Joe Speedboat [Paperback]

Tommy Wieringa (Author), Sam Garrett (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2010

A sparkling coming-of-age novel that has sold over 300,000 copies in Holland, in which the inhabitants of a sleepy rural town are awakened by the arrival of a kinetic young visionary, Joe Speedboat.

After a farming accident plunges him into a coma for six months, Frankie Hermans wakes up to discover that he’s paralyzed and mute. Bound to a wheelchair, Frankie struggles to adjust to a life where he must rely on others to complete even the simplest tasks. The only body part he can control is his right arm, which he uses obsessively to record the details of daily life in his town.

But when he meets Joe—a boy who blazed into town like a meteor while Frankie slept—everything changes. Joe is a centrifugal force, both magician and daredevil, and he alone sees potential strength in Frankie’s handicaps. With Joe’s help, Frankie’s arm will be used for more that just writing: as a champion arm-wrestler, Frankie will be powerful enough to win back his friends, and maybe even woo P. J., the girl who has them all in a tailspin.
Alive with the profundities of adolescence,Joe Speedboatis the supersonic story of an unlikely alliance and a lightning-quick dash to

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The first novel by prize-winning Dutch author Wieringa to be translated into English is a brilliant coming-of-age story with an outlandish twist: Frankie, the narrator, is paralyzed but for his right arm and unable to speak after a farming accident. But when wild child Joe Speedboat shows up in Frankie's sleepy town, he gives Frankie a new lease on life. Together the boys navigate young adulthood, with crippled Frankie chronicling Joe's adventures. Joe blows up a toilet at their school. He builds an airplane and takes Frankie along for the ride. Joe trains Frankie to become an arm wrestler with his one good arm, and Frankie makes a name for himself as a fierce competitor. It comes as no surprise that Frankie and Joe love the same girl, and while Joe is away on a quest to find his mother's missing boyfriend, she shows Frankie that, in her own way, she loves them both. There are more coming-of-age novels than dikes in Holland, but this wonderfully weird novel is not one to miss. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

A 220-day coma brought on by a grisly suicide attempt leaves 13-year-old Frankie, mute, wheelchair-bound, and dependent upon people for everything down to unzipping his pants to pee. But adventure roars back into his life with the arrival of Joe Speedboat, a scrappy and dashing teen whose amateur bombs soon give way to grander schemes, such as building a functioning airplane so he can glimpse the neighbor who allegedly parades around nude. The triumph and tragedy that pepper the story feel authentically random, though the familiar coming-of-age structure lends the book a directionless, episodic feel—until the second half, that is, when little Frankie becomes Frank the Arm, an arm-wrestling prodigy reared and managed by Mr. Speedboat himself. Shifting the action to smoky competition halls and the drama to a love triangle, Wieringa’s tale takes on the feel of a good road-trip novel perfectly suited to his cast of eccentrics. The setting of rural Holland is convincingly rendered, and the low-key freakishness (think Garp) keeps things at just the right degree of weird. --Daniel Kraus

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat (April 8, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802170722
• ISBN-13: 978-0802170729
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,522,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual, beautiful and touching story of friendship, June 8, 2011

By 

Benjamin (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Joe Speedboat (Paperback)

Fourteen year old Frankie Hermans is just coming out of a coma of 200 days, during this time a new boy arrived in the small Dutch town of Lomark, Frankie's home. Coinciding with Joe's arrival are several bomb explosions in the town, the two are not unrelated, and Joe's abilities go beyond creating a bang, he proves capable of building his own airplane from scratch, and finds a good use for a redundant bulldozer, he is truly a creative mechanic and a free spirit.

Frankie's recovery leaves him with severe physical limitations, but he and Joe soon strike up a friendship, along with Christof and Engel, and later the beautiful and desirable P.J. While Frankie is restricted in mobility and speech, he has the use of his right arm, which develops remarkable strength; under Joe's guidance he successfully enters the world or arm wrestling.

The account is related by an older Frankie as he looks back at his teenage years. The friendship he describes with Joe is one of unselfishness and care, Joe unquestioningly will do whatever is needed for Frankie, and even their rivalry for P.J.'s affections does not interfere with their friendship. Joe Speedboat is an unusual, beautiful and touching story of friendship and growing up in a small provincial town.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good book, rated R, January 10, 2011

By 

A. Miller "noyb" (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Joe Speedboat (Paperback)

It's hard to find good books for teenagers. My kid finds "teen fiction" fatuous and I don't blame him. So I was pleased to find this grown-up book highly recommended for "young adults" on a British website.

I gave it to my kid for Christmas. He hasn't read it yet, but I read it myself. I recommend it highly for adults. The narrator is unsentimental and very real, the story is engrossing, and the book provides a window on a world that few of us experience.

Parents: If you are thinking of buying it for a kid, you should be aware that there are a few explicit sex scenes towards the end. They are not gratuitous, I think, but they are graphic and certainly not suitable for a 14-year-old. Too bad. Otherwise it would be a fine alternative to "teen fiction".

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant debut novel, June 30, 2011

By 

P. A. Doornbos - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joe Speedboat (Paperback)

Despite glowing reviews in "Publishers Week" and other English-language publications, this novel never caught fire in terms of sales as a translated work. Perhaps it is too Dutch or the translation has not caught the mood. In the Netherlands it was a hit and has been reprinted 43 times so far.

What appealed to NL readers was the story, its venue and its two heroes, immobile Frankie and hyperactive Joe. It is about teenagers and young adults doing incredible things in pursuit of passion. Frankie was overrun by a tractor while contemplating his place in the universe, lying on his back in a meadow. He became a quadriplegic, unable to speak or do much else, except finishing high school thanks to the full control of his mind and right hand and arm. On a day when his family dumps him in an abandoned building during their visit to a fair, he meets Joe Speedboat, a newcomer in the small town, who refuses to live with his given name and revolutionizes Frankie's life. He soon outs himself as an explosions expert.

A lifelong friendship begins, full of challenges: A new dentist from South Africa settles. The daughter is delectable, her mother rumored to sunbathe naked in the walled back garden. A small team of sex-starved teenagers led by Joe, incl. Frankie, strive to see this, and successfully build a light airplane with the help of school books and specialized manuals, powered by the engine of a Subaru car.

Later, Joe Speedboat introduces Frankie into the world of professional arm wrestling to finance his participation in the annual Paris-Dakar race. Not with a car, motorbike or truck, but with a shovel ("next best vehicle to cross sand dunes after the camel"). The book contains plenty of philosophy and deserves international attention and readership.

Warm book full of delayed world class jokes and twist and turns covering hundreds of pages. Frankie is never, ever portrayed as a pitiful creature. Highly recommended