Annie Bloom's Books

Description

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Early one morning in New York City, Will Heller, a sixteen-yearold paranoid schizophrenic, gets on an uptown B train alone. Like most people he knows, Will believes the world is being destroyed by climate change; unlike most people, he’s convinced he can do something about it. Unknown to his doctors, unknown to the police—unknown even to Violet Heller, his devoted mother—Will alone holds the key to the planet’s salvation. To cool down the world, he has to cool down his own overheating body: to cool down his body, he has to find one willing girl. And he already has someone in mind.  Lowboy, John Wray’s third novel, tells the story of Will’s fantastic and terrifying odyssey through the city’s tunnels, back alleys, and streets in search of Emily Wallace, his one great hope, and of Violet Heller’s desperate attempts to locate her son before psychosis claims him completely. She is joined by Ali Lateef, a missing-persons specialist, who gradually comes to discover that more is at stake than the recovery of a runaway teen: Violet—beautiful, enigmatic, and as profoundly at odds with the world as her son—harbors a secret that Lateef will discover at his own peril.  Suspenseful and comic, devastating and hopeful by turns, Lowboy is a fearless exploration of youth, sex, and violence in contemporary America, seen through one boy’s haunting and extraordinary vision.

John Wray is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Right Hand of Sleep and Canaan’s Tongue. He was named one of Granta magazine’s Best of Young American Novelists in 2007. The recipient of a Whiting Award, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. Early one morning in New York City, Will Heller, a sixteen-yearold paranoid schizophrenic, gets on an uptown B train alone. Like most people he knows, Will believes the world is being destroyed by climate change; unlike most people, he’s convinced he can do something about it. Unknown to his doctors, unknown to the police—unknown even to Violet Heller, his devoted mother—Will alone holds the key to the planet’s salvation. To cool down the world, he has to cool down his own overheating body: to cool down his body, he has to find one willing girl. And he already has someone in mind.

Lowboy, John Wray’s third novel, tells the story of Will’s fantastic and terrifying odyssey through the city’s tunnels, back alleys, and streets in search of Emily Wallace, his one great hope, and of Violet Heller’s desperate attempts to locate her son before psychosis claims him completely. She is joined by Ali Lateef, a missing-persons specialist, who gradually comes to discover that more is at stake than the recovery of a runaway teen: Violet—beautiful, enigmatic, and as profoundly at odds with the world as her son—harbors a secret that Lateef will discover at his own peril.

Suspenseful and comic, devastating and hopeful by turns, Lowboy is a fearless exploration of youth, sex, and violence in contemporary America, seen through one boy’s haunting and extraordinary vision. “Lowboy is uncompromising, often gripping and generally excellent . . . One of the novel’s many pleasures is just going along: putting yourself fully in the hands of the story and its author, being drawn in, gradually immersed, making the connections, appreciating those seeds as they bloom into the tale’s developing complexity, danger and tragedy. By the time it all falls into place, the reader is long hooked and turning back is not an option . . . This is a meticulously constructed novel, immensely satisfying in the perfect, precise beat of its plot.”—Charles Bock, The New York Times Book Review “Lowboy is uncompromising, often gripping and generally excellent . . . One of the novel’s many pleasures is just going along: putting yourself fully in the hands of the story and its author, being drawn in, gradually immersed, making the connections, appreciating those seeds as they bloom into the tale’s developing complexity, danger and tragedy. By the time it all falls into place, the reader is long hooked and turning back is not an option . . . This is a meticulously constructed novel, immensely satisfying in the perfect, precise beat of its plot. Wray, however, has larger goals than a thrill ride. The book's core is a nexus of tragedy—the tragedy of a 17-year-old girl who, though she knows better, might do anything for the boy she loves; the tragedy of a mother whose life has been devoted to her son, yet who is incapable of helping him and who just may have been the source of his troubles; the tragedy of a middle-aged man caught between protecting the public and helping a parent; and finally, ultimately, the tragedy of a bright and beautiful teenager who not only must deal with all the confusions and pressures of being 16, but who, through no fault of his own, is not stable enough to be able to purchase a cupcake without confrontation. I'd be proud to be seen reading this novel on the downtown 6, or anywhere else at all.”—Charles Bock, The New York Times Book Review

"What ever happened to the American Man? You know, the one who bullied and swore and drank his way through novels full of cigarette smoke, big cars and red meat? The one who'd abandon his family for a prostitute, or coerce his girlfriend into a threesome, or sleep with the housekeeper after murdering his wife? What happened to all those Rabbits and Portnoys and Rojacks and Wapshots and Herzogs? And does anyone really miss them? Judging from a sampling of recent male-penned fiction, the answer is no, not really . . . Which brings us to a tale told by a schizophrenic teenager, John Wray's dizzyingly seductive Lowboy. Wray's protagonist is on the lam from a mental institution, loose among the commuters and winos and rolling thunder of the Manhattan subway. Making your central character deeply insane is, of course, a risky and ambitious trick, but Wray carries it off with a fluid, inventive style that rises at times to a frightening pitch. Lowboy is an amplified hero for our times; despite his violence and craziness and incoherence, he is fundamentally sweet and in search of love."—Michael Lindgren, The Washington Post

"John Wray is less interested in Lowboy’s picaresque circuits than in his mental circuits, whose damaged condition is brilliantly, compassionately evoked in the novel . . . Wray is never boring, largely because he has an uncanny talent for ventriloquism, and he seems to know, with unerring authority, how to select and make eloquent the details of Lowboy’s illness. He uses a variety of literary techniques . . . What is impressive about the book is its control, and its humane comprehension of radical otherness. In this regard, it ideally justifies itself, as one always hopes novels will. You can imagine replying to someone who was curious about what it’s like to be schizophrenic, 'Well, start with John Wray’s novel.' Lowboy may often be lost to himself, but he is not lost to us. Wray knows how to induce and then manage a kind of epistemological schizophrenia in the reader, whereby we can inhabit Lowboy’s groundless visions and still glimpse the ground they negate. There is a brilliant scene, like something out of Pinter, in which Lowboy is at a bakery in the Village, buying cupcakes. Emily waits for him outside. He is

About the Author

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John Wray is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Right Hand of Sleep and Canaan’s Tongue. He was named one of Granta magazine’s Best of Young American Novelists in 2007. The recipient of a Whiting Award, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Praise for Lowboy…

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“The novel has a thriller-like pace, and Wray keeps us riveted and guessing, finding chilling rhetorical and pictorial equivalents for Will’s uniquely dysfunctional perspective . . . The suspense is expertly maintained, straight through the novel’s dreamlike climactic encounter and heart-wrenching final paragraph.  The opening pages recall Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, but the denouement and haunting aftertaste may make the stunned reader whisper “Dostoevsky.” Yes, it really is that good.” —Kirkus (starred)

“John Wray is less interested in Lowboy’s picaresque circuits than in his mental circuits, whose damaged condition is brilliantly, compassionately evoked in the novel . . . Wray is never boring, largely because he has an uncanny talent for ventriloquism, and he seems to know, with unerring authority, how to select and make eloquent the details of Lowboy’s illness . . . What is impressive about the book is its control, and its humane comprehension of radical otherness . . . Lowboy is exceptionally tender and acute . . . John Wray is a daring young writer.”  —James Wood, The New Yorker
“Lowboy is uncompromising, gripping and generally excellent . . . One of the novel’s many pleasures is just going along: putting yourself fully in the hands of the story and its author, being drawn in, gradually immersed, making the connections . . . By the time it all falls into place, the reader is long hooked and turning back is not an option . . . This is a meticulously constructed novel, immensely satisfying in the perfect, precise beat of its plot . . . I’d be proud to be seen reading this novel on the downtown 6, or anywhere else at all.” —Charles Bock, The New York Times Book Review

“John Wray captures Lowboy almost immediately and gives him to us in intense, sharp pages.” —Alan Cheuse, NPR

“Lowboy is a smart, moving thriller, and a deeply imaginative one, too . . . [The] hurtling plot makes it the sort of book you read in a few big gulps, but its complicated teen character—at once intensely familiar and completely foreign—sticks around for days after you’re done.” —Izzy Grinspan, Time Out New York

“A breathtaking journey.” —Cathleen Medwick, O, The Oprah Magazine

“It’s everything a solid book should be: a fast fun deranged grim thoughtful romp through the minds of a devastatingly nuanced cast of characters . . . The last 100 pages of Lowboy are a marvelous, unpredictable sprint. This is the sort of novel that you brew coffee at midnight to finish. It demands your attention, despite the duties of the next day. It demands the kind of singular purpose Wray might just be warning us about.” —Joshua Mohr, The Rumpus

“A mostly masterful fictional study of human relationships in the shadow of insanity . . . In Lowboy’s fragilely constructed, all-fantasies-realized universe, every chapter ends with a bang, and the final one is no exception.” —Todd Dills, Time Out Chicago

“You’ll tear through the pages . . . A lip-biting thriller to the finish.” —Sarah Z. Wexler, Marie Claire

“[Wray] succeeds with a brisk plot and odd moments of humor.  The story’s final grimness is tough, but it’s hard not to admire this bullet train of a book for its chilling power.” —Stacey Levine, Bookforum

“Wray is an obviously gifted writer, who treatment of Will is a tour de force of empathy, style, and imagination.” —Booklist

“John Wray’s Lowboy is a psychotic, subterranean, environmentally conscious, coming-of-age novel.  It is also an affecting and affectionate love letter to New York.  Lowboy is John Wray at his highest.”—Nathan Englander, author of Ministry of Special Cases

“Through the windows of John Wray's rumbling express, we catch sight of the deep darkness that lives inside the human psyche. Lowboy is a riveting and disturbing ride, illuminating one adolescent boy's shadowy underground, and giving us glimpses of our own as well.” —Colson Whitehead, author of Apex Hides the Hurt

“America's most original young writer has given us a book for the ages. Compelling, compassionate, and deeply unsettling, Lowboy introduces us to the brilliant sixteen-year-old Will Heller, a hero as three-dimensional as any in recent fiction, a Holden Caulfield for our troubled times.” —Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan

“Wray’s captivating third novel drifts between psychological realities while exploring the narrative poetics of schizophrenia. . . . Wray deploys brilliant hallucinatory visuals, including chilling descriptions of the subway system and an imaginary river flowing beneath Manhattan. In his previous works, Wray has shown that he’s not a stranger to dark themes, and with this tightly wound novel, he reaches new heights.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Wray presents a powerful and vivid portrait of Will's mental state, believably entering into his apocalyptic vision of the world.” —Library Journal

“Lowboy sucks you into the tunnels under NY and doesn't let you go until its perfect ending. Wray effortlessly portrays the cracked and distorted mind of his teenage hero. What a beguiling novel.” —Tim Pears, author of In The Place of Fallen Leaves

“Comparisons to J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye or Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower are inevitable.” —Karen E. Brooks-Reese, School Library Journal

“Lowboy is a brilliant and gusty performance . . . It expresses its meanings in hallucinated events that seem to vibrate on the page.” —Mark Shechner, The Buffalo News

“John Wray’s third novel, one of the most anticipated books of the spring, has the makings of an American classic. Lowboy also represents Wray’s arrival as a major author.” —Andrew Ervin, The Miami Herald

“A fast-paced thriller . . . This virtuosic novel . . . is a masterpiece of aural description.” —Laurence Lowe, GQ

“Lowboy is haunting and uncomfortable, in the best way possible—it’s a pleasure to read.” —Fernanda Diaz, Flavorwire

“John Wray displays an impressive command of both suspense and tragedy.” —The Week

“The book casts a spell . . .Wray’s prose . . . is full of dreamlike images and startling similes.” —Taylor Antrim, The Daily Beast

“The novel moves seamlessly . . . This kind of pacing is the stuff we crave (and we think you will, too)—the kind that draws you in so unawares that before you know it, it’s past midnight and you’re down to the last page.” —Anne, Amazon.com

“[Wray’s] third novel, Lowboy, is his best yet . . . Lowboy is told in a series of impressionistic flashes . . . and it moves with extremely confident speed to its heart-wrenching conclusion.” —Steve Donoghue, The OLM Blog, Open Letters

“Wray’s writing is tremendously smart and perceptive.” —Alison Hallett, The Portland Mercury

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