David Inside Out by Lee Bantle

David Inside Out by Lee Bantle
"David Dahlgren, a high-school senior, finds solace in running with the track team; he’s a fast runner, and he enjoys the camaraderie. But team events become a source of tension when he develops a crush on one of his teammates, Sean. Scared to admit his feelings, David does everything he can to suppress them: he dates a girl, keeps his distance from his best friend who has become openly gay, and snaps a rubber band on his wrist every time he has “inappropriate” urges. Before long, Sean expresses the thoughts David has been trying to hide, and everything changes for the better. Or so it seems."- Summary from Amazon.com

I really enjoyed this novel. Bantle's debut YA is a refreshing look at a coming-out story and is realistic as well as honest in its portrayals of the struggles teens face with sexuality, coming out, and being themselves. The book is a quick read, and the characters are well-written and three-dimensional even in the short length of this novel. The prose is compelling and will leave readers thinking about friendship, sexuality, and acceptance. David's experiences about dealing with his sexuality differ vastly from my own, but I know his thoughts and concerns will resonate with those struggling to accept themselves and come out. It's not just a book for people struggling with their sexuality though; it can be for people whose friends are gay, or even for people struggling with being themselves in other ways aside from sexuality. Definitely a recommended book.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean an ice cream truck isn't trying to run you down

The cover of Sean Beaudoin’s Fade to Blue suggests it’s a book for Goth girls who are maybe into comics. This is misleading. Fade to Blue is a book partly about a Goth girl who is maybe into comics, but that's not the same thing at all. (See last months' mrchompchomp entry.)

So don't go browsing about the bookstore looking at the cover and thinking "this book is simply not intended for me where is the zombie section anyway?" Because you'll be missing out. First of all the Goth girl, Sophie Blue, is pretty cool. Funny, resourceful, a talented artist, wears fishnets and combat boots to gym class, tough, bitter and sarcastic but in a charming way. She's really not bad for a guy to hang out with for a good chunk of the story. Besides, this book is about much more than Sophie and her issues.

One of Sophie's major issues is that she keeps getting run over by an ice cream truck. Somehow it doesn't kill her. She'd think it was a dream, but it leaves some pretty nasty ice-cream-truck-grill shaped bruises. No one else can see the ice cream truck. But they can all see the bruises. It's a problem. Her father has vanished, possibly abducted, and that has something to do with the ice cream truck. There's a sexy nurse, too, who regularly shows up, also ice-cream-truck-related. And there are streams of ones and zeros that enter Sophie’s head. You can guess what they might be related to.

Ben Fade, super successful basketball star and school hero, is seeing ones and zeros as well. It's not making him feel too well.

Nearly everyone at Sophie and Ben's high school, from the hot girls mostly named Kirsty to the basketball playing thugs to the evil gym teacher to the evil janitor, keeps drinking a hip beverage called Sour White. So does everyone in town. Anyone not at the high school works at the town’s bio-pharmaceutical lab. Eventually, all of this comes together to help explain the disappearance of Sophie’s father. And the appearance of the evil ice cream truck.

I'm not sure how you would, but if you think you can see where all of this is headed, you're wrong. Fade to Blue starts throwing surprises at the first turn of the page, and doesn't let up until the end. Past the end, really, as the book laughs, literally, at the idea of closure (you can check it's appendix). And for all of its quirkiness, all of its satire, all of its over-the-top twists and turns, it doesn't shy away from real pain, and from the fact that people can do truly evil things, and how much it would suck if those people were related to you.

In short, Fade to Blue is a complete trip. It does cartwheels with reality and then back-flips. (Did I mention the cheerleaders?) It will make you question life and death and the difference between the two. (Did I mention the zombies?) It's written in fast-paced prose so packed with cultural references that Kant and boner–humor have no choice but to hang out in the same paragraph together. (Did I mention the inspirational posters?)

If you already know you like trippy books, dive in and enjoy the ride. If you want more stuff to mess with your mind, you can try one of these: Ubik, Philip K. Dick; V, Thomas Pynchon; Vurt, Jeff Noon; Girl in Landscape, Jonathan Lethem; Geek Love, Katherine Dunn; The Trial, Franz Kafka.

Reality bids you farewell.

Cross-posted at Critique de Mr Chompchomp

According to Crow, according to me

In earlier Guys Lit Wire reviews I praised Ekaterina Sedia's novels The Secret History of Moscow and The Alchemy of Stone. I've just tracked down her first novel, written as "E. Sedia," According to Crow. It's every bit as good as the other two, and completely different at the same time. It also makes it easier to see the recurring themes that make her novels so unique and powerful.

Josiah is seventeen and sticks out like a sore thumb. His mother is a village celebrity for her courageous act eighteen years earlier when she beheaded a conquering general; Josiah's appearance nine months later explained exactly how she got close enough to do it. Always an outcast due to his physical resemblance to their dark-skinned enemies, Josiah jumps at the chance to visit his late father's family on peaceful terms, under the protection of his monastic uncle Caleb. His fellow travelers are Mireille, Thuraya and young archivist Crow, a pre-industrial Johnny Mnemonic who memorizes vast stretches of history.

Josiah experiences every young man's fantasy on the journey: he falls in love with Mireille, the beautiful older woman who protects Crow, and has a wild fling with Thuraya, the young, free-loving priestess. Caleb becomes the father figure he never had, and Crow the little brother. But big events are on the horizon, forcing Josiah to make choices about duty, love, loss, family and his own place in the world.

The things Sedia does well in her other two books are especially evident here, where the story and societal background are more genre-traditional. Her dialogue is sharp and contemporary, but never to a distracting degree. Her characters are vivid and behave like real people. The book is told in first person, and she makes Josiah a strong narrator whose emotions easily become the reader's own.

What's different here is the degree of drama Josiah goes through on his journeys. Both Secret History and Alchemy built gradually and smoothly to powerful conclusions, but there are several climaxes in Josiah's story, which stick with the reader the same way they do Josiah. One passage especially will haunt me, I suspect, for quite some time. In a way it's a more "typical" fantasy book, at least in structure, and might be a more comfortable read for those who like their fantasy traditional.

Amazingly, this 2005 book is already out of print; I got mine from the local library. But I can't recommend it highly enough. If you enjoyed The Alchemy of Stone and The Secret History of Moscow, this is a remarkably different, but no less fascinating, aspect of her considerable talent.

According to me.

SPECIAL OFFER: Ms. Sedia has a few copies of According to Crow she's making available to Guys Lit Wire readers. E-mail her at katsedia@hotmail.com, mention this offer and get the hardcover (signed and personalized) for $20 including shipping.

Life in the gym

At Gleason's Gym by Ted Lewin is a picture book about the many different people, old and young, male and female, all different colors and ethnicities, who train at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn. It was written for elementary aged children but after reading it I thought it would make an excellent choice for teens who are reluctant readers - especially boys who may be learning English as a second language or have struggled with illiteracy. It might be a picture book but Lewin has written At Gleason's Gym with a very sophisticated and mature style. And the artwork, ranging from big brawny oils to simpler pencil drawings is stunning. There is nothing insulting about being seen with this book - if anything others will be envious that you found something so excellent to read.

The story is based around Sugar Boy Younan who has been visiting Gleason's with his father since he was two and now, at the age of nine, is training for the Silver Gloves Nationals, Bantamweight division. As Lewin leads readers around the gym, following Sugar Boy and the people he encounters, he writes about the tip tap of jump roping, the buzz of the ring bell, the bam bam bam of the heavy bag slamming. There are "kickboxers from Thailand, girl boxers, big, burly wrestlers..." The gym is alive with activity and everybody - everybody - is welcome.

Hands get wrapped, shadow boxers line the wall, eyes turn towards the ring, everyone watches the sparring, everyone cheers. There are so many good things about how Lewin tells this story, the choice of language, the unconscious rhythm of the words, the overwhelming inclusiveness of the characters, that it's hard for me to point out one simple thing. I thought it was strong and beautiful, that it conveyed all the power of boxing and how that power can belong to anyone. Mostly though, it shows that Gleason's Gym is a place where anyone's dreams can be pursued. I can't think of a better ideal for someone to learn or a better book for a reader to learn on.

It's awesome.

Oishinbo: Japanese Cuisine by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki

Manga, like most western graphic storytelling forms, must overcome a preponderance of prejudices and stereotypes among American readers. In spite of (some might say because of) manga's success in American bookstores, the form is viewed as the exclusive territory of titles such as Naruto, Dragonball and OnePiece - male power fantasies with quirky (sometimes outright hallucinogenic) storytelling, frequent battles, and more speed lines than could ever be counted.

What a delight it is, then, when a manga publishing house as prominent as Viz Media decides to print something more than a little outside the norm, a title that seeks to educate more than titillate. That title is Oishinbo, and while it is new to America as of 2009, it has been published in Japan for over 25 years. There are literally hundreds of volumes and thousands upon thousands of pages in the Japanese Oishinbo catalogue, which no doubt created troubles for any company seeking to publish this work in America. Rather than meticulously translating, editing and reprinting each page from the very start of the Japanese series, Viz has opted for what they term the "A la Carte" approach - volumes compiled and heavily edited around a particular theme. Sometimes this approach works well, and other times it leaves a reader scratching his head. That is the price, I suppose, for attempting something ambitious and unique in the American manga market.

So, what is Oishinbo about? It's about food - specifically, Japanese cuisine - and the obsessions and aesthetics that drive Japan's culinary masters. But before you start thinking of this as nothing more than a heavily illustrated cookbook, you should also know that Oishinbo is about a young man and his relationship with his father, about the anger of youth and the cynicism of the aged, and about the quest for perfection. Don't expect any "Good Guys vs. Bad Guys" simplistic motifs. As is the case in real life, none of the characters in Oishinbo fits a neatly-designed cubicle.

The protagonist of the story, Yamaoka Shiro, is grumpy, pretentious, off-putting and occasionally brilliant. His background in the culinary arts, and his refined palate, have earned him the quest for the "Ultimate Menu," a lengthy newspaper assignment to assemble and create the most magnificent Japanese meal ever imagined. Shiro's antagonist is his father, Kaibara Yuzan. Yuzan is explosive, verbally abusive, passionate, and, like his son, utterly brilliant. There is much to like and to dislike about each of these men, and while the culinary lessons are intriguing, the human story of a rift between father and son is what lifts this work above its genre.

If it sounds as though I am gushing about Oishinbo, it's because I am. It's original, it's challenging, it's sublime - but it is not without its flaws. The main problem with this first volume lies primarily with Viz's decision to heavily edit this large work into discreet, bite-sized (no pun intended) chunks. While this first volume does a relatively good job of introducing some of the basics of Japanese cuisine (necessary knife skills, expected etiquette, and the tea ceremony, among others), it does so at the expense of character and conflict development. In culinary terms, Oishinbo: Japanese Cuisine is a pleasant and a somewhat unexpected appetizer, but if subsequent volumes follow the same pattern we will all be starving for a main course rather quickly.

Cross-posted at PastePotPete.

The Actor and the Text - and the Reader

Have you ever played a part on stage or on film that was completely unlike you? I have. I love it. In my opinion, playing against type is one of the most challenging aspects of acting - and one of the best. It's fun to do a full 180, to play a shy character when you're loud and outgoing in real life, or pretend you're from another place, another era, another walk of life.

But what about playing the opposite gender? How comfortable (or uncomfortable) would that be? How does the gender bending inform your voice, your speech pattern, your posture, your walk? What if you were portraying a historical figure attending the trials of Oscar Wilde? In 1895, Wilde, author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and many other well-regarded works, was brought to court, where his art and life were unfairly tried due to his sexual orientation.

As some of you know, I'm an actress. I've just been cast in a stage production of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. Written by Moisés Kaufman, the play is based on real events and uses actual court transcripts from Wilde's (in)famous trials. Kaufman is famous in his own right, known for his original plays and projects as well as his work as one of the members of The Tectonic Theater Project, the group behind The Laramie Project. Thus, the writing has a unique structure, almost reading/sounding like a documentary, with quick interjections of thoughts and quotes, clarified and underscored by various narrators.

I've played boys (or roles that are typically given boys) before. When I was a kid, I was Tiny Tim in Scrooge, a musical based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Every night, after curtain call, I'd take off my newsboy cap and let my hair fall down. That was fun, especially when I heard the gasp of someone who had been in the audience moments before.

The year before that, I fought for the right to audition for the role of Charlie in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. They told me I couldn't, because I was a girl. I told them I could, because Charlie could be short for Charlotte, because girls could do anything boys could do, because I should at least be able to at least try. (Does it surprise you at all to learn I was this headstrong since I was, well, born?) Not only did I win the right to audition, but I won the role.

Back to Gross Indecency. I initially wanted to talk about the legal and social injustice that Wilde endured and compare that to similar persecutions and assumptions made today - but then I got an idea and thought I'd change it up a bit by discussing the actual storytelling of the piece.

Our interests in and reactions to stories might vary based on the genders of the characters - and also, in the case of written work then reinterpreted for the stage or screen, the casting.

Every time a play is performed, it is different. Each production is different, even when the dialogue is the same. The actors, directors, and others involved in the show collaborate on an interpretation and presentation of words which were previously strung together by a playwright.

When Gross Indecency first ran off-Broadway in 1997, the cast was made up of nine male actors playing multiple roles. My cast has the same number of people, but while men are playing Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas, and the lawyers, women have been cast as the four narrators - one of whom also plays the judge. (Note that, as of this writing, we've only just had the first read-through. Blocking will begin later this week.) Will the presence of females change the story? The interpretation of the words? The audience's perception? Do you think an audience would react differently to an all-male cast, or an all-female cast?

Now think about this on a broader scale, and consider your own subconscious assumptions: When you read a play - or any printed story - in which a character's gender is not specified, do you picture a man or a woman? If that character speaks, do you hear a man's voice, or a woman's voice? Why do you picture the person - the gender - that you do? Does it depend on the reason the character entered the scene? The occupation or other nouns surrounding it? If it's a friendly neighbor, knocking on the door and sharing freshly-baked cookies, do you picture a man or a woman? If a one-line character is simply described as "a lawyer" or "a cop" or "a teacher" or "a doctor," do you picture a woman or a man?

Do you trust a female narrator more or less than a male? If a man writes a story from the first-person viewpoint of a woman, is that character and that story less valid than it would have been if a woman had written the story, or vice-versa? Along these lines, I could write another post entirely dedicated to the narrator of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. If you haven't read that amazing novel, I won't spoil it for you here. I'll simply encourage you to pick up that book when you get up Gross Indecency, and read, read, read.

This discussion can go even further, asking what other character traits you envision, such as race or body type. When characters in books, scripts, and plays are "undescribed" or "under-described" (because those are two different things, mind you), do you mentally picture characters that resemble you or someone you know, or do you see John Does and Jane Does, purposely nondescript? It's much different than watching a film or television series, isn't it, if you can see and/or hear that character, when the pictures, sounds, and ideas are provided for you.

How much of what we take away from a story, any story, is based on our own experiences, perceptions, and interpretations? Don't we take away more than just the words of the writer? Don't we put a little piece of ourselves into that story, page by page?

Please feel free to discuss all of this in the comments below.

Oh - I failed to mention our director's gender. Did you notice this accidental omission, or are you only noticing now that I'm drawing your attention to it?

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit and Guardian of the Darkness

Balsa is a bodyguard. She's been saving lives for years, but the challenges she faces in Guardian of the Spirit and Guardian of the Darkness, the first two novels in Nahoko Uehashi's Moribito series, may be her toughest ones yet. Her opponents now include the inhuman in addition to the human, and it will take more than guile and Balsa's mastery of the spear to defeat them.

Set in a vividly depicted fantasy world, full of action and mystery and the supernatural, these two books are probably unlike most stories you've read. And they're very well-written, to boot.

In Guardian of the Spirit, Balsa becomes entangled with the destiny of the Second Prince of New Yogo when he is thrown from his carriage into a raging river. Balsa watches these events unfold, then jumps into the river to save his life. She does this with no expectation of rewards. She’s a bodyguard; saving lives is what she does.

But the Second Queen, the mother of Chagum, the Second Prince, begs her to take the Prince from Ninomiya Palace. The Second Queen fears that the Mikado, Chagum's own father, is trying to kill him, and Balsa is the only person the Second Queen can turn to to protect Chagum.

Guardian of the Darkness takes place directly after Guardian of the Spirit, as Balsa returns to her native land of Kanbal. She hasn't set foot in Kanbal since she was forced to flee the country as a child, but it is time, Balsa thinks, that she came to terms with her past. Except there are people in Kanbal who were under the impression that she was dead, powerful people with reason to think they would be better off if she really were dead.

After spawning anime and manga adaptations in Japan, the Moribito books are now being published in the United States. As the Publishers Weekly review of Guardian of the Darkness says, there's something for everyone here. Worldbuilding, imagination, intrigue, fight scenes, even awesome book designs. So if you're if you're looking for a change of pace or just want something good to read, give this series a try.

Men and Gods, by Rex Warner (illustrations by Edward Gorey)

You can hardly turn around, of course, without bumping into Greek mythology. From straight-up "re-imaginings" like the Percy Jackson books or God of War games to seemingly endless, more subtle references, the Greek myths are embedded deep in our cultural DNA--in movies, comics, literature, brand names, everywhere.

Fluffy in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? Obvious Cerberus homage. The tragic double-suicide at the end of Romeo and Juliet? Great idea, Shakespeare--except you totally stole it from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. When someone has an Achilles' heel or an Oedipus complex? Takes on a Herculean task or opens Pandora's box? Greek myths are everywhere. (Even on your feet, if you're LeBron James.)

You can read some of the best--and, as if often the case, bloodiest--stories from Greek mythology in a very cool 1950s reprint that came out last year called Men and Gods: Myths and Legends of the Ancient Greeks. What's even better is that the book *looks* cool, a compact, hipster-edition hardback (still small enough to throw in a book bag) with simple, spooky illustrations on the cover by Edward Gorey, whom you might remember from macabre kids' books like the The Gashlycrumb Tinies and The Doubtful Guest.

The stories are retold in a spare, matter-of-fact style by novelist and classical translator Rex Warner that perfectly offsets the bleakness and capriciousness of many of the myths. Like, for example, here in a story about the Furies: "Meanwhile the terrible Tisiphone hurriedly seized hold of a torch that had been drenched in blood. She put on a dress, wet also with blood, and knotted round her waist a writhing snake. Then she left the lower world and with her went Grief and Terror and Madness with quivering lips"--and then the Tisiphone proceeds to dish out some ill-deserved "justice" to a couple of poor mortals via her snakes, "not biting them, but distilling their terrible poison into their minds." Then, as a hilarious little throwaway coda, Tisiphone "returned to Hell and undid the serpents which had girdled her dress."

These stories--37 in all, and many just a few pages long--cover many characters that you've probably heard of, or already even read about, like Hercules, Jason, and Perseus. But they also go deeper into the mythological bench, pulling up more obscure tales, like the one about how the beautiful Scylla ended up with snarling dogs for legs (after which you can feel confident using the old-school saying "between Scylla and Charybdis" instead of "between a rock and hard place").

Revenge and creative violence are sprinkled throughout, somehow always made better with Warner's unsentimental delivery. Like when Phineus was fighting Perseus because he stole away his fiancee Andromeda, "Now spears were thrown like rain through the hall, past eyes and ears, or cleaving through breastplates and thighs, or stomach." And when Pentheus offended the drunken god Bacchus, his female relatives were driven insane and--convinced by Bacchus' deception that Pentheus was a wild boar--tore him apart "with the strength of madness." They started with his arms, naturally, as was the custom in those days.

As is often the case with fables, many stories explain the origin behind some real-world phenomenon--like how Libya became both so snake-infested and dry (the former because Perseus accidentally dripped blood from Medusa's head while flying overhead, and the latter because Phaethon flew too close on an apocalyptic joyride with the nuclear chariot that he borrowed from his dad, the Sun).

On top of giving you an instant education in many Greek myths, Men and Gods is just a fun--and fast--read, easy to pick up and put down. To get a taste for the book, you can read one of the stories online, the story of Glaucus and Scylla, as a free pdf:

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is 12 years old and a genius cartographer – two words you don’t often see together. T.S. is a master observer of the world around him. The boy “maps” his life, but these are usually not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill maps, like you use on a car trip or in the mall when you’re looking for the ice cream store. He maps his dad drinking whiskey, with a key for short sips and long sips; he maps how his mother met his father; he maps how to use your hands to play “Itsy Bitsy Spider”; he maps the evolution of the length of shorts from 1980-2007; he maps faces and hands and bones and the wings of cicadas. He also maps how the “patterns of cross-talk” dramatically changed around the family dinner table after his younger brother, Layton, died from a somewhat mysterious accidentally shooting. Lucky for us Larsen did not just write this book, he drew all of these maps, which fill the book throughout as marginalia. The drawings are worth the price of the book alone.

T.S. lives on his family’s Coppertop Ranch in Montana. His father is a Cowboy (with as big “c”) and his mother is a scientist. While T.S. is the creative intellectual of the family, wanting nothing to do with ranching, his brother Layton is the child–Cowboy, joined at the hip (or the horse) with their dad. But Layton is dead and T.S. and his dad hardly exchange a word. In fact, no one in the family ever mentions Layton, so T.S. writes (and draws) about his brother, and slowly, their family story emerges like a map of life.

T.S. is famous. At least in the world of science. For years he’s been doing drawings and maps for publications and more importantly, the Smithsonian Museum, which has given him a prestigious award. They have no idea he’s only twelve. Thinking he’s an adult -- you need to give Larsen a bit of literary license here -- they invite him to come to Washington and make a speech and work for a year. T.S. has never been to the east coast, is deeply enamored with the Smithsonian, and sees the offer as a perfect way to escape the pain of his family’s silence. So T.S. takes off. Hops a freight train and maps his journeys, both external and internal.

In some ways T.S. Spivet is a work of brilliant art. It can open your eyes to the wonders of observing the world around you, from an atom to a tree to a conversation to the solar system, as well as to science and history, and seeing (and drawing) connections from the past to the present, and how the world works. I loved this book -- but unfortunately, the freight train of my love started to hit the brakes about three-quarters into the book, and soon those brakes were slammed to an ear-piercing squeal as his story leaves the drama of his family and his inner journey, and enters some secret society at the Smithsonian and wormholes in the Midwest. You read that right. This is not a situation where I simply did not like the ending of a book. Larsen has vast talent, but he really needed to rethink the last quarter of his story.

Is it worth reading? Absolutely. Take this journey of maps and cross-country travel and be fascinated. Read it to the end, but ignore the end. Focus on how this character makes sense of the world by drawing it, and his passion for seeing and thinking and tinkering with a notebook and a pencil. Maybe when you go out to eat you will grab a napkin and draw a map of your own.

Woody Allen the Silly Existentialist

Forget what you think you know about Woody Allen.

Let’s rewind a long, long way … back to the days when Allen was a young nutcase, a stand-up comic, a renegade movie-maker and one of the weirdest writers on the planet. You’ll find proof of this last assertion in his books “Without Feathers,” “Getting Even” and “Side Effects.” you can get them separately, but I’ve got mine in a single volume.

Here’s a sample that will not only give you the flavor of his work, but also explain the title of the first book:

“How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not 'the thing with feathers.' The thing with feathers turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.

Or try this “thought:”
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only for food: frequently there must be a beverage.

Allen was obviously a man in quest of intellectual input. He then outputted it in the form of mockery, absurdity and complete nonsense. Allen samples and remixes history, philosophy, poetry, college course descriptions, slang etymology, Melville, Milton, Noam Chomsky, ballet and, of course, religion.

Pieces include the letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo -- if Vincent had been a dentist. Then there’s Death (A Play). Is this an existential masterpiece or a parody of one or both? It’s certainly more fun to read than Robbe-Grillet, I can tell you that much. Try this bit of business, when a mob thinks Kleinman is a killer:

John: “Let’s sting him up right now!”

Kleinman: “Don’t come near me! I don’t like string!”

What exactly will you gain by reading these books? Will you find them funny or more like a museum of what was once funny to previous generations? I can’t say, but I suggest you try it out.