Boarded Windows

March 5, 2012
In his protagonist, musician-writer Hicks presents Wade, a slacker wading through life with little concern for consequences—or people. In Minneapolis, he shows up on the doorstep of the unnamed narrator who abandoned him after being his pseudo-stepfather for several years in late-’70s North Dakota, intent on couch surfing until he can get his act together. Meanwhile the narrator, worried about his houseguest’s intentions, stays busy working fulltime at a downtown record store. Eventually, Wade, an egocentric musician and drug peddler, offers intricate pieces of his and the narrator’s pasts, adding dramatic tension and atmospheric texture to an unhurried narrative buttressed by longing and loneliness. Woven in are reflective flashbacks about the narrator’s mother; a band called Bolling Greene; and the disjointed childhood that created the “cold, passive, and evasive” person he’s become. Glacially paced yet nuanced with fluid prose and a pensive, melancholy undercurrent, Hicks incrementally details Wade’s insinuation into the lives of the narrator and his wife, spilling stories of adoption and missed opportunities that threaten everyone’s happiness. Hicks composed and performed a companion soundtrack for this debut.

April 15, 2012
Hicks delivers a postmodern novel likely to appeal to a segment of sophisticated 21st-century readers. The unnamed narrator was born to a drug-addled woman, Martha, who gave him up to her girlfriend Marleen for adoption. Wade, who is into music and drug-dealing, lives with Marleen and serves as a sort-of stepfather (and perhaps biological father) to said narrator (let's call him S.N.). Wade plans to go to Berlin to become a DJ. S.N. has many orgasms. Wade goes to Berlin. Story ends. Oversimplified? Yes, but not by much. Do not expect a plot. Interspersed with flashes of brilliant writing, this book is a page-turner only in the let's-get-this-over-with sense of the phrase. S.N. isn't a bad person, but who cares about his sexual activities (they're not even exploits)? Who cares that Wanda wants him to ejaculate for target practice? For almost half a page, S.N. plays with a pile of his dandruff and loose hair, imagining them to be comets and stars. Surprisingly, that brings this review to something positive. Hicks is a terrific writer who can craft a simile with the best of them. Some of his wordplay makes the read almost worth the while ("icicles hanging from its grille like drool from a Saint Bernard"), but then he gets artsy, filling pages with erudite references that seem designed only to impress. The main issue isn't his writing but his storytelling. Readers expect a progression: S.N. wants something important (other than sex, which is much too easy). He encounters obstacles and shows his mettle by how he faces them. An antagonist has conflicting wants. Ultimately, S.N. either triumphs or fails, and we see what, besides testicular tissue, he is made of. Read this book to admire Hicks' mastery of language, for the titillating sexual references and for the interesting characters. But if you want a story with a point, Hicks misses the target.

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April 15, 2012
Pop-music references pepper the pages of Hicks' ambitious debut about the prickly relationship between a father and son. Like Rob Fleming in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity (1995), the son (who remains nameless throughout) is a record-store employee with a lackluster life. The story revolves around his efforts to make peace with his father, Wade Salem, a country musician and supremely shifty character who has been an inconsistent presence in his life. In the course of the novel, the son uncovers painful truths about his birth mother, Martha (who died of an overdose); his adoptive mother, Marleen; and Salem, who may or may not be his biological father. He also tries to maintain romantic relationships of his own but always seems to end up in over his head. Of his longtime girlfriend, stand-up comedian Wanda, he says: I wasn't intellectual enough for her . . . or my intellectualism was the sort requiring a humbling prefix. Songwriter, writer, and musician Hicks makes up for a slightly lukewarm plot with polished prose that is witty and smart.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)