Might As Well Be Dead

by Mark Goldblatt

Overview

Thirteen-year-old David Salmon is getting over his mom's sudden decision to pick up and leave. He seems to be adjusting fairly well, but then a strange thing happens. He meets a middle-aged Englishman named Winston outside his house. David suspects that Winston may not be real, but he seems harmless enough, as hallucinations go, and the two of them become friends. If nothing else, Winston is a welcome distraction from the mess at home; David's dad cannot seem to cope with his wife's decision move out.

Winston also proves a valuable advisor in navigating the trials of middle school-best friend problems and a budding romance. Eventually, however, Winston confesses the real reason he showed up: he needs David to deliver a message. It's a journey David desperately doesn't want to make...because it takes him somewhere he desperately doesn't want to go.

Might As Well Be Dead is a story about a boy in crisis. Be ready to laugh. Be ready to cry. Be advised: all you need is love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781949515510
Publisher:	Phoenix Press Ltd UK
Publication date:	05/05/2023
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.45(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Mark Goldblatt is the author of the best-selling middle grade novel Twerp and its sequel Finding the Worm, as well as many works of fiction and non-fiction for adults. His writing has appeared in popular and academic journals including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Observer, USA Today, Time, Reason, Commentary, National Review, Quillette, Philosophy Now, and the Sewanee Theological Review. He teaches developmental English and religious history at Fashion Institute of Technology of the State University of New York.

Editorial Reviews

2023-02-25
A girlfriend, a gay best friend, and an imaginary companion provide company and distraction for a teenager experiencing repressed trauma.

Beginning with the book’s title and the appearance of a dapper, spectral gent named Winston Ono on the first page, Goldblatt makes good on his claim at the outset that John, Paul, George, and Ringo are all over this exercise in misdirection. Not that the many embedded Fab Four riffs add anything significant beyond opportunities for readers to feel clever for spotting them. His mom may be just a voice on the phone and his dad an emotional wreck, but David Salmon keeps up a semblance of normalcy as he drifts between home and his Flushing, Queens, middle school—hanging out with secretive BFF Hector Caban, struggling to keep pace with aggressive and easily offended classmate Minnie Drugas, and getting used to having Winston suddenly pop up in his bedroom or out on the street to deliver vague, evasive comments. As it eventually turns out, there has been a tragic family event…but since the author studiously avoids having anyone mention it and provides only deliberately misleading hints, when David does at last reveal its nature with a sudden meltdown, it seems to come out of nowhere. An assurance thereafter that now it’s going to be “getting so much better” has, at best, a tinny ring. The main cast presents White.

A long and winding road to a botched surprise: Look elsewhere for satisfaction. (Fantasy. 12-15)

Kirkus Reviews