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The press materials for Bridges With Spirit make the sidelong
assertion that the book is "written to be read like your favorite record."
What I'm getting from this -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- is that you
can drop your mental "needle" at any point in the book and be instantly
entranced.
I didn't find that to be entirely accurate. For my money, Bridges With
Spirit bears more resemblance to a compilation CD -- there are plenty
of great moments, but also a healthy amount of filler material that I probably
won't bother with a second time.
This isn't a conventional narrative. Equal parts fiction, journalism
and...fictionalized
autobiography, the book is less concerned with the linear passage of time, getting from
Plot Point
A to Plot Point Z, etc., than it is with a series of minor epiphanies staged
in chapter form. In fact, the book's "ongoing story" is a great deal less
interesting
than some of its momentary diversions. Think of it as a novella punctuated
by short
stories.
Adhering admirably to the "write what you know" rule, Voith uses his memories
for the meat of the story. He has used this opportunity to dust off,
polish and
fine tune his experiences, carefully inserting them into his narrative
framework.
This is a qualified success, depending upon how closely your life resembles
Voith's life, and how far you've progressed beyond his experiences.
"The Muncie Year", for instance, details the narrator's first year of
college, spent
in the depressingly non-punk-rock confines of Indiana's Ball State University.
He's one of a loose-knit trio of friends, united by a bond of isolation and
shared
different-ness, who revel in their reckless weekend road trips to punk rock
shows
and record stores in far-away cities. If you've ever spent time at a
small, isolated
college, you know this feeling intimately -- the restless need to get
out, to
find a place where you feel comfortable, to be excited by life's potential
and to
be defined by your personality rather than your differences. It's one of
the book's
recurring themes, presented with lucid persuasiveness. Most of us probably
have a similar sort of experience, and Voith hits the nail on the head.
A (comparatively) large portion of the book's "middle" deals with the
post-Muncie
adventures -- and I'm using the word lightly -- of the narrator, Mickey
Lawrence,
and his small, close group of friends. One of these friends, Frankie
Chapelle, is the
resident nutball; alternating between profound philosophical insights and
self-important
yammering, he comes off as a twenty-something version of Kramer from
Seinfeld.
I didn't like Kramer, and I don't like Frankie either, which makes for
challenging reading
as Voith clearly loves him. Perhaps I've been out of my twenties for too
long, but
Frankie's schemes and rantings seem so deliberately, painstakingly
idiosyncratic
that it's hard not to laugh at him. I think Voith intended for us to laugh
with him,
which isn't the same thing. Maybe these are real, unadulterated memories
and there's
a real Frankie who is exactly as Voith depicts him, or maybe Frankie is id to Mickey's ego, but either way this guy's sheer
wacky-neighborness
makes the narrative implausible and sitcom-ish at best, and willfully
precious at worst.
Still, I suspect I'd have liked him better when I was twenty-two.
The rest of Mickey's friends are a nondescript batch (other than the
gestalt-named
couple, Megison); despite impeccable descriptions, I had a hard time
telling them apart. Does that matter? Probably not.
Complaints about his characters notwithstanding, Voith has a way with words.
His descriptions of people, places and events are so passsionately and
indelibly
etched that it's sometimes hard to believe they aren't your own memories.
Every
chapter is peppered with moments of such jaw-dropping eloquence that it's easy
to forgive Frankie's excesses. Several of the "free-standing" chapters --
especially
"The Stand-Up Comedian on His Death Bed" -- are unforgettable, and "George
Harrison: The Beatle Everyone Forgets" screams to be made into a short film.
No career counseling is needed here -- Voith deserves to make a living from
his work.
This is essentially a self-published novel, and there are some obvious
quality tradeoffs.
The type is set in a courier-family typeface that annoyed my eyes after a
while, and
probably also annoyed the eyes of the proofreader, as a number of misused
apostrophes
and other typographical glitches made it into the final published copy.
Voith could also
benefit from an editor's touch, as Bridges With Spirit, a kitchen sink of a book, predictably
suffers from the
kitchen-sink idea-clutter that plagues first novels (i.e.: Do we really need the fridge magnet poetry?) . But these are
literary concerns,
and therefore not particularly appicable to a book that has more in common
with DIY
zine culture.
Weighing in at a modest 145 pages, Bridges With Spirit might get you
through
a lazy afternoon in a comfy chair at your favorite coffeehouse, or a week's
worth
of lunch breaks at your crappy temp job. It'll be out of your hands in the
space of
a few hours, but don't be surprised if it stays in your head for far
longer.
Reviewed by George Zahora
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