Vacation

Vacation was my first foray into the bizarro fiction genre. I wasn't sure what to expect when starting this book, but soon realized that all expectations simply fly out the window anyway. Bernard Johnson, a 35-year-old English teacher decides (in an early-mid-life-crisis kind of way) to spend the next year of his life "finding himself" during a government sponsored world Vacation. On this Vacation, Bernie meets up with a beautiful woman who used to be one of his male students; is visited by his dead sister; and finds himself dumped into an alternate reality where the ultimate battle for truth and freedom is unfolding. Hold on for the ride of your life, the twists and turns never end and constantly leave the reader having to reshuffle what they think is real and what is a dream. This expertly crafted story manages to be both phenomenally deep and highly entertaining all at the same time.

Jeremy Shipp takes the reader on a psychological head-trip through the eyes of Bernard Johnson. A thirty-five year old intelligent man with a wild, incredible imagination. Bernard is tormented with his dreams, fantasies, and nightmares. The reader is taken through the door of a magic carpet ride of adventure, but the ride doesn't end there. The ride continues from the magic carpet of fantasy, through the doors of the haunted house of fear. Each reader will be taken through the same journey, but if they dare go a second round, they may experience a completely different feeling than the first ride. Vacation is a thought-provoking, surrealistic first time novel, created into a dark fiction masterpiece. This adventure story through the mind of Johnson is disturbing, provocative, and challenging. Shipp covers every segment of human emotion to perfection, leaving the curious reader in total darkness. Reading Vacation is like watching one of Alfred Hitchcock's brain-teasing movies, where the reader is left confused. This unpredicting story of one man's journey is a powerful, bizzare, roller coaster ride into the human psyche. Vacation demands the reader to begin this journey once again, and for each reader that takes a second ride, Shipp's mission is accomplished. His sole intention is to make sure the reader hasn't missed anything. The reader is left with questions, not answers, and is forced to solve this puzzle of mystery. Is Bernard Johnson battling with depression? Does depression take over? The author draws a fine line between fantasy and reality through the wandering mind of Bernard Johnson, as he struggles out of his comfort zone. I recommend this novel to all readers who enjoy dark fiction, combined with challenge, and suspense. However, one must be as daring as Jodi Foster was in "Silence Of The Lambs." Bear in mind that she was warned, "Don't let Hannibal get into your head!" May I remind you that he was a clever psychiatrist, and she was forced to take that daring risk. Shipp invites his readers to take that risk, while riding that roller coaster of madness through the psychological journey of Vacation, reminding readers that the greatest risk in life is not taking one. Geri Ahearn I.O.M. Author of 6 books Author Geri Ahearn, INC.

Jeremy C. Shipp's debut novel, Vacation, delivers a healthy dose of humor while raising serious questions about the day-to-day life of most Americans. Filled with social criticism and slapstick, the story begins by revealing Bernard Johnson's boredom with his mundane life, which seems similar enough to that of most people, complete with a good job, a loveless relationship, and antidepressants. When Bernard decides to take his Vacation, a year long tour of the world provided to every U.S. citizen, he is kidnapped by terrorists and realizes just how discontented he was with the "American Dream," which he doesn't miss for a minute. Shipp's use of everyday things in creating his strange and frightening dystopia is highly effective. The world of Vacation disconcerts the reader with its eerie similarities to his or her own comfortable life, particularly when things like schools, prescriptions, and time off work form a frightening underworld of which even some of the characters aren't aware. Shipp writes, for example: "It's not only the pharmaceutical companies that benefit from poisoned bodies, its every commercial entity. A healthy body is less likely to succumb to compulsion" (49). Displaying the dark side of the American dream to readers, Shipp's satire is imaginative and provocative. Although the novel is at times dark and disconcerting, the fact that it's written in the first person as a letter to Bernard's parents renders the story heartbreaking and moving. The reader anticipates Bernard's parents' reaction to some of the events described in the novel, and the epistolary form in which this book is written adds additional layers of humor and pathos to the narrative. Shipp writes at the start of the novel, for example: "So this letter. It's not an apology. Not even an explanation as to why your son has abandoned the only home he's ever known [...] I need these words to vacate me, so that I can get on with my life. So that I can say goodbye" (6). References like this appear at key moments in the book, and this bittersweet motif gives the narrative formal unity. Mixing fun, social issues, and heartache, Shipp's novel is a well-rounded and entertaining read. Also rife with literary allusions to such well-known works as Mrs. Dalloway, Frankenstein, and Don Quixote, Jeremy Shipp's novel is a literate, erudite read. These references fit Bernard's character because he teaches English, but they also provide well-read humor and showcase the author's knowledge of the classics. Shipp writes, for example: "This is Don Quixote's psyche. This is TS Eliot's Wasteland library. This is Mrs. Dalloway's party, if she were really Virginia Woolf. This is Noh's room. Towers of books and notebooks clutter every available surface" (49). These literary comparisons form a consistent motif throughout the book, and, like the references to Bernard's parents, give the book a sense of formal unity. Overall, Vacation is a diverse, unpredi

The world has, since the inception - intentional or otherwise - of humankind, always been a dubious plane of existence. You'd be hard-pressed to find an author, poet, artist, musician, politician, holy man, or everyman who has never spoken out concerning the human condition, from the tiniest fib to the most horrific act of genocide. Newspaper columnists, Sunday preachers, eastern philosophers all dissect the meaning of life in their various fashions - but Jeremy Shipp's Vacation, a first-person tour de force that takes place in an alternate universe and / or future-in-the-making, actually takes the human condition and turns it inside out. On the surface, Vacation is about a disgruntled English teacher named Bernard Johnson who goes on Vacation (yes, proper capitalization) with an ex-student, once-male, now-female friend and discovers the world is not what he initially thought it to be. Okay. Simple enough premise - you see it all the time in various forms of literature (well, maybe without the sex change). Peel away that superficial layer, though, and you soon find yourself entangled in a labyrinth of spiritual testing and social commentary unflinchingly portrayed by Shipp's characters. In this world, society exists in two major flavors: the Tics and the Meeks, the former being the well-to-dos of the industrialized nations, the latter being the poor, the exiled. Using this metaphor, it quickly becomes obvious the Tics are our own pop culture, the pill-popping, credit-card-wielding, overfed, and over-stimulated masses who have been shielded from the terrible truths of the world in a sort of global propaganda scheme to bolster big business. The Meeks are, well, everyone else - a grassroots conglomerate of militants who have cleansed their bodies and minds of all social poisons. Somewhere in between is the Garden, an external haven lead by Noh, who seeks to seed truth back into the world, one mind at a time. Bernard's adventure plays out in the classic escapist fashion - on crack. Indeed, much of his transformation has to do with the altering of his mind, the skewering of his perspective, so that he may glimpse the dream he's been living from the outside. He goes on Vacation, falls in love, becomes a tool for the Meeks, and ultimately helps to realize Noh's vision of social revolution - but don't expect any of this to be A-B-C, for the strength of Shipp's narrative lies in his ability to toss the ball to his characters and trust that their decisions, their reactions will guide the story true. The underlying meaning is present throughout, but it is quite obvious from the start that you, the reader, are just as responsible as Bernard in coming to your own conclusions. Shipp's style in Vacation demands an agile approach, as various scenes shift seamlessly between dreams and reality - often without warning. I'm reminded of S.P. Somtow's Riverrun Trilogy: one quarter real, three quarters surreal. Considering the concept, I can't imagine it any other