Impossible Vacation

"I just accepted that as a part of my life, accepted that forever I would always be a little in the place that I was not.." With that begins the melancholic search of meaning for the main character of the book Brewster North. After having received a monkey mask from his uncle's adventures in Bali at a tender age of 5, Brewster longs for that Impossible Vacation. Knowing for a fact that wherever he goes he can't escape the ghosts of his past, present and future. The book is beautifully written and at times the voice of the narrator Brewster comes to take you over and it feels as if you're there watching his painful time on Earth. The closests I can think of is Holden Caulfield in Cathcher in the Rye, but unlike Holden he is searching for a place he knows he can find but yet leaves it as it is, a longing. Brewster takes the reader on this unique trip around the world, where he not only goes to various groups to learn new things but to enjoy those painful moments of longing to be where the soul really wants to be. The problem is that Brewster's soul is restless and madness boils in him and he is disillusioned by mankind, the world, the people around him and yet he still has that hope to find peace somewhere in the crazy world. I must admit that pain Brewster suffered comes close to all the pain one must deal with on this world; all the people that come in your life and go, the search of belonging, and finally to rest it out, will bring hope to many who read this book. The madness, the vignettes of Brewster's thoughts on suicide at a young age, saving bugs, walking stoned while starring at a sea of bright stars, and to the smiles and dark figures he meets in every part of the world is something to look forward to in every page. He sees smiles, groups of people, people ice skating and he sees himself as a the landscape being bigger than his whole self. In all this book is highly recommended for that restless mad soul, or anyone who wants to escape that happiness for awhile and face the truth of reality on this world. The book is not for the close minded or people that get offended easily, its filled with raunchy scenes, but in all a book that is intelligent and dark as the narrator himself. What a guy!"If I was out in the world I could only be in one place with one sunset, but HERE I could skip from Provincetown to Santa Cruz to Alaska to India and follow the sun around the world......" -Brewster North

Even if you've never read or heard any of Spalding Gray's monologues (Monster in a Box and so on) like me (I plan to remedy this soon!), you will love this book if you like semi-autobiographical fiction or memoir types of books. By the end of the book, you will understand better what makes Spalding Gray who he is today. I summarized excerpts of this book to my fiance who *has* read and heard some of his monologues in person and he kept laughing and saying it was so autobiographical a work... In short, Brewster North, the main character, is a thinly-disguised alter ego of Gray himself.The novel is comic in parts (for example, the author's hilarious description of Brewster North's experiences in a Zen ashram in India) and tenderly tragic in other places--his mother's descent into madness and her subsequent suicide along with its effects on him. We feel the pathos right along with Brewster right as he experiences it in the novel. Gray portrays a character who has an interesting and checkered life and we want to keep reading to find out what happens to him all the way to the end. The author also makes the book an easy read as he can tell a story well and make the experiences vivid for the reader in his descriptions and rendering of dialogue.The only reason I don't give the book a 5-star rating is because it almost seeemed too cluttered with vignette after vignette of various travel and life experiences. Gray should have spent more time exploring the main theme of the novel--that it is impossible for the main character to really take a vacation from the complexities of his life even though he really wants to. And I think Gray drives this point home most effectively with Brewster's trip to India (I think the Mexico trip could have been condensed more with the focus centering on the fact that the trip is when he learned of his mother's suicide. He could have left the other events of that trip out.) Gray should also have spent more time exploring the impact of the mother's suicide on the main character as that seems to be at the center of Brewster's thoughts in the novel--trying to work out the implications of his relationship with his mother in his life over time, particularly after she dies.

Spalding Gray brings his hyper-self reflective, kenetic, neurotic style to a novel. Autobiographical fact jousts with fabrication in this quenticential candid Grayfest. This work illuminates much of Spalding's earlier works and may (or may not) answer, to some degree, the question "What makes this guy tick?" Word to the wise.... expect the unexpected. Not for the prudish or the easily shocked. Enjoy!

Spalding Gray's years-long odyssey spent writing this semi-autobiographical novel was such a life-altering struggle that he wrote and performed the monologue "Monster in a Box" to describe it. The "monster" was the pages and pages of rewrites and edits that the notably neurotic Gray labored over, and thank goodness he didn't give up. This sharp, funny, poignant book is so well-written, it sounds like it was a breeze to put on paper. But everywhere it is peppered with priceless gems that are marks of near-genius. I can't quote any, because I lent my marked-up copy to a friend years ago, and, not surprisingly, never got it back! Gray's story of a Rhode Island youth losing his mother and then learning to cope with growing up, moving on and growing older was a life-altering book for me to read as it was for Gray to write. From trying to drive to Provincetown as a teenager and never making it, to the seamier sides of Europe, to a long-term relationship back in New York, the author, known for his quirky monologues on his own life (this is his first work of "fiction"), keeps us hooked with his clear honesty in brilliantly short, witty phrases. This book actually makes the old cliche true: "I laughed, I cried." At the risk of sounding sacriligious, I call this book my bible. And I haven't even had a copy in hand for years! It's unforgettable. And, yes, I have a new copy on order