Letters to Wendy’s

By Joe Wenderoth

• Description
• Reviews
• Bio

• “A work of genius.” —Philadelphia Weekly
  
  Letters to Wendy’s is an outrageous, tragic, genre-bending novel written over the course of a year on comment cards from the fast-food chain restaurant Wendy’s. Through the letters, the book traces a year in the life and thoughts of an unnamed narrator obsessed not only by Biggies and Frosties, but also by consumerism, pornography, and mortality.

• At once a love story, cultural critique, and commentary on literary theory, Letters to Wendy’s ... has already become an underground internet favorite, and is likely to be known eventually as the most apt, able, and adventurous ars poetica to be produced for and by Generation X.
  John D’Agata, Boston Review
  
  ... a perverse, sometimes pretty, obscene and confounding collection of one page meditative missives ... trimmed with lunatic fringe.
  Rolling Stone
  
  When I first read a selection of Letters in American Poetry Review two years ago, I disrupted the peace of a library reading room by laughing out loud. Their earnest naiveté, when juxtaposed with philosophical argument or outright violence, created an uneasy tension, prompting an almost involuntary reverse reaction akin to that experienced on scary amusement park rides—the sudden, zig-zag jerking into darkness or light.
  Fred Muratori, Electronic Poetry Review

  The unashamed use of Wendy's images like Biggies, Frosties, and even the once virgin-like Wendy's borders on pornographic, but always leaves me laughing.
  Victoria Chang, The Huffington Post
• Wesleyan University Press published Joe Wenderoth’s first two books of poetry, Disfortune and It Is If I Speak. Wave Books published his third book of poems, No Real Light (2007), and fourth, If I Don't Breathe How Do I Sleep (2014). Wave Books also published his novel, Letters To Wendy’s (2000), and The Holy Spirit Of Life: Essays Written For John Ashcroft’s Secret Self (2005).
  
  Joe Wenderoth's films and artwork can be found on YouTube. His audio recordings (poems, public readings, and his podcast, About Brett Favre) can be found at Internet Archive. He is currently Professor of English at UC Davis, where he teaches in the creative writing graduate program. He is also the Blind Chaperone of the Seizure State. He has been to the Corn Palace, and has generally been thought of in a very positive way by people in the industry.
  
  He is at work now on Agony: a proposal.