A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip

March 24, 2014
Novelist Brockmeier (The Illumination) experiments with the memoir form as he guides readers through the 12th year of his life in this finely tuned portrait of a tween growing up in suburban Little Rock, Ark. in 1980s. Narrated in the third person, Brockmeier reflects on the sensitive kid he once was: "the kid who crie too easily" and was constantly concerned with social norms, Kevin cannot help but draw attention to himself. When Kevin is blindsided by former friends who become his teasing tormentors, he escapes into a science fiction-esque alternate universe. The confusion and anguish of the scenario is captured astutely by Brockmeier, who describes the school setting vividly with its "lockers crashing shut like cymbals," "Levis, Izods and bomber jackets," and "vending machines with their coils of chips and candy." This genre-spanning work is short on plot but bursting with eloquence, a striking slice of life aching with nostalgia. Agent: Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

February 1, 2014
A portrait of the author as a seventh-grader who's a little more sensitive but otherwise not much different than most. In his acknowledgements, novelist Brockmeier (The Illumination, 2011, etc.) categorizes this as an "odd little memoir-novel-thing," which serves as an apt description. It is a coming-of-puberty account of the seventh-grade school year, one that finds friends turning to bullying, acquaintances becoming friends and girls remaining unattainable. "Kevin is good with stories and always has been," he writes of the protagonist of this narrative, the only character who is fully developed; he's as self-conscious as most adolescents are during a stage of such tumultuous change. He has spent the summer with his father and returns to the home he shares with his mother and brother to find that everything has changed: music, slang, activities, allegiances. Of course, that will all change and change again, and those he considered his friends will ridicule him the most, finding "the softest tools they can use to hurt him," a milder form of what would now be recognized as bullying. "He has always been the kid who cries too easily and laughs too easily," writes Brockmeier, but "he is trying hard not to be him anymore, that kid." The pivotal chapter takes the nonfictional form of magical realism, anticipating Kevin's future, putting his (then) present crises in perspective and offering him a choice that could change the course of his existence. Otherwise, it's a book about coming to terms, accepting that "it's too late for you to become a different person. You'll never be tall, and you'll never be strong." But he will become a writer, which is what he was even back then. Often charming, occasionally moving, but mainly a book about not much that hasn't happened to pretty much everyone and which pretty much everyone has survived.

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July 1, 2014

Gr 7 Up-Brockmeier here candidly shares his seventh grade memories in the third person. Middle schooler Kevin Brockmeier is growing up in 1980s Little Rock, Arkansas. Friends are more important to Kevin than his family, which consists of his divorced parents and a brother, Jeff. Most of his memories involve his friends and educators from the Central Arkansas Christian Academy (CAC) that he attends. Kevin describes himself as a sensitive, scrawny guy seeking anonymity, but when he dresses as Dolly Parton for Halloween and performs "Hot for Teacher" at a school assembly, he finds himself in the CAC spotlight, and a target for jokes and ridicule. Still, Kevin's creativity and intelligence find ingenious outlets and do not go unnoticed. Kirby Heyborne effectively narrates this coming-of-age tale and executes Brockmeier's message in the circuitous routes the writing takes. This work may find a home in some young adult collections, but will be better received by an adult audience.-Mary Lee Bulat, Harwinton Public Library, CT

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2014
In three acclaimed novels and two story collections, Brockmeier (The Illumination, 2011) earned his reputation as a literary virtuoso attuned to the illusory facets of everyday life. His rollicking first memoir, centered on his formative year in the seventh grade, affirms his talents and explores their foundations. Twelve-year-old Kevin kicks off the school year eavesdropping on a crush and becoming the butt of jokes during an all-school weekend sleepaway, initiating a turbulent year in which he determines he's a Night Court guy, shows up at his Christian school dressed as Dolly Parton for Halloween, discovers the possibilities of literature, and tastes the brief satisfaction of celebrity after staging a play. Narrating in feverish third-person prose that accentuates his clumsy steps toward adulthood, Brockmeier examines the false intimacy of first kisses, the variable definitions of best friend, the unexpected ways jokes can escalate, and the absurd lengths one sometimes goes to impress others. In a hilariously vivid, novelistic chronicle of the mid1980s, Brockmeier nails the awkward triumphs and life-affirming disasters of teenagedom, revealing the creative significance of what might otherwise seem banal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)