Hilariously depressing. ( )

Flatscreen was kind of... flat. But deliberately so, I think -- the protagonist, Eli Schwartz, is a young, disaffected kind of guy, no job, no real prospects, smokes too much pot, and most of his drifting around over the course of the book involves trying to make connection to someone, anyone. The characters are all a bit flat in affect, and whereas in a different kind of story it would be frustrating and alienating, here it works. Nobody quite feels real, but since they don't to Eli either, I can relate. And his oddball internet- and late-night-TV-fueled inner voice is weirdly likeable. Nobody from the book is sticking with me particularly, but again -- form's following function here, and I don't know that they need to. I do think I got a contact high just from reading about all those drugs. ( )

Funny, smart, and sad all at the same time. It's a book about suburbia and what it'd actually mean to stay here and live an unexamined life. Drugs, sex, music, and mostly a whole lot of boredom - that's Eli's life. Even after he lands a surrogate father figure, he can't quite rouse himself out of this stupor... because it just doesn't really seem worth it. It's a "slacker novel to end all slacker novels" because he isn't disaffected or rebelling - he just doesn't really care. There's nothing behind it.

Read it when you go home to see your parents, when you're walking up your driveway and the whole town is silent, when you see your high school friends still going to parties in the same basements as they were five years ago. It's funny and sad and you'll be happy you made the choices you did - or maybe you'll feel deeply uncomfortable about the fact that you're still living in your mom's basement. Either way, this is a brilliant book.

More about it at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-lF

(PS: a big thanks to Harper Perennial for sending along a review copy!) ( )

Over the past year I've read a number of books in which the main character(s) emerge from structure of school into the chaos of the real world and find themselves lost in the shuffle. Most of the time these are post-college novels in which the character discovers that maybe that thing they wanted wasn't what they wanted at all. This is not one of those novels. At the center of Adam Wilson's debut novel is Eli Schwartz, high school graduate, Food Network junkie, recreational drug user. His parents' marriage has fallen apart and he's been living in his mother's basement for a few years while the rest of his friends have gone off to college. Eli's life is without proper form - all of the structure in his life has either expired (school), disintegrated (family), or run dry (money). All that's left for him is getting high and watching tv. It's kind of a slacker-stoner novel.

The beginning of Flatscreen feels like a well-managed exercise in stream-of-consciousness writing. It jumps like a late-90's music video - flashing tangentially related images that all somehow come together in a weird but cohesive vision. Within the first few pages Wilson gives the reader a good taste of what the next 300+ pages will be like - dark, silly, strange, profane, and sad. The rest of the book is presented in short chapters that alternate between traditional and nontraditional storytelling methods. Sometimes these nontraditional sections take the form of lists and later in the novel these sections are the imagined 19 alternate endings to Eli's story.

This is one of those books where I felt indifferent about the story but enjoyed the craft and construction of the novel. The prose is so quick that it sometimes feels more like reporting then your normal run-of-the-mill writing.

"Wife Three had wine-stained lips. Sat on Dan's dad's lap in purple velvet (low cut, one freckle on the lip of her cleavage) sipping champagne, feeding him chocolate covered strawberries while he stroked her hemline. She fed him without looking at him. Glaze wandered the party, fixing for a moment on the TV, passing to other guests, walls, windows; legs crossed, bouncing slightly, right foot bent down like a ballerina's. Mascara had caked, flaked off her lashes. It stuck in little pieces to her cheek, resembled one of those tear tattoos people in prison get to commemorate their dead homeys. Dan's dad had his eyes closed. Licked his lips, then Wife Three's finger, pretending to bite her wedding ring. When he opened his eyes he saw me."

There's so much to like about the writing that it's a shame that I didn't care all that much about the characters. You want Eli to get sober, find a job and just do something productive, but he's so invested in the self-aware slacker persona that he's crafted for himself that he just can't get off the metaphorical couch. The only people he tries to connect with are damaged by their own tragedies. There's Seymour Kahn, former actor and paraplegic, who acts as a sort of bizarre Buddha with a rifle to Eli. And then there's the tortured Alison Ghee, whose boyfriend recently killed himself and gives Eli just enough attention that that she becomes part of his fantasies.

Flatscreen is interesting because in many ways it seems like a reflection of our current internet-enhanced lives. All of the characters interact, but they never really know each other. Eli sends a sort of love-letter to his never-gonna-happen love interest, Jennifer Estes, but it's not scrawled on lined notebook paper, it's not even an email - it's a Facebook message. Facebook, the land of paper-thin relationships, filled mostly with people you used to know. None of Eli's relationships with non-family members go beyond superficial. Even his family members are kept at arm's length.

I am so different from characters like Eli and the people in his life that I had a really difficult time relating to much of anything in the book. I didn't feel like I had anything invested in whether Eli got his act together or whether anyone actually ended up happy or doing anything productive. The book moves along at a brisk pace and I rolled with it, enjoying the scenery but caring very little about where we ended up. It's clearly a case of the subject matter existing outside of my own personal experience and therefore not really my thing. Yet I know that this is a book that will definitely speak to certain people and they will absolutely love it. ( )

The Good Stuff

Totally bizarre and unique
Some of the dialogue (and inner dialogue) is LMAO funny
Good writing
Excellent character development
All of the characters feel very realistic like people you would see on the street
Dark and quirky - sort of reminds me of something that Apatow would make into a movie

The Not So Good Stuff

Eli is a loser and I just found myself disliking him and feeling uncomfortable because he was so pathetic
Language is over the top base and vulgar at times & I am no prude, but it just really irritated me
This is definitely one that men will enjoy more
This was not my sort of book, so its hard to review positively - but please Adam if you read this review do not be offended, its just not my bag - you got talent though

Favorite Quotes/Passages

"She's a sucker for men who are the opposite of me," Kahn said. "In that I taught her well."

"She'd bought a Mercedes SUV after the divorce, but sold it later to pay medical bills when her brother got prostrate cancer. Now Ned was dead and I bet she wished she'd kept the car, as the money she'd spent on health care didn't help in the end, and the medical costs had sealed her fast as a social pariah among the wallet-conscious women of Quinosset."

"If you don't write back just know that I don't mean anything weird by this message. I'm a good soul who's gone a bit off the deep end. My brother is a nerd, my mother is a drunk, my father is an asshole. I'm trying here, I'm really trying. Please write me back."

Who Should/Shouldn't Read

Hate to be sexist but this is one I think will appeal to the male reader
Those who like something just a little bit different, this one is for you
Think my brother would like this one

3 Dewey's

I received this from HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review ( )