Eat the Document: A Novel

This book is an exploration of so many themes of modern life: Alienation, even from one's own identity, the loss of idealism, the rise of consumerism and what it means to fight back against society's norms. Spiotta's observations are eloquent, poignant and dead accurate. In a roundabout way, this book is of a piece with Mary Gaitskill's newest book, "Veronica", only without Gaitskill's icy misanthropy.

Dana Spiotta's novel is satisfying on so many levels. Like her predecessor Don DeLillo, Spiotta manages to create a story that is entertaining, deep, and bold all at once. Special kudos go to her for managing to pull off parallel narratives as seamlessly as she does. On a somewhat more subjective note, this is the ideal novel for anyone who is obsessed with the intersection of popular and underground culture, which is to say many of us. Here's how it works: We see the stories of two generations of resistance culture, both the '60s and '70's hippies and the more punkish subculture of the late '90s. Spiotta, from my vantage, depicts both of these periods spot on, tho' Jason, the son of the fugitive Mary, might be a little more articulate than most any fifteen-year-old I've ever met. Regardless, his obsession with the music of his mother's generation rings true for a mid-adolescent intellectual. His paeans to the Beach Boys are especially compelling. Any fanatic will identify instantly with Jason's reverence for his heroes. It is not only Jason who is too smart for his own good, it is the entire cast of teenagers who hang around Nash Davis's Prairie Fire bookstore, another delightfully-drawn aspect of _Eat the Document_. Miranda, a punker in her late teens who falls for the middle-aged radical Nash, is painted with true emotional depth, perhaps the best portrait of a countercultural woman of the '90s that I've read. She ends up being torn between Nash and the more conventional Josh, someone who is her own age, but who ends up co-opting his more radical impulses to work for "the man." Nash, on the other hand, never gives into the man. Then again, we might question whether he accomplishes anything at all, as tied into creating ludicrous resistance groups out of his bookshop as he is (a few of the humorous examples of the fun that Nash has with acronyms and organizational monikers: SAP [Strategic Aggravation Players and/or Satyagraha by Antinomic Praxis] and the Neo Tea-Dumpers Front). For all the humor here (which by the way is not overdone--like so many other aspects of this book, the humor works in naturally), there are all sorts of wonderful philosophical issues being explored, placing Spiotta near the forefront of her postmodern peers. This book is all about living on borderlines, especially the borderline between popular culture and counterculture, a place that really takes maneuvering, as anyone who has truly experienced the counterculture knows. For all the desire to make new vistas for culture, one can't help but buy Starbucks here and there or like "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys, even though it is the quintessence of pop. To stick with the Beach Boys, they are the perfect figure for this book to explore, as they never completely lost their clean-cut aura, even as Dennis Wilson was hanging around the Manson family. Dana Spiotta mines this seeming anomaly forcefully and shows the humor, wisdom, and pathos that arises fro

Maybe I was a year or two too young and a more peaceful peacenik, but how the characters in this compelling novel were caught up in the urge to fight back and the long term consequences of their actions seemed believable to me. Dana Spiotta brings us back to that time in the late 60's and early 70's that felt like real revolution was just around the corner. Time traveling backwards and forwards we get the story of Mary Whittaker and her radical filmmaker soulmate Bobby. Their protest actions went terribly wrong and they had to disappear into new (separate) identities back in the early seventies. We meet Mary and her son Jason in late 90's Seattle. He's obsessed with the music of the Beach Boys and cyber-protest activities against the new new order (meet the new boss, same as the old boss?) while Mary drinks heavily and sleepwalks through an empty life. Of course her old radical lover Bobby will re-emerge and Jason's aching to fill in the gaps in his Mom's backstory will bear fruit, but it's the landscape of the characters' inner lives that propels "Eat the Document" forward. Can music mean as much to today's adolescents as it did to us? When music, politics and altering one's consciousness were intertwined like vines atacking the flagpole of state. I think Ms. Spiotta understands that and Jason's Beach Boys obsession rather than the more obvious Seattle bands like Nirvana or Pearl Jam is well-placed irony as fewer bands seemed less interested in the tumult of their era than the Beach Boys. The writing is lyrical and knowing and the obscure details of popular culture, such as the book's title reference to a little remembered unreleased Dylan film, resonate throughout. The whole thing drew me in from the start. It helped me to have been there, but read it no matter whether you lived through some of these times or not and you'll be glad you did.

Eat the Document is about hippie activists in hiding, yes, but it is also about longing and loss, identity and authenticity, and the inescapability of destiny. With astounding detail, Spiotta is equally rhapsodic on the fads and follies of two generations of countercultural rebels, but spares neither her sharp eye for hypocrisy, futility, and misplaced desires. All of this she accomplishes with searing wit, virtuosic joy in language, and ultimately, real sensitivity for lives lived on the run. A sweeping, stunning book, from a writer who is beyond smart and who is just hitting her stride. Masterful.