The Whistling Song: A Novel

by Stephen Beachy

Overview

“Writing like a possessed angel, first-novelist Beachy dreams up the adventures of a male Alice who encounters a 1980s America every bit as darkly bizarre and hilarious as Lewis Carroll’s Victorian wonderland…. A hypnotic, unshakable, painfully funny vision of America by a word-drunk writer.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

In this electric on-the-road novel, orphan-hero Matt hitchhikes across the surreal landscape of America in the ‘80s. Searching for the lost bliss of childhood he falls in with—and longs for—the dangerously beautiful but amoral Jimmy, a fellow orphan. As they crisscross the country, encountering homeless rock stars, suicidal teenagers, Jesus freaks, and other souls on the edge, Matt moves toward adulthood and his own sexual identity. Stephen Beachy, awarded a James Michener Grant from the Iowa Writers Workshop, now lives in San Francisco and is at work on another novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393309492
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/17/1992
Series:	Norton Paperback Fiction Series
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	1,093,620
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.30(d)

What People are Saying About This

Jim Carroll

"The 'Whistling Song' has that energy and abandon of great first novels. Its wild force reminded me of the first time I saw John Malkovich on stage in 'True West'."

Editorial Reviews

Verbose, surreal and disturbing, this picaresque tale is at times so thick with metaphor and quasi-profundity that it becomes nearly unbearable. Matt, an introspective orphan who witnessed his parents' murder, is on a idealistic quest to find Andalusia, the playful babysitter of his childhood, who lavished affection on him during her temporary residence in his family's Des Moines duplex. Misbegotten overtones of Huck Finn abound as he flees an orphanage headed by the predictably perverted Father Larry and lights out for the territory with an amoral, beautiful black boy named Jimmy. Bizarre scenes of sex and violence become commonplace for the homeless pair as they hitchhike across the U.S., and Matt admits to homosexual longings though Andalusia is no less on his mind. Later, minus Jimmy, Matt forms dynamic relationships with other hapless teens and rare moments of lucidity provide respite from the unrestrained psychedelia. First-novelist Beachy has an uncanny knack for portraying the kaleidoscopic thoughts of one who has been wide awake for too long, but in order to accompany his antihero on this unrelenting road-trip one needs a verbal snowplow. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

After the murder of both his parents, Matt escapes from an orphanage and hitchhikes randomly across America with his mysterious friend Jimmy (possibly his own alter ego). Along the road they encounter religious fanatics, disturbed Vietnam veterans, anorexic teenagers, and love-starved deviants of all sorts. This panorama of postmodern ``decadence and angst'' is alternately comic and deeply troubling. Through it all, Matt is seeking the lost innocence he associates with his former babysitter, a kindly black woman named Andalusia. Rambling and richly allusive, this surreal account of Matt's travels with Jimmy recalls earlier journeys of Kerouac and Cassady, Twain's Huck and Jim, and, at times, Steinbeck's George and Lennie.-- Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville

Library Journal

"Stephen Beachy's writing has confidence, freshness and the buzzy energy of a cup of truck-stop coffee. His feature will be fun to watch." -- The Los Angeles Times Book Review

Mark Childress

"(An) admirable, highly original tale....An exhuberant and nervy writer who is in awe of the open road and all of its beauty, irony and menace." -- The New York Times Book Review

Meg Wolitzer

Writing like a possessed angel, first-novelist Beachy dreams up the adventures of a male Alice who encounters a 1980's America every bit as darkly bizarre and hilarious as Lewis Carroll's Victorian wonderland. This nonlinear, picaresque tale sweeps back and forth across the country and backward and forward in time like an erratic metronome. Matt, a working-class kid from Des Moines, narrates the story of how he became an orphan, eventually escaped from an institution with the amoral and beautiful Jimmy and wandered the highways, hitchhiking, sleeping rough, begging, robbing, prostituting himself, faithfully searching for the earth-mother babysitter who caressed him in his Mr. Bubble bath. He also keeps an eye out for the man he believes murdered his parents, whose deaths leave him riddled with guilt because they were foreshadowed by his wish. Beachy is equally good at describing the real (when Matt's father loses his job and the family disintegrates) and the surreal (the fantastic doughnut shop US of Jesus freaks and freeways). His travels bring Matt face to face with a cast of lost souls, depicted with scorn, compassion, and a wild humor. Matt longs for the love of Jimmy, who warns him "Don't be a fag," and ultimately turns out not to be the rebel he seems. This is a demanding book—with a superb payoff. The author plays with the idea that human beings are most conscious of "being" when they are in states of joy, boredom or dread. He serves up joy, boredom, and dread, sometimes in a single paragraph, sometimes all mixed together in a single sentence, somehow in all 416 pages. Of the three, joy is somewhat slighted, and the whistling song is whistling in the dark. A hypnotic,unshakable, painfully funny vision of America by a word-drunk writer.

Kirkus Reviews