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The Night Country
Stewart O'Nan. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 2004 (paperback). ISBN: 0312424078. 240 pages.
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Some of you may remember the heady days when you took charge of your book group or personal pleasure reading destiny. When you took the pledge against the whole gruesome literary subgenre (so randomly popular in the mid-to-late-nineties) that we'll call the "Dead Kids" category. Remember when you said "thanks-but-no-thanks" to Oprah, to Martha, even to Kathie Lee (for these were back in the pre-Kelly Ripa years)? Well, it seems like you got their attention, because while no topic in literature can remain taboo forever, we noticed that the pre-millennium glut of (mostly) fairly good novels that featured that death, dismemberment, or disappearance of children slowed to a more refined trickle. Please forgive the casual tone about what is no doubt the most serious tragedy a family can experience, but if you were a regular reader of contemporary American fiction during the last decade, you know what we're talking about.
So, all this said, we've got to tell you about a truly great, utterly gripping dead-kid book. As it happens, three of the novel's major characters are ghosts, the restless spirits of three teens who died in a fatal encounter between a speeding car and a motionless tree. These weary, wise-cracking ghosts spend the majority of their time with the three living people who survived the crash: one a former high-school student who is half the boy he used to be, having lost the greater part of his personality to irreversible brain damage, a second the unlucky teen who climbed from the car intact and whose guilt is driving him to count the days until he can commit suicide, and the third the cop who was first on the scene of the accident, a once-devoted keeper of the peace whose life has been as utterly ruined as the teenagers and their families. As the ghosts keep their vigil over their still-breathing favorites, they realize that unless they can find a way to interfere, history is about to repeat itself. Only this time, things are going to get really bad. This would be a terrific read for young adult readers as well as adults, it's scary and funny and spooky and beautiful - if you can take the ride, you're going to find some unexpectedly important gifts along the journey.
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