Brad ListiReviews
Author of Attention. Deficit. Disorder.: A Novel
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Reviews
Be Brief and Tell Them Everything by Brad Listi
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Narshkite | Oct 3, 2022 | Twenty three year old Wayne Fencer narrates events of the last year (2000) following the news that his former girl friend Amanda committed suicide, a year in which he struggles to come to terms with the tragedy and his conscience. It is an ordeal made all the more difficult as he learns from Amada’s friends that she was pregnant by him. Wayne embarks on an odyssey that will occupy him for that next year which take him to Mexico, Cuba and a marathon trek along the Appalachians; somehow he hopes to find some answers.
This is well a written novel which follows an interesting format in which the narrative is frequently interspersed with factual snippets and relevant word definitions; a device which at times I felt interrupted the flow of the story unnecessarily. Sometimes the facts spill over into the narrative when real people or events are woven into the story.
However I was left wondering for some time where this story was going, and if I had not consulted the blurb on the back cover would probably have been wondering even longer, for initially it seems to lack any positive direction. It was not a story which gripped me, and I think the frequent digressions into the realms of fact did not help. Wayne is a likeable enough character, caring and unassuming; but the whole story hangs on him, other characters do not play significant roles, or if they do there are only there briefly.
Film buffs may well enjoy it for the frequent references to the world of the cinema; Wayne is a graduate of The University of Colorado where he attended film school. However while it proved to be a pleasant enough read it is not a book I would go out of my way for.
This is well a written novel which follows an interesting format in which the narrative is frequently interspersed with factual snippets and relevant word definitions; a device which at times I felt interrupted the flow of the story unnecessarily. Sometimes the facts spill over into the narrative when real people or events are woven into the story.
However I was left wondering for some time where this story was going, and if I had not consulted the blurb on the back cover would probably have been wondering even longer, for initially it seems to lack any positive direction. It was not a story which gripped me, and I think the frequent digressions into the realms of fact did not help. Wayne is a likeable enough character, caring and unassuming; but the whole story hangs on him, other characters do not play significant roles, or if they do there are only there briefly.
Film buffs may well enjoy it for the frequent references to the world of the cinema; Wayne is a graduate of The University of Colorado where he attended film school. However while it proved to be a pleasant enough read it is not a book I would go out of my way for.
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presto | 6 other reviews | Apr 25, 2012 | This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
I've always been fascinated by American bildungsroman for one reason - despite a lifelong fascination with American culture I've never really 'got' them. I can understand the why and how but I've never connected with them, perhaps because I've grown up in the superficially similar but actually drastically different UK culture - maybe it's just that I never enjoyed Catcher in the Rye and that put me off completely. Maybe it's that I suspect most of them of being thinly veiled autobiography or wish fulfilment. Or maybe it's that I usually find these narrators as solipsistic at the start as they were at the end, defeating the point really. Similarly, I've never been particularly enamoured of road novels in general - again, a big part of American culture but something that doesn't play as significant a role in a relatively small country.This book's essentially a tale of the year in a life of Wayne Fencer following the suicide of an ex-girlfriend. Her suicide and the revelation she aborted his child shakes him up and causes him to re-evaluate his life over the course of a year, doing the modern equivalent of dropping out. It's the story of how he comes to terms with her death and the existential aimlessness of those who come out of the top end of the educational system without a clear idea of where to go next. In keeping with the narrator's state of mind, it's often fragmented and disjointed, searching for meaning. To enhance that point it starts with a series of often contradictary quotes and often resorts to dictionary definitions relating to situations in the text, demonstrating that they don't always demonstrate the full meaning of any situation. The point of the novel seemed to be that we can only understand the world or make it mean anything from our own perspective - only we can answer the eternal question of what life means, since meaning is different for everyone. Trouble is that isn't really a satisfying conclusion to a novel, but then the point really lies in the journey, and that goes ever on meaning that the ending seems slightly arbitrary with the initial situation not truly resolved (although it's clear he's made progress on this).
Grappling with a fairly heavyweight question might make it sound like hard going; it isn't. Listi's adopted style is eminently readable and the short chapters, while emphasising the narrator's magpie state of mind, make it a quick read even for those with the titular mental condition.
I couldn't escape that same feeling I've always had with the American bildungsroman though, it's almost a modern native ritual that was never particularly relevant to me culturally. It's an interesting insight into that culture but never really went beyond interesting into gripping. It's a fine debut from Listi, albeit one that covers well worn ground, and now his mandatory rites of passage novel is out of the way I'm interested to see where he goes next.
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JonArnold | 6 other reviews | Jul 13, 2008 | This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
I received this book through Early Reviewers. It took a a good while to arrive. I really struggled with this book - it was very bitty and made me feel a bit like I had ADD!! In the end I gave up on it!
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dom20 | 6 other reviews | Jul 12, 2008 | This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
Very good for a first attempt. I'll put a proper review here soon.*and here it is*
Yes. Very good. I actually found it very easy reading which makes a change as I don't have much concentration at the moment. Maybe the choppy style and short chapters suits my short attention span. It's a book about a character who has just left uni and is trying to figure out where his life is going, doing dead-end jobs and killing time before he works out where he's going. Then his ex, who it later turns out was expecting his baby, commits suicide. The rest of the book is about his journey to make sense of this event and also make sense of where his life is going. In a sense the story is not really a story, it's just about someone working some stuff out about their life. We've all been there which I think is where the book's appeal lies - it's about identifying with a character. I think new authors often struggle to draw believable characters but this guy pretty much nailed it in this one. The lead is not glamorised. He has the same frailties and doubts that I'm sure we all suffer from. When he does ecstasy for the first time the people that he's with all look brilliant to him but later on the comedown it all loses it's shine. These are examples of how the character is realistic. In the end there are no real answers or happy endings but the character has changed - grown up a bit - in the time that the book covers. I'll definitely be looking out for this author in the future.½
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neiljohnford | 6 other reviews | Jul 10, 2008 | This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
The story of a man trying to figure out who he is and how much he wants to be connected to his past.The book takes numerous tangents, often brief dictionary definitions, and occasionally longer detours, all of which are fascinating, and don't, I believe, detract from the book as a whole.
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HughMacdonald | 6 other reviews | Jun 23, 2008 | This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
An interesting debut from Brad Listi. The book narrates the journey, both emotional and physical, of Wayne Fencer as he comes to terms with his ex-girlfriend's suicide. Travelling throughout the USA, his encounters with people along the way are written in an engaging fashion, though like another reviewer, I disliked the interruption of the dictionary definitions within the text.
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floriferous | 6 other reviews | Jun 10, 2008 | This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
This book is all about self-discovery and dealing with grief. As it begins, Wayne Fencer is on his way to an ex-girlfriend's funeral. She has killed herself. The relationship didn't end well and he feels bad about this, but it's been 3 years and as far as he/we're concerned, they've both moved on. During the course of the funeral/wake, he discovers that she had an abortion while they were seeing each other. Even while he doesn't fully acknowledge this, the whole situation knocks him for six. He cashes everything in and fundamentally spends the following year sorting himself out, which is the root of the book.I found this very believable. I identified hugely with Wayne and the prose, throughout, was just right in its style somehow, it completely reflects his feelings - particularly to begin with. It's very disjointed, you can feel just how spaced he feels - you can see he's in shock, even though he doesn't realise it. It's a pretty honest book, showing all the warts. A comment has been made, that they didn't see how this was different from any college graduate's right of passage (or words to that effect). I disagree with this completely. There is an element of truth in that most/many people have the same disorientation when they leave school/college/university - the loss of focus and all that, but I don't think it's quite the same. I've been there and for me, his complete non-dealing and avoidance of what happened was all too real. One of the major strenghs of this book for me was the way in which it showed his reaction to the whole situation.
That said, although the book starts well and is very readable, it doesn't ever really progress and to be quite honest, it just peters out in the end. It tries to end in a self-revelation, but doesn't really make it and I just wish the author had hung about a bit longer and made something better of it.
A by-the-way point - the blurb on the back of the book is misleading (as it so often is).½
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flissp | 6 other reviews | Jun 1, 2008 | Links
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