You have to like a novelist whose topic is teen angst, but nowhere does the
ugly duckling win a date with the prom queen, nor does the fat kid get picked
for the team.
Bucks County native Tim Wenzell has created some deliciously bizarre
characters and extraordinary images in "Absent Children," a gripping,
haunting, dark and surprisingly funny gem of a first novel.
You also have to like an author whose setting for the novel is Philadelphia
and its suburbs. It's filled with references to baseball and the author's
beloved Phillies. And the main character? He's a faithful reader of the good
old Daily News.
Why the Daily News?
"The back page," said Wenzell, affable and boyish at 43. "The back page was a
good way to chronicle the success and failure of the Phillies, mostly
failure. I thought it was an appropriate backdrop for the novel."
It's the story of Eddie Shemanski, an impossibly paranoid 17-year-old who
builds a secret room in his closet after masked hoodlums kidnap his baby
brother in the middle of the night. He hides in the boxlike room, fearing the
thugs had made a mistake and will be returning to abduct him. Unlike the
author, Eddie despises baseball, primarily because his father pays more
attention to the Phillies and answering trivia questions with his drunken
uncle than checking in to see how Eddie's life is going.
So Eddie runs away from home, ostensibly in search of his kidnapped brother.
In reality, he's in search of a cure for his growing alienation, his
defeatist nature and his place in the world. While writing the novel, Wenzell
said, he really had no profound commentary in mind about alienated youth or
the need for stronger role models.
"I had no grand plan, so the novel's twists and turns came more naturally,
from one sentence, paragraph, chapter, to the next," the author said.
It's a little Kurt Vonnegut, a little John Irving, loaded with Eddie's
reflections on his past. The ending is a stunner, one you'll think about long
after finishing this vivid tale.
Like his characters, Wenzell is no ordinary academic. He lives in Garwood,
N.J., just outside New York, and teaches writing at Bergen County Community
College. He received his bachelor's degree in English literature from Temple
in 1987 and earned a master's in 1994 from Rutgers-Camden.
But from the time he graduated in 1975 from William Tennent High in
Warminster until about three years ago, he made his living as a cook; he even
worked at the Chart House for 11 years. The restaurant business was Wenzell's
life for more than 20 years, and restaurants play major roles in Absent
Children.
"I stayed in it that long because, despite my desire for more intellectual
pursuits, I liked the intensity of 'high-volume' cooking. I also enjoyed the
nightlife and people. I met and kept many friends along the way who enriched
my life."
