THE GOOF
Novel / Applegarth Follies / 1975 / Illustrations and design: Roger Baker

My first novel, aptly subtitled, A Pretentious Novel and an Embarrassing Exercise in Cheese Fetishism. To this day it has two or three champions who sometimes sing its praises when we’re in our cups but I can’t say I regret too much that it’s long out of print. - Herman Goodden

REVIEWS
“It’s an amiably told story of a young man’s search for himself and his place in life during the years following his departure from high school . . . Although the narrator is as alienated as the heroes of first novels usually are, he also has a tremendous amount of affection for his home town and genuine compassion for the people in his life, and this is what sets the book well above others of its kind. Teachers who are struggling to find ways to show their students  that there is an important and direct connection between fiction and real life might (if they don’t work in jurisdictions where words like ‘prick’ impel parents to burn libraries) find The Goof a useful first step.”
- Phil Surguy, Books in Canada

“Regionalism is as natural to Herman Goodden as it is to Greg Curnoe.”
- Ross Woodman, London Free Press

“He can expound his views with as much conviction and authority as an insurance magnate swilling his gin and tonic after work at the Hunt Club”
- Robert Pegg, London Free Press