Lord of the Barnyard

Lord of the Barnyard is a novel by Tristan Egolf.

Plot synopsis
Somewhere in Kentucky, perhaps Indiana, we learn via third person narration about the life of John Kaltenbrunner.

Essentially we follow the life of John and his unimaginably bad luck, until he meets a group that is even worse off - garbage men whom the town considers the lowest of the low - and so John decides to do something about it and starts up a trash-collection strike with horrific consequences.

Critical reception
A review in The New York Times called the novel "both interesting and exciting without quite managing to be good." A review by Kirkus found that in the novel Egolf "too frequently fails to dramatize, indulging instead in lengthy (and, to be fair, frequently hilarious) summary jeremiads."

Publication
Lord of the Barnyard, Egolf's first novel, was rejected by over 50 publishers. It was finally accepted after Egolf befriended French novelist Patrick Modiano's daughter.

The novel was first published in a French translation by Gallimard in 1998 before being picked by Grove Press (US) and Picador (UK) who published the original English text.