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Summary
Summary
An award-winning debut novel about the bonds of friendship and finding your place in the world--be it this one, or the next --f rom the author of Bang Crunch .
"Instantly charming, never predictable, quietly profound." --Bryan Lee O'Malley, #1 New York Times betselling author of Seconds and the Scott Pilgrim series
Do you ever wonder, dear Mother and Father, what kind of toothpaste angels use in heaven? I will tell you. . . . This book I am writing to you about my afterlife will be your nitty-gritty. One day I hope to discover a way to deliver my story to you.
It is the first week of school in 1979, and Oliver "Boo" Dalrymple--ghostly pale eighth grader; aspiring scientist; social pariah--is standing next to his locker, reciting the periodic table. The next thing he knows, he finds himself lying in a strange bed in a strange land. He is a new resident of a place called Town--an afterlife exclusively for thirteen-year-olds. Soon Boo is joined by Johnny Henzel, a fellow classmate, who brings with him a piece of surprising news about the circumstances of the boys' deaths.
In Town, there are no trees or animals, just endless rows of redbrick dormitories surrounded by unscalable walls. No one grows or ages, but everyone arrives just slightly altered from who he or she was before. To Boo's great surprise, the qualities that made him an outcast at home win him friends; and he finds himself capable of a joy he has never experienced. But there is a darker side to life after death--and as Boo and Johnny attempt to learn what happened that fateful day, they discover a disturbing truth that will have profound repercussions for both of them.
Author Notes
NEIL SMITH is a French to English translator who lives in Montreal. His first book, the story collection Bang Crunch , was published around the world to critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the best books of the year by the Globe and Mail and the Washington Post . Boo is his first novel.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Short story writer Smith (Bang Crunch) delivers a splendidly confident debut novel, a fantasy of emotional healing in a unique afterlife. In 1979, 13-year-old Oliver "Boo" Dalrymple is an intelligent but socially awkward outcast, born with a defective heart. One day, he's at his school locker, getting taunted by the school bullies as usual, and then he suddenly finds himself in the afterlife, presumably dead from his condition. This afterworld is an unusual one, however, populated entirely by other 13-year-olds who died in the U.S.A., and when his acquaintance Johnny joins him a few weeks later, Boo discovers that he and Johnny were actually shot by an unknown fellow classmate. Along with a number of new friends, Johnny and Boo set out on a quest to discover who shot them and investigate the rumors of portals that would allow them back to the world of the living. Smith smoothly develops his vision of an afterlife in which a theoretical god supplies random items from the living world, electronics run without power, and kids are left to their own devices. The story is never about providing solid answers, but readers who appreciate that sort of ambiguity will find that the emotional payoffs are both surprising and moving. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* One minute 13-year-old Oliver Boo Dalrymple is standing in front of his locker at Helen Keller Junior High School reciting the periodic table to himself (yeah, he's that kind of boy); the next, he wakes up in bed in a place called Town. Boo quickly learns that he has died and has come to in a sort of heaven, a place where there are no trees, no insects, no animals, and where everybody is and remains 13 years old. In short order, Johnny, another boy from his school, shows up, and it turns out that both were shot by someone they think of as Gunboy. Is it possible that the killer is also in Town? The two boys determine to find out. In the meantime, Boo formerly a social pariah and Johnny have bonded and made two new friends, Thelma and Esther, who help with their quest. Presented in the form of a journal Boo is keeping for his parents, the novel is told in Boo's matter-of-fact, emotionless voice, which is oddly compelling and increasingly poignant. Though a few of its plot points will have readers scratching their heads, the story Boo tells is endlessly intriguing and entertaining as it contemplates the presence or absence of God, whom the kids call Zig, while revealing surprising and disturbing truths about the boys' previous lives and deaths. Fans of the offbeat will think they've died and gone to Town er, heaven.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2015 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Topics readers have come across before-school shootings, fictional representations of the afterlife, murder mysteries-come together in this wildly imaginative read. When 13-year-old Oliver dies at school, he's not that surprised. He had a hole in his heart, which he figured would kill him one day. He is surprised to discover what the afterlife has in store. He gets to inhabit a subdivision of heaven called Town, where only 13-year-olds live. The denizens stay 13 for about 50 years, after which they disappear-to who knows where. Oliver is just getting the lay of the land when Johnny, a kid he knew from school, shows up. Johnny tells Oliver it wasn't his holey heart that killed him. They were both shot at school, and he thinks that the shooter is in Town, too. With the help of their friends, they go searching for the killer. Debut author Smith builds a world in Town-with rules and its own internal logic-in which readers will become completely immersed. Oliver and Johnny are flawed, leaving teens constantly wondering if one or both of them are unreliable. There are also clever details-some that will be obvious to teens, such as Oliver and Johnny's dorm being named for Frank and Joe Hardy-but others are more subtle. Subsequent reads will likely turn up even more layers of foreshadowing. A wholly satisfying if not wholly happy ending makes this a total package. VERDICT A fascinating read for any teen or adult willing to suspend disbelief and enter Town.-Jamie Watson, Baltimore County Public Library © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
This first novel, a fugitive from the teen bookshelves, combines a school shooting and a whimsical afterlife in a touching tale of what friendship and growing up can mean. Oliver Dalrymple, whose pallor earns him the nickname Boo, is a precocious 13-year-old at Helen Keller Junior High when he suddenly dies in front of his locker. He reports this on the first page of what will be his book-length effort to explain the afterlife to his parents. Smith (Bang Crunch: Stories, 2008) has fun presenting the slightly off or odd details of a limbo called Town where those who have "passed" are gathered with others of the same age13 in Boo's caseto live in "three-story red-brick dormitories," work simple jobs, and abide by a few rules before entering another phase after 50 years. It's Lord of the Flies without pig slaughter and privation: there are regular shipments of food, clothing, and other needs provided by a deity whom Boo annoyingly calls Zig. A plot of sorts develops when Johnny Henzel, another kid from Helen Keller, appears and Boo learns that both of them were victims of a student with a gun whom they dub Gunboy. Memories can be fuzzy in Town, so there's more than one unreliable narrator at work here. A hunt for Gunboy ensues in which self-discovery plays a major role. The novel has an understated message about gun control and bullying and is a fine portrayal of Boo's emergence from the carapace of fear, distrust, and solitude he grew for himself in his short life. Smith is often amusing in cute and clever ways, but there's a slyer, more satisfying humor in the twins Tim and Tom Lu, who owe something to Lewis Carroll's Tweedledum and -dee. The book's often earnest trip over the rainbow could have used more of that. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1. H. Do you ever wonder, dear Mother and Father, what kind of toothpaste angels use in heaven? I will tell you. We use baking soda sprinkled on our toothbrushes. It tastes salty, which comes as no surprise because baking soda is a kind of salt known as sodium bicarbonate. You never wonder about toothpaste in heaven, do you? After all, you are agnostic. But even believers seldom ponder the nitty-gritty of their afterlife. Thinking of heaven, they imagine simply a feeling of love and a sense of peace. They do not consider whether the pineapple they eat here will be fresh or come from a can. (We actually receive both kinds, though certainly more canned than fresh.) This book I am writing to you about my afterlife will be your nitty-gritty. One day I hope to discover a way to deliver my story to you. As you know, I died in front of my locker at Helen Keller Junior High on September 8, 1979, which was exactly one month ago today. Before I died, I had been reciting the 106 elements from the periodic table. My locker number (No. 106) had inspired me, and my goal was to memorize all the elements in chronological order. However, when I reached No. 78, platinum (Pt), Jermaine Tucker interrupted by smacking me in the head. "What the hell you doing, Boo?" he said. I told you once that my classmates called me Boo on account of my ghostly pale skin and my staticky, whitish blond hair that stands on end. Some of them considered me an albino, but of course I am not: a true albino has dark red or almost purplish eyes, whereas mine are light blue. "Boo! How ironic," you may say, "because now our son is a ghost." You would be mistaken, of course, because this is not true irony. Irony would be if Jermaine Tucker had said, "Wow, Boo, I truly respect and admire you for memorizing the periodic table!" Respect and admiration are the opposite of the feelings I aroused in Jermaine and, for that matter, most of my classmates. Did you realize I was a pariah? If you did not, I am sorry I never made this clear, but I did not want you fretting about something you could in no way control. You already worried enough about the inoperable hole in my heart and had long warned me about straining my heart muscles. Jermaine walked off to class, and I continued undeterred with my count as scientists Richard Dawkins and Jane Goodall watched me from the photographs I had taped to the back of my locker door. For the first time ever, I reached No. 106, seaborgium (Sg), without stealing a peek at the periodic table hung below the photos of Richard and Jane. My feat of memorization, however, must have overexcited my heart because I immediately fainted to the floor. I could say I "gave up the ghost," especially in light of my nickname, but I dislike euphemism. I prefer to say the truth simply and plainly. The plain and simple truth: my heart stopped and I died. How much time passed between my heart's final chug in the school hallway and my eyes opening in the hereafter I cannot say. After all, who knows which time zone heaven is in? But as I glanced around the room where I found myself, I certainly did not see the clichéd image of heaven. No white-robed angels with kind smiles gliding out of a bank of clouds and singing in dulcet tones. Instead, I saw a black girl snoring as she slept in a high-back swivel chair, a book at her feet. I immediately knew I was dead. My first clue: I saw the girl perfectly even though I was not wearing my eyeglasses. I even saw the title of her book (Brown Girl, Brownstones). Indeed, I saw everything around me with great clarity. The girl wore blue jeans and a T-shirt with a decal of a litter of angora kittens. Colorful beads dangled from the ends of her cornrows, and they reminded me of the abacus you gave me when I was five years old. I lay in a single bed covered in a sheet and a thin cotton blanket. Other than the swivel chair, the bed was the only furniture in the windowless room. Overhead a ceiling fan spun. Hung on the walls were abstract paintings--squiggles, splotches, and drippings. I sat up in bed. My naked chest seemed whiter than normal, and the bluish arteries marbling my shoulders stood out. I peeked under the blanket and saw I was not wearing a pajama bottom or even underwear. Nudity itself does not bother me, though: to me, a penis is no more embarrassing than an ear or a nose. Still, do not assume I had found the Helen Keller gym showers, for example, a comfortable place to be. That communal shower room was a breeding ground for the human papillomavirus causing plantar warts. And on two occasions there, Kevin Stein thought it would be sidesplitting to urinate on my leg. "Excuse me! Hello!" I called out to the girl in the swivel chair, who woke with a start. She stared at me wide-eyed. "May I assume I am dead?" I asked. She lurched out of her chair and hurried over, accidentally kicking her novel under the bed. She grabbed my hand and squeezed. I yanked it back because as you know, I dislike being touched. "You ain't dead, honey," she said. "You passed, but you're still alive." "Passed?" "We say 'passed' here instead of 'died.' Passed like you did good on a math test." She gave me a smile that exposed a gap between her front teeth wide enough to stick a drinking straw through. When she sat down on the side of the bed, it listed because she was heavy. I once read an article on longevity in the magazine Science that claimed that thin people lived longer. To offset my holey heart, I tried to prolong my life by keeping a slim physique. Needless to say, my efforts came to naught. "Let me introduce myself," the girl said. "My name's Thelma Rudd, and I'm originally from Wilmington, North Carolina, where my family runs the Horseshoe Diner." She asked what my name was and where I came from. "Oliver Dalrymple from Hoffman Estates, Illinois," I told her. "My parents have a barbershop there called Clippers." "Do you know how you passed, Oliver Dalrymple?" "I believe I died of a holey heart." "A holy heart?" She looked puzzled. "We all have holy hearts up here." "No, I mean my heart has an actual hole in it." "Oh, how terrible," she said and patted my leg. Thelma went on to explain that she belonged to a group of volunteers known as the "do-gooders." "I always sign up for rebirthing duty here at the Meg Murry Infirmary," she said. "I like welcoming newborns like yourself." I asked how long a "rebirthing" took. "It's over in the blink of an eye." Thelma blinked several times. "A do-gooder's always on rebirthing duty at the Meg. We never know when we're gonna get a package." She patted the mattress, and I eyed the bed, its rumpled blanket and its pillow with the indent from my head. The bed did not look mysterious or miraculous in any way. "We just materialize here?" I asked. Thelma nodded. She gave me a probing look, eyes so deep-set I figured she, too, once wore glasses. "You know, hon, you're the calmest newborn I ever did meet," she said. "You wouldn't believe the hysterics I seen in my nineteen years in Town." "Nineteen years!?" I said. "But you look my age." "Oh, we're all thirteen here." This particular hereafter, she clarified, was reserved for Americans who passed at age thirteen. "We call it Town," she said. "Us townies believe there's lots of towns of heaven. One for every age--one for people who pass at sixteen, one for people who pass at twenty-three, one for people who pass at forty-four, and so on and so forth." "Thirteen," I said, mystified. "You are all thirteen?" "Townies never age. We stay thirteen all our afterlives. I look exactly the same as when I came here nineteen years ago." You will find this nonsensical, Mother and Father, but this stagnation in the hereafter saddened me more than the realization of my own death did. I would never grow up, never go to university, and never become a scientist. And, frankly, I had seen enough of thirteen-year-olds back in America--their stupidity, cruelty, and immaturity. Thelma noticed my sudden distress. "Oh, but we grow wiser the longer we stay here," she said. "Well, at least some of us do." "Segregating the afterlife by age seems logical," I said to be a good sport. "After all, if the dead were all housed in the same place, Town would be seriously overpopulated." I then asked, "Will I be here for eternity?" She shook her head. "No, us townies only get five decades here. After our time's up, we go to sleep one night and never wake. We vanish in the night. All we leave behind is our PJs." "Oh my." I said. "Where do we go next?" "Some say we move to a higher level of heaven, one with better food, sturdier plumbing, and sunnier skies," Thelma replied. "Others wonder if we reincarnate back to America. But the truth is, nobody really knows where we go." Thelma got up from the bed and opened the door to a walk-in closet. She came out carrying a pair of jeans, T‑shirts, boxer shorts, and socks, which she laid on the bed. "What's your shoe size?" "Seven," I said. She went back in the closet to find me some shoes. "Do you have any penny loafers?" I asked because they are the shoes you would always buy me, Mother. "Town has no leather shoes," Thelma called out. "Leather's dead cow and heaven ain't no place for the dead." While she was in the closet, I slipped on the boxer shorts and then the jeans, which were covered in red, white, and blue patches from the Bicentennial three years ago. "So only Americans come here?" I asked. "Yep. We don't get no foreigners. Just people who lived in the U. S. of A." I thought of absurd science-fiction films where the characters on distant planets spoke fluent American English, but never Swedish or Swahili. "What about different religions?" I asked as I slipped on a tie-dyed T-shirt from the half-dozen shirts on the bed. "Oh, we aren't divided by religion. We get all kinds here. Baptists, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses. You name it, honey, we get it." She came out carrying a tatty pair of sneakers, which had the letters L and R inked on the toes. She handed them over. "What religion are you?" she asked. "Atheist." She let out a whoop of laughter. "I don't always have much faith in a supreme being myself," she said. I sat on the bed and put on the sneakers. She sat beside me and picked lint off my T-shirt. "I ain't religious, but I am a spiritual person," she said. "You spiritual, Oliver?" "I have never had a spiritual day in my entire life." She gave me a gap-toothed smile. "Well, your entire American life's over, honey," she said. "But your afterlife's all set to begin. Maybe you'll find yourself some spirituality here." Excerpted from Boo by Neil Smith All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
