I found the characters easy to get to know and in fact almost mesmorizing. Noah is engaging in an honest manner and there is an innocence to J.D. that just tugged at my heart. The only criticism I have, and this is my issue, is that the same or very similar circumstance has happened to three of the characters in this novel, which to say the least is highly unusual at best, but this is fiction and it doesn't have to remain in the true to life mold.
I found the novel difficult to put down and I still find myself going back to certain sections to reread. I hope the author might consider a sequel to this novel. I highly recommend reading this book.
Noah and his mother Virgina York (a poet) move to New Hampshire from the big city of Chicago when Noah's father has suddenly died. Once transplanted to New England, Noah slowly comes to grips with his sexuality, Virginia as slowly becomes crazed with the house they've purchased since it is the former dwelling of another woman poet and contains mysterious Mason Jars within the walls that unravel an entirely different (and equally entertaining) novel!, and the small town of Oakland, New Hampshire peels away secrets of gay bashing, incest, rape, alcoholism, insanity and any number of bizarre twists.
The solid anchor of this book is the language and tone and insight of the narrator - Noah York - who at seventeen has a rich imagination, a wry outlook, a way of thinking and expressing himself that makes all the madness of the dysfunctional world fall into place for us, the readers. This could be called a gay novel, but though it very sensitively and sensuously relates the blossoming of love between Noah and the boy next door J.D. and then incorporates the reality check of being openly gay in a small town highschool, it is much more than that. This novel has many rich and surprising stories and comments on our world today and presents all of this information not in an offensively preachy manner, but in a way that reveals exactly how vulnerable and needy we ALL are when it comes to loving and being loved, being without love and groping for it.
Some novels just get to you and this is one. Bart Yates, please write another and another. You have so much innate talent and gift for story telling that it is simply mind boggling! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED reading for just about everyone who loves good books.
Noah, a closeted gay teenager, is dealing with his father's death, his adjustment to living in rural New Hampshire after moving from urban Chicago, and his mother's growing madness as she discovers a terrible dark secret in the new house as she finds mason jar after mason jar between the walls filled with letters, poems, and other strange things while renovating the house. On top of all this, Noah's blossoming love for his new neighbor, J.D., a handsome 16 year-old, creates more issues as well. J.D. is living a horrific home life, with an alcoholic father and a bigoted mother. Yes, there's much, much more to this story. You'll have to discover the rest for yourself. Yates has the creative touch to explore all these issues, and many more not mentioned, and still bring it all together in the end.
If you want an honest, intelligent, well-crafted story to read, this is the book for you. Yates is a fine writer, who has a great future ahead of him. This is a book to really get absorbed in, and forget the world around you for a while. Spend some time with these dysfunctional families, and your own life will take on a whole new light. Highly recommended!
Joe Hanssen
Do high school seniors really exist who possess Noah's sensitivities and self-awareness? Are there really kids his age who can immediately identify by title and author an isolated closing sentence that their teacher quotes from a Steinbeck novel? And who, when the teacher asks if they liked the novel, can comment casually that, although parts of it were weak and they found the narrative voice to be too 'chatty,' the quote itself was the 'coolest last line I ever read in any book'? If there are, I wish I'd had one or two of them for friends when I was that age.
The book has been described as a gay love story, and the emerging relationship between Noah and J.D., his equally closeted teenaged neighbor, is touchingly portrayed. But the critical relationship of the book is the love-hate bond between Noah and his mother. Like any teenager, he is driven to distraction by the quirks and pretensions he sees in his mother's life. He also is frustrated by his inability to express his deep feelings of love for her, and is overwhelmed by her non-blinking acceptance of her only son's gay orientation and love for J.D.
Virginia York's own celebrated life is haunted by memories of a trauma from her childhood. She and her son discover evidence, while renovating their newly-purchased New Hampshire house, of a parallel tragedy in the lives of its former inhabitants. Uncovering this evidence finally hurls Virginia into a psychotic state, and she is driven frantically to demolish the house from within in search of additional clues.
Although there is horror hidden within the house, as well as in the past lives of the mothers of both Noah and J.D., and a violent episode of gay bashing that lands both Noah and J.D. in the hospital, the book is often extremely funny. The humor comes from Noah's ability to see life around him from a different, slightly skewed perspective, an ability inherited from his mother the poet. The mother's excessive attacks upon the structure of the house, as well as upon her own body, force for a time her involuntary hospitalization. When she asks her son later, somewhat shyly, if her behavior had really frightened him too much, Noah just shrugs: 'Remember Jack Nicholson in The Shining?'
The renovation of the house is perhaps the central motif of the book. The first timid attacks on the flooring and wallboard eventually lead to the virtual demolition of the entire interior as increasingly chilling clues emerge from the walls and floors. A similar deconstruction occurs in the life of Virginia York, as discovery of these clues, one by one, and her increasingly unhinged response to them, allow us to peel away her layers of defenses and spot clues of the events buried in her own childhood. Noah learns with us the secret she has desperately hidden from everyone, including her husband and son, for her entire life.
Noah mulls over the facts of his mother's life, and somewhat similar facts in the life of his boyfriend's mother. He suggests that what distinguishes people who never overcome early tragedy from those who do may be their refusal or inability to accept that the shameful or painful trauma has happened and is over, and to learn, as a result, to be open to others about their lives. Once Virginia's 'secret' is revealed and acknowledged, the first hopeful signs appear, suggesting that she may ultimately find peace and happiness for the first time since her husband died.
The 'outing' of Noah and J.D., and of their romantic relationship, leads immediately to a physical attack on them by school bullies. In the long run, however, the bullies face criminal prosecution, and Noah and his friend find that some of their school 'friends' draw closer to them, in fact becoming true friends for the first time. As with Virginia, Noah and his friend first find peace with themselves and with their world when they accept a critical fact of their lives, that they are gay, and stop hiding it from others.
The story is Noah's, and is told by him in the present tense. Much of the enjoyment in reading the book lies in dwelling for 244 pages within the mind of a bright, literate, funny, often confused, but always searching and analytical young man.
