The Every Boy

I picked up Dana Shapiro's "The Every Boy" because Tom Perrotta's review on the cover called the story "Salingeresque." Maybe this set my expectations to high, but I found "The Every Boy" to fall short of Salinger's raw insights into the human experience. Shapiro tries to make profound statements about humanity, but often tries too hard--some of his themes seem too forced, with Shapiro shoving metaphors down the reader's throat.

"'When did everything get so big...Remember eleven? Remember how little everything was?'" -Dana Adam Shapiro,  The Every Boy

This is not to say "The Every Boy" was not an enjoyable read. The characters were lively and their adventures interesting. The story begins with Mr. Every reading his son's, Henry's, journal at Henry's funeral. The rest of the story switches back and forth between the final years of Henry's life and his father's dealing with his son's death. During his life, Henry struggled with his parents' separation, wanting to belong, and young love. At it's core, "The Every Boy" is the tale of adolescence and all of its turmoil, and of making peace after death.

While Henry's adventures are interesting, some of the storylines seem cut oddly short. For example, Henry and his friend Jorden try and put the school bully in her place, but the bully dies in an unrelated incident before their plan can affect her. Shapiro could go into more detail into how the bully's death affected Henry and his classmates, but instead this storyline is dropped and hardly given a second thought.

One of the main issues I had with the story was its desperate quirkiness. The best example of this over-the-top whimsicality is Henry's short-lived romance with a one-handed girl who lives in her father's hotel in the "Monster Mash" themed room and often dresses up as Death. By trying so hard to be unique and whimsical, some of Shapiro's writing is more embarrassing than entertaining.

Shapiro has great promise as a writer. Though his storylines were undeveloped at times, they were engaging and creative. Once Shapiro sharpens his voice and adds more subtlety to his writing, he could birth a great book. I will look out for his work in the future.