostwriters in the Sky, the largest ghostwriting agency in Arizona’s Yavapai County. “Charitably,” he quips, “no one else has started a ghostwriting agency in Yavapai County.” His specialty is writing fiction and satire, although he loves to write memoirs also. Duane’s two grown children have left the nest, so he lives with Olesia, the lovely Brazilian girl he married 34 years ago, and their pampered little dog, Shadow. He describes himself as “an eccentric old curmudgeon,” and to prove the point, still heats his entire house with a wood stove. Duane has written newspaper columns, short stories, memoirs, and resumes. DUANE HAPPENS is his first book.