Misconception: A Beautiful Debut Novel...or Memoir?
Ryan Boudinot will be reading from his debut novel, Misconception, at Elliott Bay Book Company on Tuesday, September 15, at 7:30 p.m.
Ryan Boudinot has been quickly climbing the Seattle food chain of well-known literary locals, and there's good reason behind it. Not only has he written for many of the "cool" publications that we--as one of the much-bragged-about smarter cities--absolutely LOVE, but he's quite the down-to-earth gentleman, as well. Along with the recent publication of Misconception and becoming the newest Hugo House Writer-in-Residence, Boudinot has been having a damn good year. And the fact that he wrote most of this novel while working a "day job" in a cubicle for a well-known dot-com in Seattle only makes it that much more awesome.
Misconception reminded us of C.D. Payne's Youth in Revolt--which, we're sure those of you who have read this book are already thinking about T.E.s, Sheeni Saunders, and Carlotta Ulansky--and cackling out loud. For those of you who have not read this book (excuse the inside jokes), you are in luck because the movie is actually coming out next month featuring indie-teenage-romance-insecure favorite Michael Cera as main character, Nick Twisp, shit head fourteen-year-old know-it-all sociopath (which is up for argument). Regardless, on a much lesser scale--and in most ways on a much better scale--Boudinot's debut novel reminds us of Youth in Revolt in the most obvious of ways:
You've got two teenage boys around the same age who are coping with their parents' divorces, "finding themselves" on a regular basis (physically and metaphorically), and both of whom are willing to do the most reckless of acts to win the hearts of their first loves. So yes, granted both characters absolutely love masturbation (what teenage boy doesn't?) and airing every little aspect about their self-made sexual experiences--even the moments that are really quite blush-worthy and TMI. However, where Youth in Revolt is out for laughs and absurdity, Misconception is in every way a deeper, more realistic look into a thirteen-year-old boy's life and the tragicness of what it is to be a teenager.
Misconception revolves around main characters Cedar and Kat, and their blossoming yet dramatic teenage romance one summer in the 1980s. The novel can be viewed on two planes as memoir and fiction since it goes back and forth between their 13-year-old selves and their 30-year-old selves as strangers who have not talked for some 20-odd years.
Kat, now a 30-something up-and-coming writer, has asked Cedar to meet her in Albany, NY to sign a waiver for her forthcoming memoir, which revisits the summer of their budding young relationship and the life-changing drama that ensued. She has written chapters of the memoir from Cedar's perspective, and doesn't want to get sued if he doesn't like what his voice has to say. Cedar, who is now a doctor working for a medical dot-com during the first big boom returning from work in Iceland to his home of Silicon Valley, stops off in Albany mainly out of curiosity.
Before the two reunite as their adult selves, Misconception begins with what you can only trust as the actual account of how the two met: Cedar brings his semen to science class to examine under a microscope. Kat and the other kids crowd around the microscope and Kat calls it "cool." After their teacher catches on, Cedar is suspended for a week, but hears from his friend Paul that Kat's friend Margot has said that Kat took the semen slide and is now keeping it in her jewelry box. (And of course, you're quickly reminded of how "cool" we all were in junior high.)
The two develop a summer relationship which consists of making out and groping each other until Kat has to leave on a month-long Alaska trip with her mom and her mom's "totally lame" Ned Flanders-esque boyfriend. After Kat returns, nothing is the same and Cedar becomes entwined with Kat's dysfunctional family, including a big secret that has followed Kat home from Alaska. Cedar quickly learns that assumptions are not always correct and that good intentions only take you so far in life, as the drama in their young relationship takes unforgettable, sobering turns into life and death situations that are too large for either of them to fully comprehend.
The novel is perfectly titled, as every aspect of it revolves around misconceptions. As a reader, you have to be careful about forming your own misconceptions, and you have to put trust into the narrators with the hope that they're being honest about the particulars of that summer. And since it flows freely between fact and memory, this can be difficult at times--especially as 30-something Cedar calls Kat out occasionally, saying things like, "You didn't say 'sick' you said 'cool'," or "I don't remember this thing with, uh, you and me in the van." To which Kat replies, "It might not have actually happened exactly like that. It felt right, structurally."
The different narrating styles add complex layers to Misconception, which we believe the novel could not have succeeded so strongly without. Boudinot has many tongue-in-cheek moments--such as when Kat's first book is reviewed on Amazon by a critic named none other than Ryan Boudinot. With misconceptions around every corner Boudinot's playfulness reminds us quite rightfully to not fall into the traps of our own misconceptions, and to not take anything too seriously.
Ryan Boudinot is the author of the short-story collection, The Littlest Hitler, which was an Amazon.com and Publisher Weekly Best Book of 2006. His work has also appeared in McSweeney's and The Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology.
