Prior to writing a review of this book, I’m going to take a moment and note the passing of Kurt Vonnegut. I will forever add him to the list of authors that I smile and nod in response when he comes up in casual conversation. I’ve never read a Vonnegut novel, and even though there are a few on the 1001 Books list, I’m pretty sure it might take years for me to get to them. In fact, over the course of entire educational career (high school, two lit degrees), I was supposed to have read Slaughterhouse-Five, at least four times, and I avoided it like the plague. And it’s a shame that so much of the context of Vonnegut’s later life got caught up in that awful email forward that claimed he had just done a commencement address at MIT.
Annnywaaay. As I’m ever trying to find aspects that actually relate to one another during these blog posts, I think that Phil LaMarche’s American Youth, which I read in ARC format in Cuba (see photo), is kind of a fitting book to talk about on the day of Vonnegut’s death. Not to relate the iconic status of Vonnegut to LaMarche in any way, but rather to suggest the themes highlighted in some of the former’s outspoken politics can be found bouncing around the novel, as American Youth tells the story of a young man whose life changes irreversibly after a gun accident in his home.
With it’s overtones of American History X, and the right-winged dogged politics that swell underneath like silt in the ocean, American Youth is very much a compelling coming of age story in a time where you’re already expected to have grown up before adolescence if only to regress for the next 20 years (how many times have I heard 40 is the new 30 over the last few days? Too many). The unnamed narrator (from what I can remember) and the cold, removed voice were almost too affected for me as a reader, but the heart of this book, the story of a boy so lost after a tragedy with no clear way of making his way back, rang true.
I’ll say one thing for sure, it was quite an odd book to be reading on a beach chair on Cuba.
Do read some Vonnegut. I think you will enjoy his work so much.
I did.
Come on! Cat’s Cradle you could down in an afternoon! It’s a cookie of a book. He’s so wonderfully weird. Also recommend Breakfast of Champions, but that one is so weird that it will take longer as you might have to re-read sections just to figure out what the heck is going on. You can’t beat a character name like Kilgour Trout.