25 July 2010 ADIOS, NIRVANA by Conrad Wesselhoeft, Houghton Mifflin, October 2010, 240p., ISBN: 978-0-547-36895-5

"Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here"

-- George Harrison, "Here Comes the Sun"

"Biologically and technically, Vic is my father. But that raises the question: What is a father? A sperm-blasting shotgun? Or a shepherd who pulls the little lambs out of the quicksand and keeps the wolves away?"I vote for the shepherd. In which case, the guy buying the lottery ticket is definitely not my father. "I haven't seen him for nearly eight months -- since the funeral. He sat two rows back, off to the side, alone, a brooding pastrami sandwich in a stained tie and shades."Afterward he walked up to me. Took off the shades."'Why?' he asked."Why!'

''How?' would've been easy. Just quote the Seattle Times: 'A West Seattle teenager was struck and severely injured by a Metro bus late Tuesday...."He just shot out of the dark on his skateboard," said veteran driver Griffin Delmorio. "I didn't see him"'

"What the Seattle Times didn't say was this" that bus would've killed anyone else instantly. But Telly was too full of life to die instantly."Or this: that Telly was on a mission to buy me a bottle of cough medicine."

Telly was Jonathan's twin brother. Since his twin's death, high school poet extraordinaire Jonathan has little interest in school achievement. He submerges himself in a haze of Red Bull and NoDoz, staying up day and night composing an elegy for Telly, playing with his girlfriend (which is a guitar named Ruby), and working on painting the exterior of the house for his mother who is intent upon transforming the family residence into a wedding chapel to be called The Chapel of the Highest Happiness.

"There must be some kinda way out of here," said the joker to the thief

There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief"

-- Jimi Hendrix (the greatest musician to ever come out of Seattle) covering Dylan

In the aftermath of tragedy, it is going to take a village to keep Jonathan from coming irreparably unglued. Everybody from his mother's latest one-night stand to his high school principal are trying to make contact with him. When Jonathan is offered a deal by a sympathetic teacher -- to make up for neglecting school assignments across the curriculum since the accident by working with a blind and terminally-ill cancer patient at the local hospice -- those in his corner come to also include a feisty teen girl with bad hair, a ninety-something year-old oracle and dementia patient named Agnes whose favorite phrase is "Float a turd," and David Cosgrove the dying cancer patient who has his own true story -- set on a Naval destroyer during WWII -- of dealing with death.

"I wish I was an alien, at home behind the sun,
I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on.
I wish I was the pedal break that you depended on.
I wish I was the verb "to trust", and never let you down."-- Eddie Vedder, "Wishlist"

This most unusual musical tale set amidst the Seattle music scene also counts Eddie Vedder (who makes several appearances in ADIOS, NIRVANA) as one of Jonathan's supporters.

So, his mother charges him with painting the house, the principal charges him with singing and playing a rendition of her favorite song (Crossing the River Styx) at this year's graduation, David Cosgrove charges him with writing a book telling the WWII story, Agnes charges him with playing lute for her, and his friends (his thicks) charge him with returning to the land of the living.

"Golden-haired Telemachus -- Achilles on a skateboard, Socrates of the alleys. Always skating and pickin' his guitar, sometimes both at the same time. Always jacking us up, making us feel we could be mayors and rock stars. Even poets."Telly was sunlight. Blond and blue."I am darkness. Shades of gray and sepia."

ADIOS, NIRVANA is a bit like road rash. It rakes you raw; gets under your skin; and leaves a few shards stuck permanently in your elbow.

It is well worth the trip.

Richie Partington, MLIS
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