How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive - Softcover

Boucher, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1935554638 ISBN 13: 9781935554639

Publisher: Melville House Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

A wildly inventive, funny, yet genuinely moving story of a young father dealing with the difficulties of grown-up life: raising a child, an aging parent and finding real love. Written in the kind of experimental prose that Melville House is known to champion, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive is also a highly emotive work with a broad appeal, which will delight readers who enjoy the slightly off-kilter worlds found in the writing of George Saunders and Jonathan Letham.

About this title

Review

"Boucher creates a fun, bluesy work that deals with the difficulty of parenting, coping with loss and how people navigate romantic relationships; in a sense, HTKYVA is an instruction manual for the human heart....Unforgettable." --Rhea Ramey, Time Out New York (5/5 stars)

"Innovative, addictive, bonkers and beautiful" --Jonathan Messinger, Time Out Chicago

"Writing to save your life--and your 1971 Volkswagen--is at the heart of this wildly imaginative debut... Readers are in for a fresh, memorable ride with this inventive 'collage of loss'" --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Strange and dazzling...Through all the insanity and dizzying leaps of logic that make up Boucher's world are a series of absolutely human and recognizable truths." --Emily St. John Mandel, The Millions

"Accomplished, wrenching." --The Kenyon Review

"Boucher's first novel is one of the most original books you will read this year." --Roxane Gay, HTMLGiant

"Boucher is a deft mechanic...possessed of a special skill to diagnose malfunctioning language by ear, to hear where words are misaligned...." --Eamon, O'Connor, Full-Stop

"This is a head-tilting exercise in literary shape-shifting." --Identity Theory

"Boucher's clever turns of phrase and his playfulness with words are also hallmarks of this oddball tale. And despite the wonkiness, the enchanting novelist keeps the plot well-oiled and in gear throughout." --Austen Diamond, Salt Lake City Weekly

"There is a fair amount of vulgar language used and taking the Lord's name in vain. There are references to premarital sex, which the author calls 'faith or faithing.'" --The Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

"As moving as it is fun, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive is definitely the next book you should read." --Adam Levin, author of The Instructions

"Christopher Boucher joins a now-forgotten handbook with Steven Wright's old joke about mistakenly sticking a car key in a house door and builds a new, exuberant novel-world. Goofiness and grief are in perfect harmony in this impressive, moving debut." --Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask

"Boucher is our Brautigan. From an alchemy of melancholy and innocence, he coins beautiful malapropisms that overtake the dogged stretches of our language. A whimsy so charismatic you find yourself thinking and, yes, talking in Boucherisms." --Salvador Plascencia, author of The People of Paper

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER BOUCHER is author of the widely praised novels Golden Delicious and Big Giant Floating Head. He teaches literature and writing at Boston College, and is editor of the literary journal Post Road. He lives in Northampton, MA.

About this edition

• Publisher: Melville House Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1935554638
• ISBN 13: 9781935554639
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240