A Key to Treehouse Living

July 1, 2018
An adolescent orphan writes a glossarylike "key" to his life in Reed's astute, experimental, and very affecting debut.William Tyce's key begins with ABSENCE and proceeds in roughly alphabetical order through such terms as BABY MEMORIES, BOATING IN BASEMENTS, COURAGE, FAULTY WISHING, GYPSIES, MORTAL BETRAYAL, and PHILOSOPHY OF NIHILISM. Abandoned by his parents, living in his uncle's mansion in a city in the Midwest, William's life, as he projects it onto these pages, is an eccentrically human alchemy of loneliness, boredom, jealousy, nostalgia, brutality, and folk mythologies; and his insights range from beautifully perceptive ("the brain lives on patterns the way a blade of grass lives on sunlight") to darkly humorous ("put a nail through a lemon, whip it out the window of a treehouse, bean a kid with it--that kid will probably move on"). We learn that BETTA FISH "can cure you of nightmares if you hold them in your mouth for ten seconds each night before you go to sleep," and that a "Daddy" is "a false authority," and if one tries to climb into your treehouse, you will have to "beat on his fingers with a hammer." Grim? Indeed. There is much darkness in poor William's ledger, especially as--moving down the alphabet--his life veers toward narrative, forsaking the static sadness of his youth. First, William's uncle--"the authority on high-stakes gambling"--is arrested for arson and insurance fraud, leaving him without a caregiver (see LIVING IN BUNKHOUSES FOR GIRLS AND BOYS WHO ARE WARDS OF THE STATE). Then he runs away, living under a bridge and taking up drinking. He feels increasingly like "the world [is] a chaotic soup in which [he's] slowly being boiled." To do something, he eventually builds a raft and casts off downriver (see NEBULOUS PLANS). The life that follows necessitate glossary entries like MYSTICAL VISION, NEAR DEATH, OCCUPANTS OF HOLDING AREAS IN RURAL JAILS, PURPOSE, REVELATION, TEMPTATION, and more--all the way to YONDER, THE WILD BLUE.Crisp and lyrical, emotionally assured, delightfully inventive--Reed has made a marvelous debut.

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July 23, 2018
Orphaned after his mother’s death and his father’s disappearance, William Tyce, the young protagonist of this inventive, illuminating debut set in the rural Midwest, imposes order on the sudden chaos of his life by way of an alphabetical glossary, creating his own definitions for things such as revelation, mullet, and typewriter (“You may be the greatest writer of all time but until you have a typewriter your work will not be taken seriously”). The short, poetic entries track William’s going to live with his gambler uncle, that same uncle’s imprisonment for arson, and William’s ensuing raft journey downriver to find a man, Jim “River” Swift, who may have once known his father. The book’s cumulative effect is much subtler than its allusions to Twain would suggest, with the central narrative mainly serving as a pretense for Reed to examine William’s unique psychology, vocabulary, and worldview. Sections on heavy topics like absence are no less a part of William’s character than those that offer more frivolous descriptions of the gypsy parachute house or icing of cake (“Most arousing part of a cake”). In this novel, Reed offers an impressionistic and profound exploration of self and consciousness.

August 1, 2018
A teenager creates a glossary to chronicle his adventures and catalogue his many losses in Reed's dark yet uplifting debut novel. With his mother dead and his father vanished, young William ends up in the custody of an unreliable uncle and spends his days exploring the woods (see CREATIVE ACQUISITION OF EASY SNACKS ). He avoids DADDIES (any guy who thinks he is an authority figure but is not ), discovers natural phenomena (see COOLER SNAKE ), and contemplates his predicament (see LONELY ). But when his uncle burns down the house and ends up in jail, William strikes out on his own, rafting down the river in search of his father, or perhaps the oblivion promised by the faraway ocean (see NAVIGATING BIG RIVERS BY NIGHT ). Complications follow (see OCCUPANTS OF HOLDING CELLS IN RURAL JAILS ). In framing William's world as a lexicon, Reed allows readers only brief, brutal glimpses at William's pain, nicely balanced with ample humor. But this novel's true joy may be the wonder it radiates about a world as beautiful as it is cruel. (See OVERCOME BY EMOTION. )(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)