To Squeeze A Prairie Dog

To Squeeze A Prairie Dog; An American Novel s a humorous novel by Scott Semegran. The main character is J. D. Wiswall who left his small town in Texas after graduating from high school to work for the state government in Austin, Texas. He gets a job in the Department of Unemployment Benefits. His new boss is Brent Baker. In his department are three other people. Debbie has a son that is J. D.'s age and is always short on money. Rita is a grandmother who runs the office lottery pool and always brings in treats for everyone. Conchino is a young man who loves fast cars and hardly ever speaks. He prefers to give his opinions via text messages. Together they input claims for unemployment into the computer system. The supervisor, Brent, tends to drink too much on his lunch hour. After one liquid lunch he returns to his office only to fall asleep on his keyboard. His face presses three keys on his keyboard and causes the entire state computer system to fail but in the process the claims are sent in electronically instead of being printed and edited. His mistake could earn his team a $10,000.00 reward for cost saving suggestions. The descriptions of state bureaucracy is very funny. I have to wonder if the author worked for the state at one point. And the Governor of the state is an over-the-top smarmy sleaze ball. Food is an important theme in this story. J.D. loves pecan snacks and always has them available. The other theme is that good wins over evil. I really enjoyed this hopeful story.