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Some Hell
A wrenching and layered debut novel about a gay teen’s coming-of-age in the aftermath of his father’s suicide
Middle school hasn’t been going well for Colin. His teenage sister teases him mercilessly, his autistic brother lashes out at him, and he has a crush on his best friend, Andy. But after the tragic night when his father commits suicide, none of that matters. Diane, his mother, seeks solace in therapy. Colin is awash in guilt, and casts about for someone to confide in: first his estranged grandfather, then a predatory science teacher. But nothing helps as much as the strange writing his father kept in a series of notebooks locked in his study. Colin looks for answers there—in fragments about disaster scenarios, the violence of snow, mustangs running wild in the West—but instead finds the writing infecting his worldview. Diane, meanwhile, has a miserable fling with a coworker, and leans more heavily on Colin for support as things go from bad to worse. But spring is unfolding, and a road trip to Los Angeles gives them a tantalizing glimpse of what the future might hold. In Some Hell, a debut novel of devastating intensity and aching, pointillistic detail, Patrick Nathan shows how unspeakable tragedy shapes a life, and how imagination saves us from ourselves.
Middle school hasn’t been going well for Colin. His teenage sister teases him mercilessly, his autistic brother lashes out at him, and he has a crush on his best friend, Andy. But after the tragic night when his father commits suicide, none of that matters. Diane, his mother, seeks solace in therapy. Colin is awash in guilt, and casts about for someone to confide in: first his estranged grandfather, then a predatory science teacher. But nothing helps as much as the strange writing his father kept in a series of notebooks locked in his study. Colin looks for answers there—in fragments about disaster scenarios, the violence of snow, mustangs running wild in the West—but instead finds the writing infecting his worldview. Diane, meanwhile, has a miserable fling with a coworker, and leans more heavily on Colin for support as things go from bad to worse. But spring is unfolding, and a road trip to Los Angeles gives them a tantalizing glimpse of what the future might hold. In Some Hell, a debut novel of devastating intensity and aching, pointillistic detail, Patrick Nathan shows how unspeakable tragedy shapes a life, and how imagination saves us from ourselves.
288 pages, Paperback
First published February 20, 2018
30 people are currently reading
1229 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Nathan
5 books77 followersPatrick Nathan is the author of Some Hell, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Republic, American Short Fiction, Gulf Coast, The Baffler, and elsewhere. he lives in Minneapolis.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
March 3, 2018
I wanted to love this book, and the fact that I didn't probably marks me as more of a romantic than I want to be. Nathan is a talented writer. Many a sentence struck me as brilliant. The phrase that stuck is, referring to the gay, teenaged protagonist, "his endless short life." But the truth is that I struggled to get through this novel. The main characters—Colin and his mother, and through the journals he left behind after his suicide/murder early in the book, Colin's father—are tortured. It's hard to spend time in their heads. Colin blames himself for his father's death because he loaded the gun, despite the fact that the journals clearly show that Alan had been contemplating the act for a long time. Diane is stuck unable to grieve for a man she wanted to leave.
The narrative digs down into the psyche of these characters more than it moves forward. The only thing that kept me reading was the hope of some relief: of Colin and Diane figuring out a way to continue to live, to allow themselves some happiness. And at the very end, they, briefly, do—Colin explores his sexuality in a seedy part of Los Angeles while Diane has a fling. But a page later, they're both dead in an earthquake/tsunami event. End of book.
Nathan did build in a warning: the opening scene of the novel in which Colin's older sister weirdly predicts that Colin will die in 3 years, a prediction made when she is so high she doesn't seem to remember making it later. But rather than making me feel that satisfaction of completeness at the end of a book, I only wished I hadn't kept reading.
The narrative digs down into the psyche of these characters more than it moves forward. The only thing that kept me reading was the hope of some relief: of Colin and Diane figuring out a way to continue to live, to allow themselves some happiness. And at the very end, they, briefly, do—Colin explores his sexuality in a seedy part of Los Angeles while Diane has a fling. But a page later, they're both dead in an earthquake/tsunami event. End of book.
Nathan did build in a warning: the opening scene of the novel in which Colin's older sister weirdly predicts that Colin will die in 3 years, a prediction made when she is so high she doesn't seem to remember making it later. But rather than making me feel that satisfaction of completeness at the end of a book, I only wished I hadn't kept reading.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 4, 2018
You know you're in trouble when the author thanks someone in the acknowledgments for pointing out to him that his sixth draft was boring. Don't know how many more drafts there were before this reached publication, but I hate to break it to Nathan ... it's STILL pretty boring! To be fair, there are passages here and there that are well-done and intriguing - primarily concerning the young boy Colin and the steps to his sexual awakening ... but a lot of it is enigmatically incomprehensible and it just doesn't hold together well. Most of the sections focusing on the mother, Diane, are not only clichéd, but superfluous. A noble effort, but a mess, nonetheless.
August 26, 2017
I'll need some time to process this one. Truly a descent into darkness and horror, to the private world of grief we can lose ourselves in if we're not careful, with writing that is beautiful and shockingly lucid. Oof.
November 16, 2019
Damn, that was bleak. Easily the most depressing thing I've read all year - which isn't a bad thing, per se, and the writing was achingly beautiful. I just really, really hated the ending.
June 18, 2018
3.5 stars that could have been 5.
I was warned! A booktuber I watch reviewed this book. He spoke in depth about how much he loved the first 2/3 or more of this book, and how the ending completely spoiled it. He was so vociferous. He was so angry. And yet he was also generous and complimentary. Despite his warning I went straight to my Playster app, downloaded the book and started listening.
And here goes... I LOVED the first 2/3 of the book. Actually I loved more than that. But that ending genuinely PISSED ME OFF. Here is the thing: this book was a beautiful exploration of grief, of family dynamics, of guilt, and of issues of internal homophobia experienced by a young person who is dealing with the thought that he might be gay. All of it was treated with compassion and respect. Nathan allowed his characters to struggle and to be pushed around. He gave the story so much depth. But then he ended the story in a way that feels like a punishment. It feels like it was a gay boy being punished for his sins! It felt like a "you shouldn't have done that and now you are going to die" scenario. It felt judgmental, and I was frankly angry and disgusted. As I write I even feel like the 3.5 rating is generous.
I was warned! A booktuber I watch reviewed this book. He spoke in depth about how much he loved the first 2/3 or more of this book, and how the ending completely spoiled it. He was so vociferous. He was so angry. And yet he was also generous and complimentary. Despite his warning I went straight to my Playster app, downloaded the book and started listening.
And here goes... I LOVED the first 2/3 of the book. Actually I loved more than that. But that ending genuinely PISSED ME OFF. Here is the thing: this book was a beautiful exploration of grief, of family dynamics, of guilt, and of issues of internal homophobia experienced by a young person who is dealing with the thought that he might be gay. All of it was treated with compassion and respect. Nathan allowed his characters to struggle and to be pushed around. He gave the story so much depth. But then he ended the story in a way that feels like a punishment. It feels like it was a gay boy being punished for his sins! It felt like a "you shouldn't have done that and now you are going to die" scenario. It felt judgmental, and I was frankly angry and disgusted. As I write I even feel like the 3.5 rating is generous.
November 1, 2018
"Quaint" sums it up, despite such potential to problematize and subvert. Very "safe" first novel by a gay author — odd publisher for this one. This is like a wanna-be St. Aubyn, but for his skill and his satire and his nuance.
February 18, 2019
Poignant with dazzling sections. Might have benefited from some tighter editing in the mid section. Mixed feelings about the ending yet in the long run it kind of made sense. If this is his first novel he clearly shows much promise for things to come.
August 20, 2020
I’m still processing this—I think it’s complicated and maybe won’t work for every reader, but I loved this one
July 8, 2019
This is one of those books where we really don't know what's going to happen next, as we follow Colin and his mother through the aftermath of his father's suicide. What seems like a simple family drama becomes a dark, complicated exploration of survival, love, sexual awakening and the dangerous feelings of abjection that many queer teens face. But this is in no way a story for young adults; punches are not pulled, sexuality is not vague and abstract, and the problems do not resolve in any way one might have hoped or expected. It is by no means a perfect novel nor a perfect world inside a novel. Readers might really be turned off or horrified. And that is one of the great strengths of this book. It's not for grandma. It's not for the neighbors. It's for readers who have walked through fire and who may still be in it. The story might disturb you. But it's a disturbing world, and we need books that challenge our safe words. Guns, blow jobs, drugs, bondage and motherhood--this has it all.
March 27, 2018
A real wrench to read, and yet within days I’d reached the end. There’s something about this portrait of devastation left behind by a tragedy - a portrait drawn by those who have to go on living - which is utterly captivating. Colin’s experience of being a teen (not quite ever) coming to terms with his sexuality whilst navigating the loss of a parent and the general experience of being a teenager at home and at school is masterfully written. So is the author’s coverage of shame, fear and the internalised homophobia that come with that journey, this is a novel I wish someone had written when I was 14.
The ending can certainly be talked about - and that is probably what endings aspire to - but I’m not sure what the motives were for Patrick Nathan’s choices in those final pages. It felt a little like washing away characters I’d grown to feel for, like they were to be Ill-judged and cast off by Biblical endings their badly-lived lives deserved. I hope that wasn’t the intention. Otherwise it’s a rich and compelling novel, a brave and forthright debut.
The ending can certainly be talked about - and that is probably what endings aspire to - but I’m not sure what the motives were for Patrick Nathan’s choices in those final pages. It felt a little like washing away characters I’d grown to feel for, like they were to be Ill-judged and cast off by Biblical endings their badly-lived lives deserved. I hope that wasn’t the intention. Otherwise it’s a rich and compelling novel, a brave and forthright debut.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 5, 2018
Colin is doing his best trying to get through middle school but it doesn't help matters that he has a sister who either teases him or won't give him the time of day, an autistic older brother who can get violent, and he has a crush on his best friend, Andy. Things take a tragic turn when Colin's father commits suicide and the family is left trying to cope the best way they can. While Colin's mother, Diane, turns to therapy, Colin becomes closer to his grandfather and a teacher at school. Over a year has passed since the suicide and life hasn't seemed to get any easier. So Diane and Colin embark on a road trip to California with the hopes of finding a brighter future.
A book about a young teen dealing with a parent's suicide is obviously going to be sad but I honestly wasn't prepared for how heartbreaking of a story this was and how emotionally invested I became with Colin. While the book alternated between Diane and her son, the real story that emerged was Colin coming to grips with the fact he is gay. The sign of a good story is when you really feel for the character(s) and Colin's story is one that I will be thinking about for a long time. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to read a powerful book in the young adult genre.
I won a free copy of this book from Graywolf Press but was under no obligation to post a review. All views expressed are my honest opinions.
A book about a young teen dealing with a parent's suicide is obviously going to be sad but I honestly wasn't prepared for how heartbreaking of a story this was and how emotionally invested I became with Colin. While the book alternated between Diane and her son, the real story that emerged was Colin coming to grips with the fact he is gay. The sign of a good story is when you really feel for the character(s) and Colin's story is one that I will be thinking about for a long time. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to read a powerful book in the young adult genre.
I won a free copy of this book from Graywolf Press but was under no obligation to post a review. All views expressed are my honest opinions.
March 29, 2018
Just finished reading Patrick Nathan's first novel, Some Hell. The story which is written in a style that leaves the reader feeling the tensions of the characters in the book is about a mid-western family coping in the face of unexpected tragedy. While not a light book it is a slow read, but in the process Nathan captures the entropy of modern lives, especially that of the mother and her youngest son as he comes to terms with his sexuality. He focuses on how pain often leaves us unable to move forward and how sometimes the best we can do is to make it through each day. The story and this narrative in the right hands would make a really moving film, save for the final few pages in which I found myself, disappointed. While the author foreshadows his ending earlier in the book was it really necessary to use such a tired trope in this day and age, especially just as Colin discovers who he is? Reading the final pages left me wondering what was the author's intent? Why did he end it this way? Was this a comment on the character's exploration of his sexuality? I would love to know why the author thought this was necessary.
March 15, 2018
1.5 stars. This was a STRUGGLE to read. Didn’t like the writing style and didn’t care for the story. I really wanted to like it - a lot. But that, unfortunately, didn’t happen.
July 1, 2018
I have to admit that I didn't give this a fair chance. It was so tedious and the style so annoying that I quit it before my usual 50 pp. It's a book written from a child's perspective and this kid sees his dad playing with a revolver in his office. So the kid sneaks into the office and loads the revolver with bullets. The next thing you know dad is dead. What a surprise. Meh.
May 2, 2018
This book was really bad.
March 8, 2018
This book had it's good pointed. First, I'll say that I thought Nathan's writing was very engaging and I found myself rereading some sentences that I loved, solely based on how they were written. I also thought the premise was a good one and one I thought I'd have interest in. However, this book felt like it had blood going to it but in the wrong directions. By that, I mean it lacked a certain atmosphere that I thought the main themes of the book needed in order to successfully bring all aspects together. I think there are some out there that can and will really enjoy this book, and even more than will enjoy the way Nathan writes, I just wasn't really one of them.
February 27, 2018
Beyond Depressing
I read the NYT review of this book and thought, its worth a shot. Sounds interesting. Different. But in fact it turned out to be:
1. Definitely beyond depressing. How can people live like this?
2. Interesting but only in the way of wondering “what’s next?”
Its characters are somewhat sympathetic only because they are so pathetic. But in fact, not one character was likeable. You might have cared about the protagonist Colin because he was so young and so much in pain but you ended up despising him for not having the strength of character to face who he was and deal with it.
This book was such a downer that I can not recommend it.
I read the NYT review of this book and thought, its worth a shot. Sounds interesting. Different. But in fact it turned out to be:
1. Definitely beyond depressing. How can people live like this?
2. Interesting but only in the way of wondering “what’s next?”
Its characters are somewhat sympathetic only because they are so pathetic. But in fact, not one character was likeable. You might have cared about the protagonist Colin because he was so young and so much in pain but you ended up despising him for not having the strength of character to face who he was and deal with it.
This book was such a downer that I can not recommend it.
July 19, 2019
Patrick Nathan's Some Hell follows the lives of Diane and Colin after the suicide of Diane's husband Alan. The novel is, at times, even-headed and nicely portrays the trauma and grievances of the "aftermath" of suicide. It provides a convincing profile of the impact upon Diane and Colin as they (attempt to) navigate a new way(s) of life. The novel builds to an emotional climax that, at first, feels eerily close to reality. But my biggest critique of the novel is that it quickly slips into unnecessary fantasy in order to conclude the trauma in predictable and undesired ways. Indeed, for a queer who grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, central to the narrative's home base, I found all but the ending profoundly near to my own experiences. Yet even with the isolation and trauma of growing up in a relatively conservative midwestern city, Nathan's climax and ending neglected what actually happens to queer boys who grow into their sexualities, who learn to love fucking and being fucked, and who grow sideways into queer(er) desires and intimacies (including BDSM and kink) as they grow older.
I acknowledge that this is a young adult novel; yet I can't help but wonder how this novel might provide a more compelling push into the queer future if the fantasy of death did not linger (as a literary device) everywhere above and within the novel. It is not my place to re-imagine the course of the narrative, though I do feel compelled to believe that this narrative leaves much to be desired for our queer youth. In short, Some Hell is both provocative and absent. It leaves me questioning how I might, as a queer historian and educator, enable young gays and lesbians, to resist the temptation to conceptualise their lives through fatalistic narratives and to remain open to the possibility that their desires, fantasies and bodily whims might embolden them to live beyond the literary apocalyptic narrative(s) that surge in contemporary media and seek, if indirectly, to remind us that our queer lives are still invalid.
I acknowledge that this is a young adult novel; yet I can't help but wonder how this novel might provide a more compelling push into the queer future if the fantasy of death did not linger (as a literary device) everywhere above and within the novel. It is not my place to re-imagine the course of the narrative, though I do feel compelled to believe that this narrative leaves much to be desired for our queer youth. In short, Some Hell is both provocative and absent. It leaves me questioning how I might, as a queer historian and educator, enable young gays and lesbians, to resist the temptation to conceptualise their lives through fatalistic narratives and to remain open to the possibility that their desires, fantasies and bodily whims might embolden them to live beyond the literary apocalyptic narrative(s) that surge in contemporary media and seek, if indirectly, to remind us that our queer lives are still invalid.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 28, 2018
Y'all. I don't usually write anything when I finish books, but this one was rough. I don't really know if I liked it or hated it, but I know it will stick with me for a minute. I was uncomfortable almost the whole way through, even almost sick to my stomach with unease sometimes, but I didn't want to quit on the protagonist. I felt like his story was important and no one else was listening. It was such a strange experience to have with a book...
July 25, 2018
What the fuck! The ending slaughtered me.
What a dark, sad, haunting portrayal of youth, self identity and growing up with disturbed parents. I could relate so hard to a lot of this novel and I fell in love with the message of the novel. This book must be own voices rep in regards to the main character being gay. So perfectly executed and well written in every regard. PLEASE read if you’re looking for a meaningful novel to sob into.
What a dark, sad, haunting portrayal of youth, self identity and growing up with disturbed parents. I could relate so hard to a lot of this novel and I fell in love with the message of the novel. This book must be own voices rep in regards to the main character being gay. So perfectly executed and well written in every regard. PLEASE read if you’re looking for a meaningful novel to sob into.
March 31, 2018
There were moments I thought I was finally going to get into this book. And then a turn of phrase or repetitive moment took place. It felt like it wanted nothing to do with me. At times, a Disney version of a Dennis Cooper novel.
November 11, 2018
I had the good fortune to meet author Patrick Nathan at George Mason University's 20th Annual Fall for the Book Festival in October. Some Hell was selected as one of two books for a panel that I moderated entitled "Surviving as Outsiders" - one of several panels on LGBTQ literature.
The book has an original voice, a closeted gay middle schooler as its main protagonist, a dark narrative and surprise ending. Everything in between has a certain heaviness about it that comes from very complicated subject matter. There is a suicide. There is guilt and secrets. There are characters living together as a family and yet disconnected.
Reviews describe this book as a "coming of age story." It is certainly that, but not quite of a piece from that genre as many of us might remember it. One of my favorite scenes from the book is when Colin's father asks him about his homework and he replies it's a book report on Catcher in the Rye. His father expresses surprise that schools are still making students read the same books he read in school. I concur with that observation about books that are still being assigned as "classics" while more contemporary literature of greater relevance to students in today's classrooms is passed over.
Some Hell is not light reading. It does capture the reality of the secret lives that people live all around us while we are blithely unaware of their travails. There is a darkness of some kind for all of us. Perhaps it's a matter of degree. This particular observation of Colin's at the end of the book really resonated for me: Losing an imagined life was a small death -- your own death, one of the many fragments you'd made of yourself unable to go on. Yes, who among has not experienced the small death of an imagined life?
Patrick Nathan wrote the book he wanted to write on his own terms. It may not be for every reader, but I'm glad I had the experience of reading it. It's not something that in all likelihood would have made it on my radar without the opportunity of moderating this panel. The inner life of a gay middle schooler is a fraught place to explore. For me, it was time well spent.
The book has an original voice, a closeted gay middle schooler as its main protagonist, a dark narrative and surprise ending. Everything in between has a certain heaviness about it that comes from very complicated subject matter. There is a suicide. There is guilt and secrets. There are characters living together as a family and yet disconnected.
Reviews describe this book as a "coming of age story." It is certainly that, but not quite of a piece from that genre as many of us might remember it. One of my favorite scenes from the book is when Colin's father asks him about his homework and he replies it's a book report on Catcher in the Rye. His father expresses surprise that schools are still making students read the same books he read in school. I concur with that observation about books that are still being assigned as "classics" while more contemporary literature of greater relevance to students in today's classrooms is passed over.
Some Hell is not light reading. It does capture the reality of the secret lives that people live all around us while we are blithely unaware of their travails. There is a darkness of some kind for all of us. Perhaps it's a matter of degree. This particular observation of Colin's at the end of the book really resonated for me: Losing an imagined life was a small death -- your own death, one of the many fragments you'd made of yourself unable to go on. Yes, who among has not experienced the small death of an imagined life?
Patrick Nathan wrote the book he wanted to write on his own terms. It may not be for every reader, but I'm glad I had the experience of reading it. It's not something that in all likelihood would have made it on my radar without the opportunity of moderating this panel. The inner life of a gay middle schooler is a fraught place to explore. For me, it was time well spent.
June 8, 2025
This book was INSANELY bad. at didst it was kind of interesting with the dad and the family dynamic and andy, but after his dad died it went all haywire. First of all he got hard at a teacher, his grandpa, a guy RAPING him, his bestfriend, and a sex shop worker. I do not know what getting hard feels like or how some stuff works with getting erect but all other than one was an adult and he was a minor. I had no problem with the mom’s part, but they threw away her love life with the therapist. Back to colin’s part they made a pedo teacher touch him and he liked it, they made a druggie take him to a dealer so he can get raped by the son of the dealer and after that he was flustered and was like “omg it’s my first time!” and then he got raped by a sec shop worker who was also a druggie. mind you all of these people that he liked RAPING him we’re adults while he’s 14. I thought they would use his past experiences with rape and homophobia to grow his character but there was only a little bit of character development which was “yeah i’m gay and i accept that” which i admire but they didn’t touch on him getting sexually assaulted by 3 DIFFERENT adults. not to mention they just kept throwing characters away, like the guy the mom was talking to at the end, the therapist, andy, the brother, and the sister. and the last finishing touch was that Colin died by an earthquake WHEN HAVING SEX WITH THE SEX SHOP WORKER. When reading this book I admired the moms side of the story while healing i did not however admire colin’s side. and this book was insanely boring to listen to, i hope the author is in jail for writing CP in their book a LOT and not using it as trauma, just using it to write CP.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 11, 2018
*I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway*
**Vague-spoiler alert?**
We've all read them. Those books that are engaging, well-written, expertly-plotted and paced; books that are dark and rending, yet also beautiful. And then the book ends, and your (if you're me) first words are, "What the ever-living ****?"
I started out by giving the book 3 stars, but upgraded it to 4 because - even though the last 5 pages of the book threatened to ruin it completely for me - it was only 5 pages out of a difficult, but engaging, 280. I didn't study much literature in college, so perhaps the author was using some brilliant literary device that went completely over my head, and I'm just flaunting my ignorance here. But when a book that is so viscerally real ends in such a jarring, cataclysmic, and almost fantastical way, one's engagement with the story and the characters disintegrates, and one is left thinking, "Did the printer make a mistake and splice pages from another book in here?"
I can see why the author went there, to a degree, but it didn't really work. I don't need a happy ending, I don't need everything tied up in a neat little bundle, but I do need the ending to at least exist within in the same plane of being as the rest of the book.
Ending aside, is this a good book? Yes. The author is able to provide devastating insight into our relationships with family, and with ourselves. Did I enjoy the book? Not particularly. It's extremely demanding of the reader, and this reader didn't really have the emotional stamina for it. But that's my problem, not the book's.
**Vague-spoiler alert?**
We've all read them. Those books that are engaging, well-written, expertly-plotted and paced; books that are dark and rending, yet also beautiful. And then the book ends, and your (if you're me) first words are, "What the ever-living ****?"
I started out by giving the book 3 stars, but upgraded it to 4 because - even though the last 5 pages of the book threatened to ruin it completely for me - it was only 5 pages out of a difficult, but engaging, 280. I didn't study much literature in college, so perhaps the author was using some brilliant literary device that went completely over my head, and I'm just flaunting my ignorance here. But when a book that is so viscerally real ends in such a jarring, cataclysmic, and almost fantastical way, one's engagement with the story and the characters disintegrates, and one is left thinking, "Did the printer make a mistake and splice pages from another book in here?"
I can see why the author went there, to a degree, but it didn't really work. I don't need a happy ending, I don't need everything tied up in a neat little bundle, but I do need the ending to at least exist within in the same plane of being as the rest of the book.
Ending aside, is this a good book? Yes. The author is able to provide devastating insight into our relationships with family, and with ourselves. Did I enjoy the book? Not particularly. It's extremely demanding of the reader, and this reader didn't really have the emotional stamina for it. But that's my problem, not the book's.
March 18, 2019
Being an adolescent, going through all the nascent changes of the body and mind, exploding into what feels like a new existence, can feel like walking through hell. Things that once made sense don't make sense any more. In Patrick Nathan's dark coming-of-age novel Some Hell, that hell is made manifest and manifold. Colin, at 13, is the youngest in a family of five, his parents Alan and Diane, sister Heather, and brother Paul, a non-verbal autistic who does not like to be touched. When Alan dies in an apparent suicide, a gun to the head, the family literally falls apart. Grief becomes overwhelming and endless. Diane starts chain smoking and starts seeing a therapist. Colin feels immense guilt over what part he may have played in his father's death, having discovered the gun used beforehand in his father's office, where he set about writing odd details and stories in a series of notebooks. Both Colin and Diane try to find solace in those notebooks, but separately, as they are locked in their own pain, their own form of hell. Colin is also discovering his own sexuality, an especially confusing time for a young gay kid. And with a predatory science teacher, Colin is intrigued and repulsed, knows it's wrong, but can't help but be drawn to him. Nathan mines the landscape of grief as a solitary place, a hell that has no escape. There are those moments of clarity, of happiness, but asks if time is the only factor in getting better. Does it get better? Nathan also adds a wallop of an ending that is shocking and upsetting in equal measures, but no less keeping in the fatalist interiors of his characters. Hell could be wherever you may find your worse self, your worst fears, interfering without ceasing. Some call it life. But those mired within it, it is some hell.
August 29, 2023
Awfully well written, but depressing, and one hell of an ending.
The 14-year-old narrator, Colin, has serious problems. He is overwhelmed by his burgeoning gay feelings but things get worse as his father commits suicide before his adored and stabilizing older sister abandons him, his mother retreats into herself and her therapy, his autistic brother is institutionalized, his distant grandfather tries to assume come minor parental control, and his "best friend" pulls a mean prank on him. In an attempt at understanding what's going on and taking control of his life, Colin begins a serious flirtation with a predatory science teacher. Any two of these topics is probably enough for a debut novelist, but Nathan manages to wrangle them all with solid writing.
As an escape from these problems, Colin and his mother take a road trip from Minnesota to California, where things get better and then get crazy. There's an element of surrealism (science gone bad, unconscious desires exposed, and life that seems like a dream) but Nathan keeps it all in focus, until it slips away at the end.
It's good to see a serious novelist tackle the difficult task of exploring a young man's emerging sexual confusion, which I think is the strongest aspect of this novel. Nathan's writing skills keep the story mostly in line but some of the plot points are strained so that the autistic brother seems extraneous and the road trip seems to throw the story off balance. The characters ring true, but the individual events sometimes seems both clichéd and wildly out of control at the same time, much like Colin's coming-out story and its outcome.
The 14-year-old narrator, Colin, has serious problems. He is overwhelmed by his burgeoning gay feelings but things get worse as his father commits suicide before his adored and stabilizing older sister abandons him, his mother retreats into herself and her therapy, his autistic brother is institutionalized, his distant grandfather tries to assume come minor parental control, and his "best friend" pulls a mean prank on him. In an attempt at understanding what's going on and taking control of his life, Colin begins a serious flirtation with a predatory science teacher. Any two of these topics is probably enough for a debut novelist, but Nathan manages to wrangle them all with solid writing.
As an escape from these problems, Colin and his mother take a road trip from Minnesota to California, where things get better and then get crazy. There's an element of surrealism (science gone bad, unconscious desires exposed, and life that seems like a dream) but Nathan keeps it all in focus, until it slips away at the end.
It's good to see a serious novelist tackle the difficult task of exploring a young man's emerging sexual confusion, which I think is the strongest aspect of this novel. Nathan's writing skills keep the story mostly in line but some of the plot points are strained so that the autistic brother seems extraneous and the road trip seems to throw the story off balance. The characters ring true, but the individual events sometimes seems both clichéd and wildly out of control at the same time, much like Colin's coming-out story and its outcome.
July 17, 2018
This is a tough one, but more 1.5. Solid writing, some great passages. It sets up as a particular kind of family drama and it does that well, raising compelling questions and making it more than a coming-of-age tale. About the last third of the book then takes a literal and figurative diversion. And during that section it felt like the author was driven exclusively by craft. Did he keep the pages turning? Check. Were there little surprises and twists, sufficient conflicts? Check. To what end? I have no earthly idea and felt like the author lost sight of that also.
I struggled through that latter part of the book, feeling increasingly like it was just yanking my chain to keep me reading. That suspicion was confirmed in the book's final pages, the effect of which was something like being verbally abused and thrown out of a restaurant after paying the bill and tipping for a perfectly decent meal. Unexpected? Absolutely, but that felt like the sole point of the exercise. In the end it was less unsettling than unsatisfying, like a road trip that suddenly goes off-road and randomly off a cliff. Not my particular kind of thrill ride, I'm afraid.
I struggled through that latter part of the book, feeling increasingly like it was just yanking my chain to keep me reading. That suspicion was confirmed in the book's final pages, the effect of which was something like being verbally abused and thrown out of a restaurant after paying the bill and tipping for a perfectly decent meal. Unexpected? Absolutely, but that felt like the sole point of the exercise. In the end it was less unsettling than unsatisfying, like a road trip that suddenly goes off-road and randomly off a cliff. Not my particular kind of thrill ride, I'm afraid.
July 30, 2019
Some Hell is raw and distressingly beautiful. Patrick Nathan builds a brutal stage for his characters to grapple with grief, desire, and guilt. The story that unravels is fraught and unpredictable, all of it believably and carefully rendered. His characters feel real, and he’s not afraid to slice deep into their psyches with prose that’s both wandering and precise.
The ending... Let’s just say I had to read it three times to believe it.
I recommend Some Hell for anyone courageous enough to confront the most fragile parts of being human. You’ll be rewarded with a story that shows how life can be beautiful despite the ugliness, that our impermanence is reason enough to exist.
The ending... Let’s just say I had to read it three times to believe it.
I recommend Some Hell for anyone courageous enough to confront the most fragile parts of being human. You’ll be rewarded with a story that shows how life can be beautiful despite the ugliness, that our impermanence is reason enough to exist.
January 1, 2021
Such a grim, bizarrely plotted book. A young teenager in Minnesota's father kills himself and he has a severely autistic brother and a sister and mother. No one gets along. He's also struggling with being gay. The way that issue is dealt with just made me think it was set in the 70s or 80s but it's actually contemporary (I read this right after Love, Simon and how the two novels deal with being a gay teenager in contemporary suburban America is comically different). I would have given this two stars until the ending section which is over the top and when I got to the last page I literally said 'ugh'.
February 27, 2018
I never give anything ever anywhere a one star rating. but this book ...
If you like books that features an oh so clever suicide, rambling road trips, generational tension, teen angst and graphic sex between adolescents, and then graphic sex between adolescents and adults (and not artfully done either, pretty raw actually) then this book is for you. I stupidly read it to the end in hopes that there would be some point to all of this, but no not really. I could not return it to the library fast enough.
If you like books that features an oh so clever suicide, rambling road trips, generational tension, teen angst and graphic sex between adolescents, and then graphic sex between adolescents and adults (and not artfully done either, pretty raw actually) then this book is for you. I stupidly read it to the end in hopes that there would be some point to all of this, but no not really. I could not return it to the library fast enough.
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