The Fan Man

:"This article deals with the novel. For the notorious paraglider of sporting events, see Fan Man.

infobox Book
name = The Fan Man
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = William Kotzwinkle
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Avon Books
release_date = 1974
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 208 p. (1994 paperback edition)
isbn = ISBN 978-0679752455 (1994 paperback edition)

"The Fan Man" is a comic novel published in 1974 by the American writer William Kotzwinkle. It is told in the first-person by the narrator, Horse Badorties, a down-at-the-heel hippie living a life of drug-fuelled befuddlement in New York City c. 1970. The book is written in a colorful, vernacular "hippie-speak" and tells the story of the main character's hapless attempts to put together a benefit concert featuring his own hand-picked choir of 15-year-old girls. The concert ultimately is a success but true to form Horse is not himself in attendance having mixed up the dates and been diverted elsewhere.

Horse is a somewhat tragic, though historically humorous, character with echoes of other famous drug-addled characters in popular culture such as Reverend Jim Ignatowski of "Taxi" fame. In his inability to follow anything through to completion he displays symptoms of attention-deficit disorder though this could equally be drug-induced. His defining characteristic is his joy in renting or commandeering apartments which he fills with street-scavenged junk articles until full to bursting he moves on to his next "pad". The name "fan man" is a reference to another of his traits; the collecting of fans of all shapes and sizes.