Rating: 5 roosters/stars
Title:Wake Me Up
Author(s): Justin Bog
Genre(s): Contemporary, Crime Thriller, LGBT, Thriller/Suspense
Publisher: Gravity (2016)
A teenage boy lies in a coma, mentally reliving the events leading up to his attack by a gang of classmates on a random wilding spree.
From his hospital bed, Chris Bullet suffers the aftermath of being cornered, mocked, and bludgeoned by boys who have correctly sensed his vulnerability (from their viewpoint)—he is gay, though Chris tries to hide it. Comatose, Chris “sees” through closed eyes the hidden actions, fears, loves, and guilt of those whose lives intersect his.
Why did Ellis, the boy Chris secretly desired, join his attackers? Why is Geoff, Chris’ lawyer father, so depressed, and indeed, suicidal? Why does Chris’ poetess/professor mother clamp the lid so tightly on her feelings? In the middle of this triangle, is a visiting writer named Deepika who begins an affair with Geoff, is going to have his “love” child, Chris’s half-sibling. All the while, Deepika may be running away from her own fate. Somehow, Chris walks in the minds of these people and others, slowly comprehending what led to his attack. At times he accesses an alter ego, the main character in Deepika’s latest collection of short fiction—Sai, a quick-witted, openly gay newspaper reporter.
The genius of author Justin’s Bog’s first full-length novel is that though everything Chris “knows” and recounts in his inner monologue is mysterious, maybe mystical, there is no hint of hocus-pocus, nor of the vague disjointed dream sequences one might expect from an unconscious protagonist.
In the brief lead-up and denouement we see reality clearly: the attack and the aftermath. In between, everything that “happens” to Chris in his shut-off state is just as real and just as believable–but impossible. It would be hard to identify a literary precedent for this method of construction—Franz Kafka, perhaps, meets Lewis Carroll.
Bog’s Wake Me Up is a mind-tickling read, combining a headline-grabbing story (defenseless boy battered to mental oblivion by brutish thugs), an over-arching theme (how do we as a society handle hate crime?), and a line-up of complex characters subtly analyzed and connected in the mind of a brilliant, hypersensitive, but comatose adolescent.
Wake Me Up is a trip through the brain of an injured teenage boy whose supercharged perceptions expose the secret sins of those he wants to love and hopes to believe in.
Although Justin Bog is a member of International Thriller Writers group and his new book Wake Me Up is a crime story in general, it’s not an easy-going page-turner about catching and bringing criminals to justice. Set in a small fictional college town in Montana, in October of the 2004 election year, this novel deals with much more important things: family values, sexuality, love, hatred, forgiveness, and compassion. Everyone here has many secrets that he or she is trying – most unsuccessfully – to deal with on their own. They reject and are repeatedly afraid to even acknowledge that they have problems. They conceal them from each other… They don’t speak or honestly discuss their troubles with the members of their family or friends. These miscommunications and attempts to keep up appearances lead to a tragedy; a fifteen-year-old teenage boy, named Chris Bullet, is cold-bloodedly and brutishly assaulted for supposedly being gay by four heartless bullies, four of his schoolmates. In the hospital, guarded by police, Chris is lying in a coma in critical condition.
“Life’s but a trial, a series of choices, and most of them forgettable; no one can predict the future.”
How did it happen? What circumstances brought Chris to that specific place where he was attacked and at that particular time? How would this tragic event influence Chris’ family and the other people involved? Is there any hope? Will Chris make it through? The story unfolds from a very unusual point-of-view: from the depth of Chris’ coma, the narrator is Chris himself. This is an original approach to tell such a complex and intricate story! Chris’ ghost-like phantom randomly floats upon past and current events until all deeply hidden true feelings and motives revealed, by himself and his relatives. As an unseen narrator Chris makes neutral and objective observation of this difficult state of affairs. Only in this emotionally distant, numb state can Chris calmly scrutinize an otherwise physically and psychologically painful situation.
The realization that the situation Chris finds himself in – coma ridden after poor choices built upon lies – isn’t hypothetical and such things could happen anytime, anywhere around the world is especially saddening here. Like one of the book’s protagonists you may believe in karma but it seems that everyone’s karma depends heavily on his own choices. Wisely made choices and thoughtful decisions are everyone’s hope, but not everyone can take the step back to get the emotional distance needed for such decisions.
