Lowboy

by John Wray

Overview

Early one morning in New York City, Will Heller, a sixteen-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, gets on an uptown B train alone. Will is on a mission to save the world from global warming—to do it, though, he'll need to cool down his own body first. And for that he'll need one willing girl.

Lowboy tells the story of Will's odyssey through the city's tunnels, back alleys, and streets in search of Emily Wallace, his one great hope. It also follows his mother, Violet Heller, as she tries desperately to find her son before psychosis claims him completely. Violet is joined by Ali Lateef, a missing-persons specialist, who learns over the course of the day that more is at stake than the recovery of a runaway teen: Will Heller has a chilling case history, and Violet—beautiful, enigmatic, and as tormented as her son—harbors a secret that Lateef will discover at his own peril.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312429331
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	02/02/2010
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.52(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

John Wray is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Right Hand of Sleep and Canaan's Tongue. He was named one of Granta magazine's Best of Young American Novelists in 2007. The recipient of a Whiting Award, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reading Group Guide

The following author biography and list of questions about Lowboy are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach Lowboy.

About the Book

Early one morning in New York City, Will Heller, a sixteen-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, gets on an uptown B train alone. Will is on a mission to save the world from global warming—to do it, though, he'll need to cool down his own body first. And for that he'll need one willing girl.

Lowboy tells the story of Will's odyssey through the city's tunnels, back alleys, and streets in search of Emily Wallace, his one great hope. It also follows his mother, Violet Heller, as she tries desperately to find her son before psychosis claims him completely. Violet is joined by Ali Lateef, a missing-persons specialist, who learns over the course of the day that more is at stake than the recovery of a runaway teen: Will Heller has a chilling case history, and Violet—beautiful, enigmatic, and as tormented as her son—harbors a secret that Lateef will discover at his own peril.

1. How does the author demonstrate in writing what Will is going through, what the world looks and feels like to him? How does the tone and style in Will's sections differ from the sections that follow Lateef or Violet?

2. How much responsibility do you think Violet bears for what happens to her son? How much of his behavior is genetically driven, and how much is a result of Violet's influence and the circumstances of his upbringing?

3. Look at the scene in the cupcake shop on pages 130-133. What goes wrong in Will's communication with the girl behind the counter that sets him off? What are some of the triggers throughout the story that cause Will to lose touch with the world as others see it?

4. How did your thoughts about Violet change over the course of the novel? What clues did the author give that she might not be what she seemed? Have you ever known someone who concealed a mental illness from the people in his or her life?

5. What attracts Will to the subway?

6. What were your impressions of Dr. Kopeck? Do you think he has Will's best interests at heart? What are some of the challenges that might arise in treating a patient like Will?

7. On page 157 we learn that Lateef "hadn't been able to make up his mind to catch [Will and Emily]. He still couldn't make up his mind?" What's holding him back? What's particularly difficult about this case for him? Do you see any connection between the relationship between Will and Violet and Lateef's own upbringing?

8. What kind of portrait does the novel give of New York City? Do you think the city itself has a strong influence on the deterioration of Will's mind?

9. What draws Emily to Will? Why does she agree to see him—and travel with him over the course of the day—despite his earlier behavior?

10. How do you interpret Will's markings in the magazine Violet finds in his room? Why do you think he connects sex to the idea of global warming and saving the world? Does any of this trace back to his life with Violet or his time in the hospital?

11. Will's illness often prevents him from seeing essential things about the world around him, but he also has sensitivities that other people lack. Do you see signs that Will is gifted, as well as disturbed? What elements of the world does he pick up on that others are likely to miss?

12. What do you think happened to Will in the hospital? Does the account of his time there line up with your understanding of how patients are treated in mental hospitals? How well do you think our health care system provides for people with mental illness?

Editorial Reviews

“The novel has a thriller-like pace, and Wray keeps us riveted and guessing, finding chilling rhetorical and pictorial equivalents for Will's uniquely dysfunctional perspective . . . The suspense is expertly maintained, straight through the novel's dreamlike climactic encounter and heart-wrenching final paragraph. The opening pages recall Salinger's Holden Caulfield, but the denouement and haunting aftertaste may make the stunned reader whisper "Dostoevsky." Yes, it really is that good.” —Kirkus (starred)

“John Wray is less interested in Lowboy's picaresque circuits than in his mental circuits, whose damaged condition is brilliantly, compassionately evoked in the novel . . . Wray is never boring, largely because he has an uncanny talent for ventriloquism, and he seems to know, with unerring authority, how to select and make eloquent the details of Lowboy's illness . . . What is impressive about the book is its control, and its humane comprehension of radical otherness . . . Lowboy is exceptionally tender and acute . . . John Wray is a daring young writer.” —James Wood, The New Yorker

“Lowboy is uncompromising, gripping and generally excellent . . . One of the novel's many pleasures is just going along: putting yourself fully in the hands of the story and its author, being drawn in, gradually immersed, making the connections . . . By the time it all falls into place, the reader is long hooked and turning back is not an option . . . This is a meticulously constructed novel, immensely satisfying in the perfect, precise beat of its plot . . . I'd be proud to be seen reading this novel on the downtown 6, or anywhere else at all.” —Charles Bock, The New York Times Book Review

“John Wray captures Lowboy almost immediately and gives him to us in intense, sharp pages.” —Alan Cheuse, NPR

“Lowboy is a smart, moving thriller, and a deeply imaginative one, too . . . [The] hurtling plot makes it the sort of book you read in a few big gulps, but its complicated teen character--at once intensely familiar and completely foreign--sticks around for days after you're done.” —Izzy Grinspan, Time Out New York

“A breathtaking journey.” —Cathleen Medwick, O, The Oprah Magazine

“It's everything a solid book should be: a fast fun deranged grim thoughtful romp through the minds of a devastatingly nuanced cast of characters . . . The last 100 pages of Lowboy are a marvelous, unpredictable sprint. This is the sort of novel that you brew coffee at midnight to finish. It demands your attention, despite the duties of the next day. It demands the kind of singular purpose Wray might just be warning us about.” —Joshua Mohr, The Rumpus

“A mostly masterful fictional study of human relationships in the shadow of insanity . . . In Lowboy's fragilely constructed, all-fantasies-realized universe, every chapter ends with a bang, and the final one is no exception.” —Todd Dills, Time Out Chicago

“You'll tear through the pages . . . A lip-biting thriller to the finish.” —Sarah Z. Wexler, Marie Claire

“[Wray] succeeds with a brisk plot and odd moments of humor. The story's final grimness is tough, but it's hard not to admire this bullet train of a book for its chilling power.” —Stacey Levine, Bookforum

“Wray is an obviously gifted writer, who treatment of Will is a tour de force of empathy, style, and imagination.” —Booklist

“John Wray's Lowboy is a psychotic, subterranean, environmentally conscious, coming-of-age novel. It is also an affecting and affectionate love letter to New York. Lowboy is John Wray at his highest.” —Nathan Englander, author of Ministry of Special Cases

“Through the windows of John Wray's rumbling express, we catch sight of the deep darkness that lives inside the human psyche. Lowboy is a riveting and disturbing ride, illuminating one adolescent boy's shadowy underground, and giving us glimpses of our own as well.” —Colson Whitehead, author of Apex Hides the Hurt

“America's most original young writer has given us a book for the ages. Compelling, compassionate, and deeply unsettling, Lowboy introduces us to the brilliant sixteen-year-old Will Heller, a hero as three-dimensional as any in recent fiction, a Holden Caulfield for our troubled times.” —Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook and Absurdistan

“Wray's captivating third novel drifts between psychological realities while exploring the narrative poetics of schizophrenia. . . . Wray deploys brilliant hallucinatory visuals, including chilling descriptions of the subway system and an imaginary river flowing beneath Manhattan. In his previous works, Wray has shown that he's not a stranger to dark themes, and with this tightly wound novel, he reaches new heights.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Wray presents a powerful and vivid portrait of Will's mental state, believably entering into his apocalyptic vision of the world.” —Library Journal

“Lowboy sucks you into the tunnels under NY and doesn't let you go until its perfect ending. Wray effortlessly portrays the cracked and distorted mind of his teenage hero. What a beguiling novel.” —Tim Pears, author of In The Place of Fallen Leaves

“Comparisons to J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye or Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower are inevitable.” —Karen E. Brooks-Reese, School Library Journal

“Lowboy is a brilliant and gusty performance . . . It expresses its meanings in hallucinated events that seem to vibrate on the page.” —Mark Shechner, The Buffalo News

“John Wray's third novel, one of the most anticipated books of the spring, has the makings of an American classic. Lowboy also represents Wray's arrival as a major author.” —Andrew Ervin, The Miami Herald

“A fast-paced thriller . . . This virtuosic novel . . . is a masterpiece of aural description.” —Laurence Lowe, GQ

“Lowboy is haunting and uncomfortable, in the best way possible--it's a pleasure to read.” —Fernanda Diaz, Flavorwire

“John Wray displays an impressive command of both suspense and tragedy.” —The Week

“The book casts a spell . . .Wray's prose . . . is full of dreamlike images and startling similes.” —Taylor Antrim, The Daily Beast

“The novel moves seamlessly . . . This kind of pacing is the stuff we crave (and we think you will, too)--the kind that draws you in so unawares that before you know it, it's past midnight and you're down to the last page.” —Anne, Amazon.com

“[Wray's] third novel, Lowboy, is his best yet . . . Lowboy is told in a series of impressionistic flashes . . . and it moves with extremely confident speed to its heart-wrenching conclusion.” —Steve Donoghue, The OLM Blog, Open Letters

“Wray's writing is tremendously smart and perceptive.” —Alison Hallett, The Portland Mercury

“Occasionally comical and consistently tragic, Lowboy is an engaging novel with a difficult subject.” —Mark Flanagan, About.com

“[Lowboy is] truly remarkable!” —Leah Taylor, Flavorwire

“Wray's breakthrough novel . . . will likely be filed alongside the work of his bestselling Brooklyn contemporaries. Lowboy's meticulous mapping of metropolitan myth recalls Paul Auster's City of Glass and nods to the genre tics of Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn . . . This poetic, stirringly strange novel offers an empathic reminder that, for many, the light at the end of the tunnel can be taken for a harbinger of doom.” —Akiva Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times

“Wray captures Lowboy almost immediately and gives him to us in intense, sharp pages that burst in our minds as we read . . . When you're reading Lowboy you know, in the hands of its talented young creator, that it's certainly the best thing.” —Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune

“Strange and splendid . . . What makes Lowboy extraordinary is its rapt conviction, not the cool manipulation of plot devices.” —Craig Seligman, Bloomberg.com

“John Wray's latest novel, Lowboy, is a compelling tale that captures the foreign internal and external landscapes of a teenager with mental illness . . . Wray depicts Will's descent into both the subway system and mental illness in clear, glittering prose . . . John Wray's writing itself is like a blessing, and reading Lowboy, while not a religious experience, is perhaps as close as a person can come to experiencing the mix of poignant and desperate emotions and actions that come together in a teenager with mental illness.” —Doug Robins, Sacramento Book Review

“John Wray's prose is at once spare and powerful, comic and profound, and as his protagonist's fate unfolds, the suspense rises until the very last line.” —Sandra Mangan, The Evening News

“Wray has created a novel that is rich in characters and insights. You may be able to finish it in half a day, but William's view of the world will almost certainly stay with you for longer.” —Marcel Thee, Jarkarta Globe

“[Lowboy] is weird and horribly sad, but balanced and completely believable. [It] will leave a gnawing pain in your stomach, like hunger or fear or the feeling that he's got it all right.” —Micah Ling, Keyhole

“Dizzyingly seductive . . . Making your central character deeply insane is, of course, a risky and ambitious trick, but Wray carries it off with a fluid, inventive style that rises at times to a frightening pitch.” —Michael Lindgren, The Washington Post

“Wray's pacing is superb . . . [and his] writing shines . . . This is a fine novel by a talented writer.” —Gordon Houser, The Wichita Eagle

“Wray spins out an increasingly suspenseful, psychologically astute narrative, perfectly pitching the voice to accommodate each character's particular motivations.” —Eric Liebetrau, Paste Magazine

“Lowboy is an incredibly competent novel from a young, clearly passionate writer . . . Wray deposits moments of exposition at key points in his apparent madcap narrative, showing the careful planning and loving consideration of a first-rate writing talent. His prose flies along with the unstoppable force of a subway train, but he can still make me pause and wring my heart out over poor Lowboy.” —Jillian J. Goodman, The Harvard Crimson

“John Wray handles it all masterfully in this odd story [that is] part sci-fi parable, part mental health drama, part love story.” —Ralph Greco, Jr., Short and Sweet NYC blog

“Masterful . . . ‘Lowboy' is at its best at its most unflinching. Like Ken Kesey, Wray has a keen ear for the language of madness--the scripts, the shrinks, the straightjackets and the electric shocks.” —Matthew Shaer, The San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher

America's most original young writer has given us a book for the ages. Compelling, compassionate, and deeply unsettling, Lowboy introduces us to the brilliant sixteen-year-old Will Heller, a hero as three-dimensional as any in recent fiction, a Holden Caulfield for our troubled times.

author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook and Ab Gary Shteyngart

…dizzyingly seductive …Making your central character deeply insane is, of course, a risky and ambitious trick, but Wray carries it off with a fluid, inventive style that rises at times to a frightening pitch. Lowboy is an amplified hero for our times
—The Washington Post

Michael Lindgren

This is a meticulously constructed novel, immensely satisfying in the perfect, precise beat of its plot. Wray, however, has larger goals than a thrill ride. The book's core is a nexus of tragedy—the tragedy of a 17-year-old girl who, though she knows better, might do anything for the boy she loves; the tragedy of a mother whose life has been devoted to her son, yet who is incapable of helping him and who just may have been the source of his troubles; the tragedy of a middle-aged man caught between protecting the public and helping a parent; and finally, ultimately, the tragedy of a bright and beautiful teenager who not only must deal with all the confusions and pressures of being 16, but who, through no fault of his own, is not stable enough to be able to purchase a cupcake without confrontation. I'd be proud to be seen reading this novel on the downtown 6, or anywhere else at all.
—The New York Times

Charles Bock

Wray's captivating third novel drifts between psychological realities while exploring the narrative poetics of schizophrenia. The story centers on Will Heller, a 16-year-old New Yorker who has stopped taking his antipsychotic medication and wandered away from the mental hospital into the subway tunnels believing that the world will end within a few hours and that only he can save it. It's a novel that defies easy categorization, although in one sense it's a mystery, as a detective, Lateef, is on the case, assisted by Will's troubled mother, Violet. As Lateef tracks Will and gains some startling insight into Violet, Wray deploys brilliant hallucinatory visuals, including chilling descriptions of the subway system and an imaginary river flowing beneath Manhattan. In his previous works, Wray has shown that he's not a stranger to dark themes, and with this tightly wound novel, he reaches new heights. (Mar.)

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Publishers Weekly

Will Heller, aka Lowboy, is a brilliant but troubled 16-year-old paranoid schizophrenic in New York City. Recently escaped from a mental hospital and obsessed with the notion that the world is about to be destroyed by global warming, he boards the subway one morning seeking to save the world in the only way he believes it can be-by having sex with a woman. He attempts to locate former girlfriend Emily Wallace, whom he has not seen since he pushed her onto the subway tracks a year earlier, the act that led to his stay in a mental hospital. Throughout his daylong adventures in the tunnels and streets, he is pursued by police detective Ali Lateef and his mother, Violet, a woman with her own secrets, who seek to bring him home before he harms himself or others. Their growing relationship provides both a parallel and a counterpoint to that of Will and Emily. Wray presents a powerful and vivid portrait of Will's mental state, believably entering into his apocalyptic vision of the world. Recommended for public libraries.
—Lawrence Rungren

Library Journal

A teenaged paranoid schizophrenic risks his fragmenting grasp of reality in a quixotic attempt to save a world threatened by global warming, in Whiting Award winner Wray's deeply disturbing third novel. As in Wray's previous books (Canaan's Tongue, 2005, etc.), this one is constructed from several interconnected stories. The narrative is occupied with three searches. The primary one is that of 16-year-old Will Heller, who walks out of a mental hospital and into the New York subway system, en route to a desired reunion with the former schoolmate, Emily Wallace, who was both his prospective lover and a presumably accidental victim of Will's tendency to succumb to uncontrollable violence. The sources of such instability may lie in undisclosed experiences of sexual abuse or elsewhere in Will's troubled relationship with his Austrian-born mother Yda (he calls her "Violet"), whose search through her own past adds both explanatory exposition and subtle misdirection, as the reader struggles to comprehend Will's belief that "cooling" his own virginal body can avert a coming worldwide holocaust. The addled viewpoints of Will and Violet are challenged, and to some extent explained by the investigations of Ali Lateef, a weary SCM (Special Category Missings) police detective who senses that finding Will before he harms himself or others requires understanding the mysteries in Violet's occluded past. The novel has a thriller-like pace, and Wray keeps us riveted and guessing, finding chilling rhetorical and pictorial equivalents for Will's uniquely dysfunctional perspective (e.g., as he watches Emily approach: "A green girlshaped pillar rose through the veins of his retina like ivy twining through achain-link fence . . . Her features came apart like knitting"). The suspense is expertly maintained, straight through the novel's dreamlike climactic encounter and heart-wrenching final paragraph. The opening pages recall Salinger's Holden Caulfield, but the denouement and haunting aftertaste may make the stunned reader whisper "Dostoevsky." Yes, it really is that good.

Kirkus Reviews

Violet Heller is a mother desperate to find her erratic schizophrenic son, Will, before he hurts those around him and himself. She teams up with missing persons specialist Ali Lateef in an attempt to track Will down, but what Lateef uncovers may ultimately threaten his own life. Narrator Paul Michael Garcia sounds involved from the very beginning of this story and never allows even the slightest moment of it to slip away from him. As the troubled youth, Will, Garcia delivers a transcendent performance that will be deeply affecting to listeners. As the boy's mother, Violet, Garcia scales back his delivery, presenting a broken-hearted character wrought with desperation as she searches for her son and keeps a secret. L.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

MAY 2009 - AudioFile