30 January 2001 YOU DON'T KNOW ME by David Klass, Frances Foster Books, March 2001

As I sit down and begin to contemplate what to say about this powerful, imaginative, engaging, funny and heartbreaking new novel by David Klass, I am reminded of the article on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, written many years ago about my all-time favorite adult book. The writer of that article states: "...I find myself nervous, to a degree I don't recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance. That is exactly how I am feeling at this moment about YOU DON'T KNOW ME. I was given an advance copy in DC two weeks ago. It has taken me this long to finish the book because, after reading the first three chapters in the room at the hostel, I saw no choice but to start over and make the time to read the whole book aloud to Shari.

YOU DON'T KNOW ME is told through the mouth and mind of John ("My father named me after a toilet!") He is a 14-year-old being raised by his mother and the extraordinarily abusive man "who is not and will never be my father."

The story deals with this abuse and other themes which are common enough in adolescent literature, but which are written about here with such a compelling and unique voice that it results in this book standing on a shelf all by itself. It includes all those mysteries-of-high school topics, such as hanging out at the mall, the teachers, the dances, and "the secret sorority of pretty fourteen-year-old girls." But the utilization of John's thoughts (as he addresses other characters in his head) for a major portion of the book, gives rise not only to the real story-behind-the-story, but also allows for our being enlightened and entertained by the "voices" of several wonderful characters we would otherwise consider to be within the category of inanimate object: John's tuba which he tells us is really a giant frog pretending to be a tuba, as well as his ornery locker which "is not at all impressed by correct combinations."

"My locker does not respond, because it has no mouth, but what it is thinking is 'Take your best shot, doofus. My grandfather was a vault at Fort Knox and I don't open for the likes of you.'"

For me, in reading the book aloud, the voice with which John tells his story evoked Rod Serling's old understated, deadpan recitation which would always be in such vivid contrast to the amazing, heart-stopping tales which Serling would be sharing with us. I'm certain that, just as some of those old Twilight Zones still linger deep in my mind after several decades, John's voice in YOU DON'T KNOW ME is not one that I will soon forget.

Richie Partington

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