He Said, She Said: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Welcome to He Said, She Said, a GLW feature in which a guy (Book Chic, a recent college graduate) and a gal (Little Willow, a bookseller) discuss books that appeal to both genders.

With its dual narrative, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher is the perfect choice for a He Said, She Said discussion. In the story, a teenage boy receives a package from an unknown sender filled with cassette tapes. Once he starts listening to the tapes, he recognizes the voice as that of Hannah Baker, a classmate who recently committed suicide. She explains that the tapes should be passed from person to person, thirteen specific people who are related to her story in some way.
Hannah and Clay share narrative duties. Did you prefer one voice or character over the other? Why?

Book Chic: I didn't prefer one over the other. Both characters were evenly flawed and were also really interesting and realistic to read about. I liked reading through both narratives; both brought a great layer to the novel.

Little Willow: Because she was talking straightforwardly, without any interruptions or descriptions aside from that which was observed or felt by Clay, I really heard Hannah’s voice as I read the book. I was drawn to her character more than Clay’s because of my inherent need to protect, help, and save people – even though I knew from the start that it was futile in Hannah’s case, as she was 1) dead and 2) fictional.

Did you feel as if either Hannah or Clay was an unreliable narrator?

BC: For some reason, I never wonder about reliability when reading a book, even for a class. It always surprises me when the question pops up. Perhaps I'm too naive but I tend to take things at face value, so if that's how it happened in the book, that's how that happened. Unless of course I'm reading a book about a compulsive liar or something, in which case it's known that the narrator is unreliable. So that's a long way of saying that I didn't feel either narrator was unreliable. I mean, maybe Hannah could have been unreliable either for a part of or the whole of the novel since she had already decided for the most part to commit suicide, so she could've been looking for any reason to go through it and twisted things to fit what she felt. But I don't think that was the case.

LW: I believed both of them. I think Hannah relayed what she felt, and that Clay reacted accordingly. Hannah never whimpered or whined; she had been the victim of some cruel events and pranks, and she described them as she remembered them. Clay, meanwhile, was more of a semi-casual observer. He knew Hannah, and they weren’t strangers, but they weren’t close. As the book is set up, with him listening to the tapes Hannah left behind, he had nothing to gain from feigning ignorance or from being boastful. He was alone, listening, learning, and that allowed readers access to his feelings as well as to Hannah’s words.

Without giving too much away, let’s simply say that there are some characters which greatly wronged Hannah, and some who inadvertently got caught up in everything, like Clay. He wasn't really a bad guy, especially not when compared to some of the other people / reasons on the tapes. So...

Do you wish he HAD been more of a bad guy, someone who was a perpetrator of a crime committed against Hannah? Or do you think he was?

BC: I think that it was the right decision to have him be a good guy because otherwise, the reader's perception of him would have changed halfway through the novel. While it might be a good twist to have him be a bad guy or one that was more at fault than he thought, it doesn't seem to me like it'd be the right choice for the story. For one thing, it makes the story more relateable in a sense because Clay didn't do anything to really harm Hannah in any way, and neither did the reader so Clay's reactions to Hannah's story are closer to our own as we read (or listen) to the novel. And also, the point of the novel, in my opinion, is to show that even the slightest thing can lead someone even more down the spiral because you never know everything that's going on in someone's life. Your own choices, your own words, your own decisions and actions will affect others. If Clay had been someone bad who had really wronged Hannah, I don't think that point would have come across as well as it does the way the novel is.

LW: I agree. When stories are narrated well by anti-heroes, that’s one thing, but when the narrator is someone utterly deplorable and/or the story is poorly written, I can’t stand it. I liked that Clay was more of an observer, so that readers could slip easily into his shoes (or ears, as it were) and discover what happened to Hannah.

What was your favorite scene?

BC: I'm not really sure I had one. Everything about the novel was amazing, and there isn't one particular scene that sticks out in my mind. There's at least a couple. Actually, there is one I did really enjoy. I don't know if it's my favorite, but it's the one fighting to the forefront right now. It's the part where Clay is meeting his mom at the diner and I just loved how she didn't nag him or make him come home or anything like that; she knew he was going through something and needed his space to do it in. I also really liked the scene in the coffee place where Hannah used to go with the other two new kids (the names are escaping me now) and Clay was listening to the tape there and he found the photo in the scribble journals on the bookshelves. I'm not sure why that scene popped up, but it did and I did like it.

LW: The journals. The photo. The map. The window. The journey, all of it. The last tape.

Same story, different formats.

LW: I read the book in 2008. You listened to the audio in 2008. How was that experience for you? What do you get out of audio books that you don't get from the printed page? How were the performances?

BC: I read the book as well in early 2008 and reviewed it too. When I finally found a job, it was just doing data entry so it's not like rocket science and therefore I could listen to stuff while working. Most of my co-workers listen to audio books while they work, so once I gave up on music CDs after like three days, I got some audio books out from the library. One of them was 13 Reasons Why because I'd wanted to listen to it for the longest time since I'd heard it was done with two narrators (one for Clay and the people in his narrative, and one for Hannah and the people in her narrative) and I thought that would be so cool. Plus, I definitely think that with this book, it's more powerful to listen to the audio book since the whole plot hinges on Clay's listening to the tapes; with the audio book, you can listen to the tapes along with Clay, which really brings the story to a whole new level. Toward the end of the novel, just listening to Hannah as she slowly gave up with the last few tapes seriously made my chest tighten because I was just feeling so close to Hannah and her situation that it hurt to listen to it.

I think that listening to an audio book may give the reader more of a sense of the characters because you're listening to them talk and interact, as well as simple things like pronunciation (I was listening to Wicked Lovely and some of the characters' names were said differently than how I had read them) and how certain things were said, in terms of emotion and inflection. Plus, you can finish books faster by listening to the audio books, which is always good. I do like reading and listening to the same book- been listening to a lot of books I've already read and it's fun to revisit them in this format.

I really enjoyed the performances, particularly the one from Debra Wiseman, who did Hannah. She had the PERFECT voice for Hannah, and it was exactly how I pictured it sounding like in my head when I read the book. The guy doing the voice for Clay, Joel Johnstone, did a pretty good job, though I wasn't a huge fan of the women voices he had to do every so often as part of Clay's narrative. I definitely recommend this audio book (as well as the print version) to everyone. It's such a powerful story in both formats, and is definitely one that will stick with the reader once they're done with it.

Check out previous He Said, She Said discussions at GuysLitWire.
Read Book Chic's review of Thirteen Reasons Why.
Read Little Willow's interview with Jay Asher.

Punk Rock Etiquette: The ultimate how-to guide

So I'm trolling through the "new releases" shelf in the teen department at my library, as I am wont to do, when a small, slim black volume catches my eye. PUNK ROCK Etiquette is the title, and I'm already curious because the words and the fonts, well, they don't really go together well, if you see what I mean. The book is written by Travis Nichols, a cartoonist who posts original comics on his website as well as drawing cartoons for Nickelodeon Magazine.

Travis breaks down potential band members into the following categories: Tortured Poet ("You might have to stop him/her from cutting little thumbholes in his/her long-sleeved shirts"), Guitar/Drum/Other Hero ("Pros: Skills, skills"), Rock Star ("Cons: Potentially a total prick, likely a drunk or druggie, wears sunglasses indoors (and not in an ironic way)"), Techie ("It's good to have one of these people around."), Rich Kid ("Pros: They . . . have money. And maybe even a pool"), Poor Kid ("give a band cred, and they're usually REALLY into music"), Delinquent ("if your band's Delinquent dabbles in anything violent or something that could get YOU in trouble, steer clear"), Whatever (cons: "About as exciting as a sack of doorknobs"). He notes that categories often overlap. E.g., "Tortured Poet/Rock Star: Usually a 'front man.' God, what a dorky term. If it's a guy, he probably wears eyeliner."

Information on starting a band includes pointers such as "Appearances are pretty important", with follow-up tips to help you sort out if a band is any good based on their appearance. (Tip: "If anyone in the band you're about to see is wearing one of their own T-shirts, leave NOW.") There's an entire chapter devoted to recording sessions, with good tips about changing guitar strings and drum heads before recording, as well as tips on what can and cannot be accomplished by the recording tech, another on selling your music, and even one on selling merch. "After CDs/records/tapes, which should come before anything else, the most common forms of band merch are shirts, buttons, and stickers." What follows is a tutorial on how to screen print your own t-shirts, with a reminder NOT TO WEAR YOUR OWN BAND'S SHIRTS.

There are tips on how to act on stage, what not to do to look like a weenie, and on the importance of supporting other bands (particularly touring bands). And there are tips on how to book gigs. And dudes, I've been there - when I was in a rock band in the late 80s, I was in charge of booking gigs for a while, and it can be a hard, hard task to accomplish. I so could've used these tips. And there are tips on booking a tour: how to find places to play, what to pack, where to stay, whether to engage in a "roadmance" or not ("It's a scientific FACT that being on tour makes little hormone bubbles fizzle in your brain that make you want to get your smooch on. Yes, that is the scientific way to put it.") Oh - bottom line on roadmance? After "Don't be a creep! . . . And don't be a trollop. If you go around making out with people every time you put the van in park, you will get a bad rep. Your band will get a bad rep. . . . But if you're available and legal and you meet someone nice, let the roadmance commence."

A must-have for aspiring bands everywhere, or folks who'd like to be in an aspiring band.

When a movie nut reads a book...

Atilla “Tilly” Gokbudak is a Turkish-American, ex-reporter who used to be my competitor on a small-town government beat in rural Southwest Virginia.

Nowadays he’s a playwright/actor and an English teacher.
“If you can imagine Quentin Tarantino teaching English, then you know what my classes are like,” he says.
He’s also a heavy-duty movie buff. (He’s seen more than 5,000 movies. Do the math and you’ll realize that it’s not easy.)

But he does find time to read books. Very different books than I would choose to read. Here's his take on GuysLit:

Q: Can you describe your ethnic/cultural/social status when you were 17?

A: I was like the native foreign exchange student in my high school. My dad , who had died when I was in the seventh grade, was from Turkey, so everyone thought out of me as "The Turkish guy" even though my mom is from Rock Hill, SC. I couldn't buy a date, but I did get invited to parties.

Q: What kind of books were you reading then?

A: I was really fascinated with true crime books like "Cruel Doubt" by Joe McGinnis back then. Even though it wasn't about crime, I liked Bob Woodward's book on John Belushi called "Wired," which was very unsettling, back then. I really identified with Belushi very strongly, and come to think of it, it seems odd to think that I've now outlived him since he died at age 33 in 1982. And, there were Stephen King novels. But, I'm not sure I finished either "Christine" or "Cujo." I did see their movies.

Q: Do you think those were good books now?

A: I am still a better reader of non-fiction than fiction, but my interests in books have focused a bit more towards politics, which is perhaps as disturbing as true crime! Ironically, I just read Joe McGinnis' book on Ted Kennedy, which was written about ten years ago.. It was awesome! Anyone interested in politics, regardless of their chosen party, should read it.

Q: What would you tell 17-year-old Tilly he should read for fun?

A: The 17-year-old Tilly Gokbudak should read Barry Gifford novels like "Wild at Heart" for fun. It's what I read for fun now. I am amazed that it is actually hard to find books by Gifford in bookstores and libraries. "Night People" is actually my favorite novel by him. My sister got it for me in Baltimore_ of all places_ about eight years ago. I just recently reread it.

Q: Since I know you love movies even more than books ... what movie was at the top of 17-year-old Tilly's list? What about your current list?

A: I was a die-hard movie geek even when I was in high school. Movies were an escape from my very painful existence back then. By the time I was 17, I had seen virtually all of Woody Allen's films from the 1970s. "Bananas," his most outlandish comedy, was my favorite film of his at the time. Today, I prefer "Manhattan." I also loved Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" and Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" as well. I watched them both quite often. Though I did watch movies like "Porky's" and "Bachelor Party" so I could seem cool, I think I considered "The Godfather" to be the best movie ever made when I was a teenager. Today, it ranks as my fourth favorite behind "The Graduate," "King Kong" (1933) and an obscure 1966 Japanese film called "The Pornographers."

Princes and Poisons

So you're not at all into fantasy novels. I understand. There are enough hardships and struggles in the real world; we don't need to veneer it with magic and monsters. Well, I have a book for you, one that features danger as well as good people endeavoring to overcome years of suffering and cruelty.

Maybe you don't mind a bit of magic. Magic is like jalapeños on that burger, right? Too many and it ruins the taste. So let's say there's just one dragon in the book. And one magician, but he's the nastiest ever to play the game. Otherwise the story's a familiar one. A father, a bit foolish, who's greatest mistake is favoring one son (though he does love both his boys). The cruelty of ignorant people. The loyalty of good friends. Even a dog helps to save the day. I have a book for you.

And if you're a guy who happens to really enjoy reading the fantastical, the one who'd be adding horseradish to that jalapeño burger I mentioned before, well, I have a book for you as well, one about a demonic man who cares only for chaos, possesses a seeing stone, and uses horrible poisons that burn a man from the inside out.

Of course, you're no fool. You've realized I'm talking about just one book, one book that can satisfy so many readers: Eyes of the Dragon. The author happens to be rather well-known: Stephen King.

Eyes of the Dragon was released in 1987. I was eighteen when I first read it. On that edge of being not-so-young, not-so-old. I was tired of being a teenager. And Stephen King didn't write for kids (I was wrong, and later learned this book had been done as a present to his daughter and a dear friend). Oh, but he wrote an amazing fantasy.

After only reading a few pages, I began to trust the unnamed storyteller who narrates the tale of forthright Peter, first in-line to the throne of Delain, his envious brother Thomas, and the most wicked sorcerer ever to cast a spell, Flagg. I loved that it seemed like Stephen King was telling me the story late at night, besides a roaring fire, and pouring mead or wine or some medieval-sounding drink into my glass.

In the book, Flagg realizes that there's no way he can destroy the kingdom from within if Peter reached the throne, and the real story begins after Peter is blindsided and unjustly imprisoned in the castle's tallest tower, the Needle. And Peter suffers. When his face is terribly scarred, I winced at the damage to his looks (yes, I was shallow at eighteen).

I'll admit, I developed a crush on Peter, the young prince, the hero of the story. Handsome, regal, kind, understanding. If I couldn't be Peter (and no one is so flawless), I wished to have him as a close friend... maybe more. He reminded me of those boys in high school who had everything.

All that envy. Maybe I was a bit more like his younger brother, Thomas than I knew. Of course, we're not likely to be tricked by evil magicians these days, right? Maybe. But think how scared you'd be to inherit a crown at twelve. Wouldn't it be easier to allow someone else to make all the decisions for you? And as Thomas grows into an unhappy young man, the people of Delain are taxed and punished by Flagg, who's aim is the downfall of the kingdom and things soon look very grim.

Like all teens, I had a fondness for suffering. I think it happens when you're not too happy with yourself or the world around you. And when you read about a hero who's been tortured, hurt, and spent years imprisoned in a cold cell, you're filled with a weird blend of heartache and and masochistic glee. And when he reminds you of those boys in high school who have everything, well, you're a bit glad he suffers, too.

But now. Well, it's been too many years since last I read the book. When I was asked to join Guys Lit Wire, I remembered Eyes of the Dragon. So, I reread these past few days.

And while Peter was still handsome and forthright and good, I sympathize with Thomas more. Thomas is the far more human hero of the book. In a story with dragons and magicians, it's important to have a character readers can understand. Thomas suffers more than his brother, too, because he makes choices. Like real people do. And sometimes these choices are good, and sometimes they're not. We have to live with the consequences.

The Lab by Jack Heath

Six of Hearts is the best agent in the Deck, a vigilante group trying to reclaim the values of their city prior to its takeover. Six has a 100% success rate on his missions. He doesn't like smalltalk and his every action is based on logic. He is only sixteen years old.

But that's not what makes him different.

Six was created in a laboratory, part of an experiment called Project Falcon. He's stronger than regular humans, has better eyesight and hearing, heals faster. He is amazingly healthy in a city marked by its wretched environment and the poor health and shortened lifespans that came with the pollution. Only one other person knows the truth about Six, and Six would like to keep it that way.

On a mission for the Deck, Six discovers that the Lab's experiments may not have ended with the fire that destroyed their workspace sixteen years ago. It was the fire that allowed Six to escape the Lab as a baby and he has tried to remain off the Lab's radar ever since. But the Lab is run by ChaoSonic, the corporation that took over the City and now controls almost every aspect of life there. Staying off their radar is tough, especially when you're busy infiltrating and stealing from some of their buildings. And Six just received a new mission that will send him straight back to the Lab.

The Lab by Jack Heath is a dystopian action novel. Think The House of the Scorpion meets Alex Rider, written by a teenager. (Wikipedia shows Heath's birthdate as August 23, 1986, making him 19 when The Lab was published in Australia.) In other words, it's a very cool book.

There is a lot of action in The Lab. A lot of it. And because the story is dystopian, the action seems even more exciting, from the technology and the fights to the car chase to even Six's ability to get out of situations that a normal human would not be able to escape. I also thought action scenes helped to illuminate Six's character. Okay, so there isn't exactly a lot of character development here, but besides providing thrills, they serve to highlight how logical he is and his physical superiority, how different he is from other people.

The action scenes are also varied enough that they never got boring or felt repetitive. Heath's writing is fast-paced, the escapes and scenarios clever, and the dystopian setting gives the story added substance and allows room for some philosophizing.

After finishing The Lab, I still had a few questions about Six, the Deck, the Lab, and ChaoSonic's takeover of the City; there were a couple of subplots that didn't seem to be resolved. A quick look at Heath's website shows that a second book about Six was published in Australia in 2007 and I hope Scholastic publishes it here in the U.S. soon.

[Cross-posted at The YA YA YAs]

Steampunk detectives

I am a huge steampunk fan for all sorts of obvious reasons: cool retro Victorian settings, awesome clothes, and wicked cool planes, trains and automobiles (among many other awesome inventions). I just finished a book and graphic novel which are both not only firmly set in steampunk settings but also include main characters based on Sherlock Holmes. The mix makes for great reading in both these cases and two books that I can easily recommend.

First up is The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives by James Blaylock. This collection of short stories and two novels follows St. Ives, scientist and member of the Explorers Club, as he battles his arch nemesis, Dr. Ignacio Narbondo. Recounted by Jack Owlesby, who is introduced in the first story "The Ape's Box" and assists St. Ives in adventures both on earth, in space and back in time, the stories carry all the requisite intrigue of a Sherlock Holmes mystery but carry an extra layer of menace as they are less ruled by the laws of physics (as we know them anyway). In one of my favorites, "Two Views of a Cave Painting", Blaylock pokes fun at expectations writing, "Time travel isn't news anymore. Mr. H. G. Wells has put it to good use in a book which the casual reader would doubtless regard as ficton."

There is a lot of running around fog-shrouded London, hiding things, discovering things, battling zombies, and people who have been driven crazy but maybe aren't. With J.K. Potter's startling realistic illustrations, the collection is exactly what you would want from the combination of Dickens and Wells (and I mean that in the most modern language kind of way). Supremely cool.


In Warren Ellis's Aetheric Mechanics, Doctor Robert Watcham has returned home from war to rejoin the work of his dear friend, the esteemed investigator Sax Raker. Watcham is still suffering from his battle experiences but gamely jumps into the latest murder to grip London (after being flown back to his lodgings in some sort of hovering device and being regaled about the latest space battles of course). In short order Raker observes a body, discovers a spy and unlocks a plot to take over the world (or at least London). In the midst of all this the city is being bombed by Ruritania and Raker finds himself being inexorably drawn into the war (something he finds to be most pedestrian). There is a HUGE twist ending that then has an awesome double twist that is pure Ellis. The artwork is full of all sorts of steampunkery goodness along with everything you would expect from a Holmesian character. I also liked the addition of Watcham with his war-time flashbacks and realistic PTSD.

If you like steampunk both of these titles will be winners and I can't recommend them enough.

Zoom by Istvan Banyai

Reviewed by Steven Wolk

Sometimes life is all about perspective. What we see, what we think, what we feel, depends on how we see, on our unique viewpoint. While this may seem like common knowledge, I’d say the opposite is true. Most people, by far, have no clue how much their unique perspective influences their daily lives and the decisions we make. And far too often people assume how they see and what they see is exactly how and what others see. Philosophically, this extends far beyond just seeing and feeling; our perspectives create our everyday “truths,” our realities. If one hundred people go to a birthday party, do they experience the same party? They may eat the same cake and sing the same song, but could they be experiencing one hundred different versions of the same birthday party? If each of us creates different meaning from a book or a painting, then don’t we do the same when we shop for groceries or watch a ballgame or attend a birthday party?

Zoom is a picture book without a single word or even a narrative. There is no story; just pictures. Open the first page and you see a drawing of some red triangular shapes over a white background flecked with blue. What is this? Turn the page and you find out. The image has backed up and you see the red triangles were actually part of a rooster’s comb. Flip the page again and the next image has backed us up further. Now we see two young kids looking through a window at the rooster. Flip more pages and soon we see we’re on a farm. No big deal. We see pictures of farms all the time. But turn a few more pages and suddenly we’re not on a farm at all. It’s a model of a farm, a toy farm. Flip again and now we see it’s not a toy farm at all, but actually a picture of a toy farm being held in someone’s hand. And so it goes. As we flip through the pages our perspective changes, our truth changes. When we see a farm we have one reality; when we see a picture of a farm it’s an entirely different reality.

Where this finally ends up I’ll leave for you to find out on your own. This is brilliant stuff. And you can find similar work in the sequel, Re-zoom. While neither book tells a story, they have provocative ideas for the reader to think about. Look these books up on Amazon and the editorial reviews target them for up to third and fifth grade. That’s ridiculous; these are marvelous and provocative books for adults, let alone young adults.

I love picture books. Contrary to popular assumptions, they are not just for little kids. I recommend picture books to middle and high school teachers to use with their students. Within the genre of picture books is a kind of tiny sub-genre of wordless picture books. So, since I’m writing about a few dazzling wordless picture books that are great for older readers, here are five more books with not a single word that will shake up your mind and bring some wonder to your eyes:

Flotsam by David Wiesner

Home by Jeanne Baker

The Flower Man by Mark Ludy

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Why? by Nikolai Popov

Defiance: "Our revenge... is to live!"

I love action movies, but nothing is better than a good action flick that's based on a true story--which is why I've always had a soft spot in my heart for movies like the Great Escape and Apollo 13 (and hey, even Domino and First Blood).

So I'm excited to see Defiance, which has an almost literally incredible true story as its inspiration: The movie follows four Jewish brothers and how they fought back against the Nazis during WWII. There were many Jews in similar situations who simply fought the Germans head-to-head (guerrilla-style or by teaming up with the Red Army), but the eldest Bielski brother--played in the movie by Daniel Craig, the latest James Bond--decides that survival is the best weapon. They set out to save as many fellow Jews as they can, and by the end of the war they amazingly manage to build an armed community in the forests of Belarus with over 1200 people.

Now, this Web site isn't called Guys Movie Wire, so I'm sure you're wondering where's the book in all of this? The movie was based on a rigorous written history called Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, which recounts how the group survived against such long odds. The movie's director, Edward Zwick, wrote the foreword to the new edition--which you can read online--and he describes how it got him inspired:

To read of the Bielski brothers and their fight to create a safe haven in the midst of a hell-on-earth evokes in me something utterly primitive and deeply personal, a roiling wave of fear, awe, humility, and admiration. And outrage, too--that such a story was not better known. Here, clutching captured Schmeisser submachine guns and “potato-masher” grenades, were Jewish fighters whose deeds were as stirring and brave as any I had ever encountered.

So check out the movie--and the book! (And even the movie's informative Web site.) And if you're looking for another action-packed, true story, watch the Oscar-winning Glory, also directed by Zwick, about the first all-black volunteer company in the U.S. Civil War. The books behind that movie were One Gallant Rush, Lay This Laurel, and the letters of Robert Gould Shaw.

Vintage by Steve Berman

[Steve Berman's first post on GLW will be up next Monday. To help introduce him, I posting a review of Vintage I originally wrote for my own blog back in August of '07. Hopefully, you'll get why I'm so excited Steve has joined the Guys Lit Wire team.]

“Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.” - D. H. Lawrence

My most constant disappointment with fantasy novels is a scarcity of subtext. Like Lawrence says, legends about werewolves, witch covens, and unicorns gave people ways to explore the psyche long before modern psychology. Every monster man ever invented was, beneath all the fur and fangs, just a reflection of himself, his worse fears and darkest impulses, every intangible quality hat made him human.

Too many fantasy stories don't do that wonderful source material justice. (When I say “fantasy,” I’m talking about urban fantasy, horror, and any story with supernatural elements.) All those "deep in the blood and soul" myths are hung up like crêpe-paper bunting. They’re pretty, sure, but they’re just decorative.

All this is a round-about way to say go read Steve Berman’s Vintage.


I was nervous reading Vintage. Steve said some very nice things about Tripping to Somewhere, and I really, really wanted to be able to say nice things back about his book. Luckily, he made it easy on me by writing the kind of book you want to tell everybody about.

His narrator is a teenager whose parents have kicked out of the house after they discover he’s gay. Feeling out-of-place and miserable, he meets the one person lonelier than him, a ghost who’s spent forty years walking the same stretch of highway, trying to get home.

The narrator’s internal struggles reflect the external weirdness, and that enhances both. Then Steve turns the whole damn thing inside out. As the living boy grows and changes, the dead one remains, literally, a trapped soul.

Go buy it. Now. Seriously. Steve announced a few days ago that Harrington Park Press, Vintage’s publisher, has been sold, which means that this extraordinary book will likely fall out of print soon. Go buy a copy while you still can.

Every magical beastie sprang from a human mind. We built Frankenstein’s monster, breathed fire into the dragon, and hatched the basilisk egg. That makes us, with all our trials and small victories, more of a marvel than any of them.

[Since I wrote this over a year ago, Vintage's fate has been tumultuous. The Harrington edition did fall out of print, but despite low sales, Vintage earned enough accolades , including nominations for the Andre Norton Award and the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, prompted Lethe Press to re-issue it in 2008. The Lethe edition is still available on Amazon.]

It's a Beautiful Day....

Being smart just got cool again. Spend the day being an American; lit news and reviews return tomorrow.........