M. Dylan Raskin (MDR to friends) is back with the most unexpected of books—an offbeat love song to his ailing mother—that reads like a punk-rock version of The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Of course, there's a twist.
As always, young Mr. Raskin has a lot on his mind. His generation is still stocked to the gills with morons and “walking clichés,” and MDR’s favorite things—blanket forts, fleece pants, cozy trees, and the month of October, to name just a few—are still in woefully short supply. But when his mother is diagnosed with cancer, MDR’s usual troubles are forced to the backseat. Together, mother and son hit the road in their little Honda del Sol and scour America for peace and quiet and the “October supplies” they need to keep going.
Equal parts road story, elegy, and hallucinatory bildungsroman, Bandanas and October Supplies is a bittersweet love story that is like no other book ever written about death, life, and the complex devotion between a mother and a son.
An offbeat personal account by the author of Little New York Bastard finds his life placed on hold when his mother is diagnosed with cancer, a diagnosis that prompts their shared cross-country car journey in search of peace and sustenance. Original.M. Dylan Raskin was born in Queens, New York.
Raskin (Little New York Bastard ) uses his delightful, fresh voice in depicting himself: a young, alienated New Yorker who must learn to continue in an unfeeling world after the death of his beloved mother. Mike's good-bye visit to his psychiatrist frames these colloquial episodes. "Jitters in Lake George," the first segment, relays Mike's strange vacation with his sickly mother, Francine, to the resort they cherish from when his father was still alive. Through Mike's logorrheic narrative--he speaks to Franny in non sequiturs, addresses people as "ace" and uses throwbacks like "sizzled my steak"--Mike reveals himself as slightly off-center and paranoid. Stockpiling supplies of fleece and bandanas in expectation of a nuclear attack on New York, he seeks to protect his mother, but in fact it becomes clear Franny is already dead and he is carrying around her memory. "Carlin Park and the Flying Fish" revisits the two on vacation in Florida, where Franny recovers from an operation and comforts her depressed son, "There's nothing wrong with aiming high for those bandanas and October supplies." Smart characterizations, sly digs at established writing ("I like a book that takes at least some risk, for God's sake," snorts Mike) and an engaging voice distinguish this slender work. (Mar.)
[Page 49]. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Shopping Cart
