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Summary
Summary
2014 Morris Award finalist
"I hate myself but I love Walt Whitman, the kook. Always positive. I need to be more positive, so I wake myself up every morning with a song of myself." Sixteen-year-old James Whitman has been yawping (à la Whitman) at his abusive father ever since he kicked his beloved older sister, Jorie, out of the house. James's painful struggle with anxiety and depression--along with his ongoing quest to understand what led to his self-destructive sister's exile--make for a heart-rending read, but his wild, exuberant Whitmanization of the world and keen sense of humor keep this emotionally charged debut novel buoyant.
Author Notes
Evan Roskos completed his MFA at Rutgers University-Newark in 2009, and currently lives in Collingswood, New Jersey. He was named one of Narrative's 20 Best New Writers, and has had stories in Best Fiction, StoryQuarterly, and other literary journals. Visit his blog at www.evanroskos.blogspot.com.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This sensitive first novel portrays the struggle of 16-year-old James Whit-man to overcome anxiety and depression. James blames himself for his older sister's expulsion from their home and estrangement from their bullying parents. Roskos effectively sketches James as a boy who is far more comfortable inside his own head than in connecting with others (case in point, he hugs trees to make himself feel better and seeks advice from Dr. Bird, an imaginary pigeon therapist). Throughout, James takes comfort in the poetry of Walt Whitman, often co-opting the writer's literary techniques in his narration ("I sound my morning yawp! I blast out my inner glow at the sunshine to try to shout it down. To have it lift me up. For someone, somewhere, to see me"). Friendships old and new, along with James's growing interest in his own poetry and photography, help him gain confidence and understanding, especially as he discovers unsettling secrets about his sister. Bravely facing real sorrow, James confronts his problems with grace and courage. Ages 14-up. Agent: Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
"I'm a depressed, anxious kid." Maneuvering the hazards of high school, abusive parents, a banished sister, and diminishing mental health proves exhausting for sixteen-year-old James Whitman. He's tried everything to feel better -- from reciting Walt Whitman to yawping in the face of adversity, hugging trees, rescuing a Tastykake wrapper (he thinks it's a bird) from being hit by a bus, and even talking to an imaginary pigeon therapist about his problems -- but none of it seems to help. When his parents refuse to pay for real therapy, James decides to get a part-time job in order to afford it himself, while simultaneously undertaking a crusade to get his sister reinstated in school and ultimately welcomed back into his home. However, digging into his sister's past unearths secrets he isn't entirely ready to face and solidifies his belief that his family may be irreparably broken. Though his circumstances are nothing to laugh at, James's wry sense of humor, one of his most charming coping mechanisms, effortlessly fuses with the starkness of his reality. Author Roskos's strength lies in his refusal to tidy up the mess in James's life and in his relentless honesty about surviving with depression and anxiety. shara l. hardeson (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Sixteen-year-old James Whitman is paranoid, depressed, and confused. He despises his stressful homelife; has a crush on a bright, artistic girl who has a jerk for a boyfriend; and is desperately trying to discern why his older sister, Jorie, got kicked out of school and their house. James deals with his feelings of guilt, sadness, and anxiety by avoiding his parents, quoting Walt Whitman, hugging trees, and silently conversing with an imaginary therapist who is a bird, all while nursing a secret hope that he can make everything okay. Roskos' first novel is rich with hilarity and realistic inner dialogue, although James' first-person narrative doesn't always feel wholly authentic. This title may take some booktalking and hand-selling due to its strange title, eccentric cover featuring a pigeon, and Whitman conceit, but the right readers may find it lifesaving. Give this darkly funny debut to fans of Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999).--Mack, Candice Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-James Whitman tries to adopt the spirit of Walt Whitman, loving nature and sounding a loud YAWP to show proof of his existence, but he is having a rough time keeping his poetic chin up lately. His older sister, Jorie, has been expelled from their high school and his abusive parents throw her out of their house. James is feeling guilty about not standing up for her and is depressed about his own life. He is the kind of teen who will run into traffic to try and save an injured bird, but he's also an introspective poet who has frequent suicidal thoughts. His own internal therapist is a pigeon he calls Dr. Bird, and since James is a smart guy, she offers good advice. But since James is also, as he puts it, "wired funny," he does not always listen to Dr. Bird. Since he lives in his head so much, the novel's pace can be a bit slow. Roskos perfectly captures the voice of a teen, but this boy is unbelievably self-aware. Readers only see tiny bits of his parents through his eyes. This is problematic, as James is not the most reliable of narrators, but that certainly adds to readers' empathy. Although Jorie cuts herself and James has suicidal thoughts, the narrative points in a slightly more positive direction for them both by the end as James is able to confront his parents and demand their assistance in getting him help.-Geri Diorio, Ridgefield Library, CT (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Self-deprecating humor abounds in this debut novel that pulls no punches about the experience of depression and anxiety for its teen protagonist. The words of Walt Whitman provide solace for 16-year-old James, whose mental health struggles are exacerbated by living with abusive parents and agonizing over what he could have done differently to prevent his older sister, Jorie, from being thrown out of the house. James' intense first-person narration, which includes imagined therapy sessions with a pigeon he calls Dr. Bird, both flares with frenetic silliness and sinks heavily into despair, realistically depicting his mood swings. At times contemplating suicide, he's aware of the gravity of his situation, even as his parents react with heartbreaking ambivalence: "Therapy isn't what you need....You're just at that age where you think everything is so horrible and terrible." His self-awareness makes him an enormously sympathetic character. Readers will root for him to win over Beth, the editor of his school's literary magazine, and forgive him for going over the top ("I know that they're all just going to pretend like I'm not here trying to tear the walls down with my fucking barbaric yaawwwwwppppp!") when he rages at a woman who has been carrying on an affair, with his best friend Derek, behind the back of her fiance. Captivating introspection from a winning character. (Fiction. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1. I YAWP MOST MORNINGS to irritate my father, the Brute. "Yawp! Yawp!" It moves him out of the bathroom faster. He responds with the gruff "All right." He dislikes things that seem like fun. I do not yawp like Walt Whitman for fun. Ever since the Brute literally threw my older sister Jorie out of the house, I yawp at him because he hates it. My father says reciting Walt Whitman is impractical, irrational. My father says even reading Walt Whitman is a waste of time, despite the fact that we share his last name. My father says Walt Whitman never made a dime, which is not true. I looked it up. Not just on Wikipedia but in a book that also said Walt used to write reviews for Leaves of Grass --his own book!--under fake names. Who does that? Walt does! The perfect poet for me. I'm a depressed, anxious kid. I hate myself but I love Walt Whitman, the kook. I need to be more positive, so I wake myself up every morning with a song of my self. Walt says: I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I say: I am James Whitman. I define myself and answer the question that was asked with my momentous birth! I am light! I am truth! I am might! I am youth! I assume myself and become what you assume! I leap from my bed, bedraggled but lively! Vigorous, not slowpoked and sapped with misery (despite my eyes and aching teeth, which grind all night)! I bathe, washing the atoms that belong to me but are not me. I brush my teeth. Away! Away! Gummy grime of six hours' sleep! Six hours of troubled dreams will not slow my hands as they scrunch my cowlicked hair into an acceptable--no, vital --posture! I adorn a bright shirt--sunburst of red on white, a meaningless pattern. But so is a sunset! So are clouds! I choose low-cut socks and cargo shorts with enough pockets to carry all my secrets. It is April, the first warm day of the year, a day where I can loaf and lounge and contemplate a spear of grass lying in my palm. A day when the sun has to work hard to burn off the mildew of a dillydallying winter that beat me to a pulp. A day when I forget depression, forget my beaten and banished sister, Jorie, living alone somewhere. A day to YAWP! out across the moist air of the park on my way to school. I do not mind the grass tickling my ankles. I do not mind the chill because I have my old green hoodie infused with the musk of the prior fall, the dander in the hood, the history of sweat! Ah, my self! I sing through the park, greeting trees, stopping beneath them to stare at the way the morning sky filters through the newborn leaves. I chitter at squirrels, who celebrate themselves. "Hello, my nutty friends!" Contemplating my demeanor, they hold their tiny paws to their mouths. But I need to keep walking, to keep moving, to get to school before my mood falls apart. Walt says: Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. Some days I feel like I'm on the verge of supernova-ing. Other days I'm a leaf of grass. Every day I miss my sister, expelled from home and school with just a few months left. No prom, no graduation, no celebration, no gifts. A metaphorical footprint on her ass after years of literal bruises on her body put there by my mother, the Banshee, and my father, the Brute. I loafed in my room while she raged on the front lawn, cursing the very house for the miserable nails that held it together to protect me and my mother and yawp-hating father. *** I hug trees, dozens on especially bad mornings when the walk to Charles Cheeseman High School feels long and insufferable. When I hug trees, the bark marks my cheek and reminds me I'm alive. Or that my nervous system is still intact. The trees breathe all the time and no one really notices. They take in the air we choke on. They live and die in silence. So I hug them. Someone should. When people see me hugging an old maple tree in the park, they probably think I'm a kook. I am okay with that, though I'd prefer they not let me know what they think of me. Let me be, I ask. Like Walt says: I cannot say to any person what I hear . . . . I cannot say it to myself . . . . it is very wonderful. I also hug trees to apologize to them. When I was in fourth grade, Jorie and I threw chunks of scrap bricks at a dogwood tree. Brick can really do some damage. Tears the thick skin right off and exposes pale tree flesh. When we stopped for a moment to collect the larger brick bits, my sister looked real close at what we did and said she felt horrible. "The tree is crying!" she said. "A tree's a tree," I said, ready to adjust my technique for some real damage. "It can't feel anything." But Jorie said that just because the tree couldn't feel or speak or think didn't mean we should throw bricks at it. She left me in the backyard. I spent an hour trying to put bark back on the vulnerable tree. 2. ANOTHER TERRIBLE HIGH SCHOOL DAY awaits, though I'm calm after embracing four trees that will outlive me. As I step out of the park onto the pale sidewalk, I see Beth King across the street. The sight of her reminds me what a girl in a spring-friendly outfit looks like: wonderful. (Imagine butterflies so drawn in by a bright flower that they forget how to fly; that's the feeling I get from Beth in her warm-weather outfit.) I pause to hug one last tree before jaywalking. I want Beth to notice me but not the crazy part of me. So, I keep my hand on the tree trunk and let her move ahead so I can follow her. As we walk, I see a bird in the street. It's not flying away, and I know birds tend to hop a lot when scrounging for food. This one flaps one little wing like it's injured. I look at the bird and at Beth and back at the bird. For a moment I think it would be awesome if she noticed the bird and showed some kind of concern, but she's texting on her phone very intently. A car passes and I cringe--but it misses the bird, who flaps its wing frantically. I need to save the bird! No one else notices these things! If I can grab the sparrow (or finch or swallow) and get it to the other side of the street, then Beth will see I'm a sensitive, bird-loving man! Huzzah! A heroic grab of the bird and a well-timed "Yawp!" will win her heart! I jog at the perfect angle so that I can grab the bird, dodge oncoming traffic, and arrive light-footed on the opposite curb. Maybe even a somersault! This will be the greatest how-we-met story ever! I dart into the street and make a quick grab for the critter. I need to hurry to get through the lane and over to the other sidewalk, so Beth can cheer me and hug me and appreciate the acrobatic Olympic double-roll hop I've just somehow initiated. I'm airborne! I'm really a superhero! I think I've been hit by a bus! The horizon flips around--twice, I think. The bird crumples in my hand. Suddenly I cannot see clearly. I hold on to the bird but lots of things hurt. The diesel smell of the bus is the smell of my shame. The kids on the bus are laughing at me. I know none of them thinks this is a serious issue. The bus driver comes out and screeches at me. "What the heck are you doing?! Running out in front of me? How'd you miss a big yellow bus?" I hold up the bird. "I was saving a bird." The bird's not struggling to flee my grip. The bird might be dead! "That's a damn Tastykake wrapper, you idiot!" So it is. I look over and Beth is gone. She didn't see me almost die. Or she did and didn't think it was that important. Excerpted from Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos 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.