The Night Gwen Stacy Died, by Sarah Bruni

The Night Gwen Stacy Died

By Sarah Bruni

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Mariner Books, 2013

291 pages

Bruni’s captivating voice guided me though this book, which is a unique combination of Midwestern gothic and comic book surrealism.

Sheila Gower is a 17-year old high school girl, with a job at a Sinclair gas station and a dream to leave Coralville, Iowa (her hometown) and move to France. She lives an ordinary life that gets turned upside down by a taxi driver, Peter Parker, who is a regular at the Sinclair station. I don’t want to give away too much of this plot, but on a whim, Sheila and Peter set off on a Bonnie and Clyde (without the violence) type of Midwestern adventure.

This is a unique and quasi-surreal book that reminded me of a cross between a David Lynch and a Godard film, with a Midwestern setting. Comic book readers will know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man’s real name, and Gwen Stacy is Peter Parker’s first love. After meeting Peter Parker, Sheila takes on Gwen’s identity and through her Bruni explores a teenage girl’s first love and her desire to have more in her life than high school, a gas station job, and parents who wash and dry dishes together. The book also looks at how we can take on, and slip between, identities when we are in love, sometimes losing track of who we are. As I turned the pages, I had no idea where Bruni was going with her story (and how she was going to end her book), but I was intrigued by her themes and drawn in by her beautiful prose. I also felt like she ended it on just the right note, though some readers might wish for a bit more drama.

Bruni, originally from Chicago, now lives in Brooklyn. I discovered this book when I heard Bruni read this summer at the Franklin Park reading series. EW interviewed her about the book and her life in their Shelf Life blog.

I bought this book at an independent bookstore.

 

 

 

 

Franklin Park reading series – debut discoveries

Last Monday, I attended a reading at Franklin Park, a bar in Brooklyn, where I heard a few debut authors read from their works. The theme was travels and journeys.

Elliott Holt read from her debut novel, You Are One of Them. This book has been getting a lot of good press. It’s about the friendship of two American girls, Sarah and Jennifer, who grow up together in DC. Jennifer’s family moves to Moscow in the 80s, when she is a teen, and the family dies in a plane crash. Ten years later, Sarah travels to Moscow on a tip that her friend might not be dead.

Sarah Bruni read from her debut novel, The Night Gwen Stacy Died. Riffing off the Spider-Man comics series, Sheila, a teenage girl from Iowa, who is saving up her money to travel to France, meets a man who calls himself Peter Parker and entices her to set off on an adventure. The chapter she read from was based in Iowa City – my hometown. Gotta support a novel set in Iowa!

And finally, Emily Raboteau, who has published fiction, read from her first memoir, Searching for Zion. The book chronicles her journey to Africa, Jamaica and the American South to learn more about Black Zionists. She read a chapter from her visit to Jamaica where she learned about Rastafarianism.

All three authors were great readers and made me interested in their books. I hope to review at least one of them in more depth later this year.