Too Much of Nothing

Since finishing the book, it has been in my thoughts frequently; it is a gauge against which I compare my own experiences growing up with the characters Moore has created. The author and I grew up in the same area, only a couple of years apart; we attended the same highschool for a couple of overlapping years, and a number of the locations he has so successfully described in the abstract are readily identifiable as "real" locations in our hometown. The imagery that he manages to pull up elicits a gut level comprehension of the Los Angeles climate. Los Angeles is constantly buzzing with activity, a proof of the converse of the adage "still waters run deep." The surface buzz of Los Angeles is sizable, its populace constantly vibrating on the edge of the now and the next, but with limited consideration for what comes after "next," or the past. Los Angeles isn't so much "sunny" as in a state of constant "glare." The sky isn't blue, nor is it often brown with smog; it's usually a matte silver tone -- a color that tends to simply amplify the sun's natural brightness to a dizzying shine that makes things stand out intensely. But over time that glare damages that which it shines upon, simply by its own intensity. Moore's novel is like that as well. As clearly as it depicts the world we lived in, it also has worn some of the polish from it. With regard to another review that posits that deviation from the norm is what leads to the death of the main character, I read it as the reverse: Eric is brought down because of a critically mistimed attempt at bald honesty. It has less to do with conformity than a lack of emotional tools in youth to deal with difficult situations, or to reason out their consequences.

A fine book that got my attension from the first page. A fun read with great depth.

Moore's first long-form outing certainly doesn't seem like it; he writes with grace and assurance. The Calaveras Beach of Eric Sperling's childhood is realized both poetically and economically, and Eric's friends, classmates and family are realistically drawn, yet still have a certain unearthliness. Anyone who was a teenager in the eighties or later should recognize Moore's unsentimental adolescents with a pang--the shifting allegiances, the social faux pas, the desperation of kids on the brink of adulthood trying to make a place for themselves. I didn't expect to be drawn in or held as closely as I was; too many coming-of-age stories focus on shock without substance, but such is not the case here at all. Looking forward to more from this author.

A hybrid coming-of-age/ghost story set in the fictional town of Calaveras Beach. The story of Eric's (the narrator's) hapless young rebellion in suburban L.A. may remind some readers of Julian Barnes' Metroland; his misadventures in L.A.'s underground circa 1983 will remind other people of Denis Johnson; and the ghost narrative will inevitably be compared to The Lovely Bones -- except that Too Much of Nothing is much funnier and less sentimental.

I grew up in the environment Moore describes and can confirm that he has captured it perfectly -- but brought its shallowness into a clarity that I sure didn't see growing up. Moore is biting and funny, nostalgic and sad all at once, and he performs a brilliant trick of sneaking a looming dread into a narrative bright with the glare of upper-middle-class sunniness. Just as nice is his creation of complex, true-to-life characters and a beach town that seems to bleed off the pages of the book, like Altman movies seem to have a life outside the camera's eye: You get a sense that there's much more going on. You want to come back and keep poking around.