This odd novel mixes a young teen
boy’s sexuality with a baffling mysticism. 
It is set during a summer vacation on a small island where
thirteen-year-old Jason’s Aunt Lee has a beach house. He and his mother join his aunt and her crude boyfriend Greg;
Jason spends much of his time cycling around the island, trying to get glimpses
of girls undressing, talking in online chat rooms, playing computer games,
communicating with his friend Phil through the Internet and the phone, and
masturbating. He spends the rest of his
time meeting random people and thinking about a strange stone he has come
across that may have magical powers. 
Within the text, we get short chapters from a science fiction/hard
boiled detective story Jason has written, and some sort of stream of
consciousness poetry that may be an attempt to represent Jason’s thoughts.

Hertle writes well enough to keep
the reader turning the pages, and the diversity of formats – first person
narration, chat room scripts, Jason’s novel, bad poetry, and newspaper
clippings – stops the work from becoming boring. There may be some deeper meaning to the novel, since it contains
plenty of reference to debates about God, the Universe, prophecies, and the
fate of humankind. But it’s unlikely
the reader will be inclined to try to solve the riddle behind the novel, given
that it just does not seem that it is worth the effort. Like its hero, the novel feels adolescent in
its style and goals. The characters are
two dimensional and the mysticism is half-baked. The novel is at its best when it is sexual and in the science
fiction novel, because those parts have the most energy and succeed best in
keeping the reader’s attention.

© 2003 Christian Perring. All rights reserved.

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is
Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island, and editor
of Metapsychology Online Review. His main research is on philosophical
issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Fiction