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Lowboy (2009)

by John Wray(Favorite Author)

3.17 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0374194165 (ISBN13: 9780374194161)

languge

English

genre

Young Adult Fiction

publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

review 1: This was a novel written by someone with not only a passion for the literary, but a well of knowledge about the New York subway system, as well as mental illness, and an incredible attention to detail. Lowboy is Will Heller, a paranoid schizophrenic 16 year old boy who has broken out of his mental institution and now on the lam in New York. As he encounters the quirky and odd characters hidden in plain sight on the streets and in the tunnels of New York, he is on a quest to save the world from global warming, a disaster that he believes can only be stopped if he were to lose his virginity. This Holden Caufield-esque tale is told parallel (in brief and easy to digest chapters) to the complex relationship between Heller's immigrant mother, and the concerned police detective ... moretrying to stop Lowboy before he hurts himself or others. It's a really fascinating and often dark adventure that unfolds between Lowboy's mind, and the world he lives in. A really enjoyable read.
review 2: My favorite thing about this appropriately tightly focused novel of a schizophrenic in his end days on the lam is the young man's visions of the expressions of the people he encounters in the subway, his preferred domain, and of his one friend, the ever-morphing "special problem," Emily. It's as if certain senses had been turned off to allow others to flame up. Lowboy's insights have a poetic rightness about them. They remind me of Stephen Crane's tactile impressionism in "The Red Badge of Courage," in which the soldiers' view of the battle at hand is enpurpled--by propaganda if not paranoia---partial, and eerily exact. less

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