Dennis Haritou: Two kinds of people graduate college. The first kind have already made plans to attend grad school or are heading for a career. It’s like they are on a train track that is not going to vary. Career, family, regular hours, home for dinner, television, bedtime…five days a week plus weekends off. This pattern will probably persist for most of their lives once they leave school at one end of the adult life cycle until they are ready to retire at the end of the line.
What’s the appeal? When you walk into your kitchen, it’s nice to know that the oven mitt is always to be found in the same place. When you walk into your bedroom, the upright chair that you customarily drape your robe over will always be found by that sunny window.
That’s the first track. But there is another kind of graduation. On the second track we have the kids who have taken courses for their entire lives. Teachers are assigned, homework prepared and the classes that largely define the contours of their identity are attended. But college graduation is annihilation day. It’s like that train, careening at full tilt, has suddenly run out of track and had its wheels sucked into the mud.
This is where we find Potter Mays of Kyle Beachy’s debut novel, The Slide. It’s the tale of Potter’s lame duck school vacation. The novel concludes on Labor Day.
Potter’s “last summer” is framed by his obsession over whether his girlfriend Audrey will come back to him from a European jaunt. They are already ominous signs, like the keepsake starfish he receives from her in the mail with several of its tentacles broken off.
But I found myself not caring whether Audrey comes back. Audrey’s absence provides a context for Potter’s free floating anxiety. It looks like his parent’s marriage is heading for the rocks and the comfortable home that he has lived in all his life will soon be part of history. That’s certainly quite a shake up for a man whose mother still makes his breakfast and packs his lunches for him.
But Potter has returned from school to the heartland of a St. Louis that is trying to revive its decaying urban core. He will count on old friends and encounter some sadistic enemies. He will try to be a mensch but in general he will fuck things up. He may sleep around some. Audrey?
It is my opinion that you should take a look at what Potter Mays is up to during the last vacation in which he may arguably be called a child. It’s a season that fades fast, as those who have been through it know. But I loved St. Louis and I loved the Cardinals after reading this book. As for Potter, if he existed on Facebook, I’d friend him, as I have Mr. Beachy.
Jason Chambers: I actually like the way Kyle Beachy writes. You can see some great examples here and here. Serious, tough, smart writing. Some funny stuff too. Some excerpts from The Slide, taken on their own, are beautiful and touching, if a bit Lifetime for Men. The growing sense of family in the face of separation is notable and very good. I wish the book had delved deeper into those relationships and Potter’s changing impressions and growing maturity.
But, frankly, I think that Beachy’s all over the place here. First we’re watching Potter moan about Audrey and hang out with old friends, then flirting with the jail bait next door (I did love the Lolita line, very funny), then establishing an entirely inappropriate relationship with a semi-abandoned latchkey kid. The focus of the book gets away him between the farm girl, the
ogre and the labor cult (really, what the hell was that about?)
Dennis is right that The Slide is really a coming of age novel for late bloomers. Potter is a loser without a clue about the future. By having as little common sense as possible from an ostensibly intelligent person, he fucks up just about everything, while reveling in in his lack of awareness. Audrey? Well the best way handle the situation is to ignore her for three months, of course. Don’t know what to do for a job? Take the first shit job someone throws at you. Met a strange kid home alone? Let’s hang out with him! Potter’s utter discombobulation in the face of the world around him falls short of charming for me, and his enlightenment at the end is minor.
Good writin
g, but deeply flawed, The Slide misses its mark. I wondered if this was a very good short story, or a series of stories, that was expanded into a weaker novel.
Jason Rice: I wandered through this novel, much the way the unconvincing Potter wandered through his post-college life. It wasn’t pretty, his parents are getting divorced, he’s interested in the neighbors’ teenage daughter and he’s thinking about baseball, all while navigating his wealthy friends and a down on it’s luck St. Louis.
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