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NoVA
The shocking suicide of a seventeen-year-old boy reveals hidden societal violence and dysfunctions that have been dramatically affecting his Virginia hometown, in a tale told through the perspectives of the victim's family members, classmates, and strangers. By the author of MVP. 35,000 first printing.
- GenresFiction
320 pages, Hardcover
First published December 30, 2008
2 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
James Boice
11 books15 followersNovels, short stories. The Good and the Ghastly, MVP NoVA, Esquire, McSweeney’s, Fiction, Salt Hill. NYC. Boston. Cambridge. Northern Virginia. www.jamesboice.com
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 19, 2009
This is not the car or the TV science show. It is northern Virginia. A different world altogether than where most people live, given its location so close to D.C. It starts out with the suicide by hanging of a 17 year old junior in high school. It goes on to describe the lives of him and his family , and of his friends and their families. If you don't like raw sex talk and the use of "fuck" as a noun verb adjective or any other part of speech, and are queazy about the use of just about every kind of illegal substance(Michael Phelps is a saint compared to these teens), this is not for you. It is stream of consciousness, but not of the unreadable kind like "Ulysses". And it can be, at times, almost poetic. I give it an A/A-.
January 10, 2009
James Boice’s novel NoVA is a harsh, beautiful worm’s-eye view of a contemporary America in the process of slow collapse, and possibly the best — the most fully realized, inventive and emotionally plangent — novel to appear in the last five years. Boice, who is only 26, combines an astonishing capacity for empathetic imagination with the ruthless eye of a documentarian, and he nails his consumer-glutted suburban wasteland and its deadening banality with complete authority.
NoVA — the acronym stands for Northern Virginia — opens with the suicide of a troubled teen named Grayson Donald, who hangs himself from the rim of a playground basketball hoop late one night. Boice sidesteps the potential cliché of this setup by eschewing a straightforward narrative in favor of a widening circle of alternating narrators, where Grayson’s mental deterioration becomes one thread in a kaleidoscopic tapestry of lives utterly drained of meaning by affluence, boredom, pornography, video games, fast food and mall culture. The perspectives of the other characters, including Grayson’s retired military father, his schoolteacher mother, a pair of their smug boomer neighbors and a thuggish teen slacker, are all conveyed through canny use of the free indirect style, that most slippery of narrative techniques. The only off note in this symphony of voices comes from the author’s attempt at inhabiting the lives of a group of itinerant Salvadoran gang members, whose cameo-like rampage feels both misplaced and superfluous. There is no need to import violence and despair into James Boice’s Centreville.
The author’s Wolfean eye for sociological detail, his unerring understanding of cars, music, clothing, prices, brands — all the endless crud and flash of contemporary American consumerism — is more than just picture-making or contextual authenticity. Writers from Flaubert to John Updike have understood that a fulgent style wedded to sordid subject matter is a basic version of the aesthetic experience; almost nowhere in recent fiction does this experience receive as forceful an expression as in NoVA. This profane, caustic, despairing book transforms its subject matter through the sheer dogged accuracy of its impressions and the beauty of its language. Look around you, it seems to say; you may not like what you see, but it can’t be denied. From THE L MAGAZINE, December 24 2008
NoVA — the acronym stands for Northern Virginia — opens with the suicide of a troubled teen named Grayson Donald, who hangs himself from the rim of a playground basketball hoop late one night. Boice sidesteps the potential cliché of this setup by eschewing a straightforward narrative in favor of a widening circle of alternating narrators, where Grayson’s mental deterioration becomes one thread in a kaleidoscopic tapestry of lives utterly drained of meaning by affluence, boredom, pornography, video games, fast food and mall culture. The perspectives of the other characters, including Grayson’s retired military father, his schoolteacher mother, a pair of their smug boomer neighbors and a thuggish teen slacker, are all conveyed through canny use of the free indirect style, that most slippery of narrative techniques. The only off note in this symphony of voices comes from the author’s attempt at inhabiting the lives of a group of itinerant Salvadoran gang members, whose cameo-like rampage feels both misplaced and superfluous. There is no need to import violence and despair into James Boice’s Centreville.
The author’s Wolfean eye for sociological detail, his unerring understanding of cars, music, clothing, prices, brands — all the endless crud and flash of contemporary American consumerism — is more than just picture-making or contextual authenticity. Writers from Flaubert to John Updike have understood that a fulgent style wedded to sordid subject matter is a basic version of the aesthetic experience; almost nowhere in recent fiction does this experience receive as forceful an expression as in NoVA. This profane, caustic, despairing book transforms its subject matter through the sheer dogged accuracy of its impressions and the beauty of its language. Look around you, it seems to say; you may not like what you see, but it can’t be denied. From THE L MAGAZINE, December 24 2008
September 20, 2009
There should be a "didn't actually read" option. The writing style was ridiculously choppy, and the other seemed incapable of putting words in the correct order, or at least using some commas.
Beginning of a new paragraph: "Good broad ledges that were flat and good for candles and small cute wicker baskets bedded with wood shavings on top of which were placed mini soaps shaped like barnyard animals and seashells and wrapped in plastic and also little bottles of bubble baths and bath salts and boxes of soap beads..."
The sentence goes on like that for three more lines. Run-on sentence, anyone?
Anyway. I wish Boice had a sense of grammar, because the idea of the book seemed interesting.
Beginning of a new paragraph: "Good broad ledges that were flat and good for candles and small cute wicker baskets bedded with wood shavings on top of which were placed mini soaps shaped like barnyard animals and seashells and wrapped in plastic and also little bottles of bubble baths and bath salts and boxes of soap beads..."
The sentence goes on like that for three more lines. Run-on sentence, anyone?
Anyway. I wish Boice had a sense of grammar, because the idea of the book seemed interesting.
August 28, 2009
Boice uses the same bag of tricks as "MVP" — the "conclusion" comes at the start of the book, the backstory follows. His depiction of suburban Washington D.C. is dead-on. (Part of the reason I picked this book up is my grandfather lived in Fairfax, VA up until about 2003. I used to spend time there every summer.) Boice is, again, spot-on with his depiction of place. Ending felt a little disappointing.
March 18, 2016
Dark, cynical and as one reviewer said very aptly:" a worm s eye view of the world. Not for anybody intimidated or put off by profanity, drug use, various degrees of perversity. A complete downer yet a very talented writer in my view. A book that I actually said:"Whew,I'm glad it's over" when I finished. Need something more uplifting now.
February 4, 2009
Review on the way.
April 6, 2009
I had the hardest time getting into this book, it just was not working for me. I stopped halfway through, the writing style was a trainwreck.
April 17, 2009
awesome. 'nuff said.
May 26, 2011
Awful!
January 16, 2013
Brillant.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews