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Under the Wolf, Under the Dog

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"I was so in love, I went into my room and drank half a bottle of Robitussin."

Reading Adam Rapp's upcoming novel, UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG, is like watching a car wreck in slow motion...and it's such an awesome wreck that taking your eyes off of it for even a second is totally out of the question.

"We smoked and watched the trash whip around for a few minutes. Trash will make some pretty interesting shapes if you watch it long enough. I thought maybe it was trying to tell me something. Like my future or whatever. The same way people look at tea leaves."

In fact, not only couldn't I take my eyes off this book, reading it as I traveled over last Wednesday night from San Francisco to Chicago for Book Expo, but then on the flight home from Chicago last night, despite traveling with backbreaking quantities of new books in tow, I chose to read this one a second time. It's that good.

"It was amazing. If you ever want to change your life immediately, just sit down in some random fast-food place and start urinating in your pants. My lap was all wet and warm, and it was running down my legs and filling my Red Wing boots.
"I even told the manager. I said, 'I'm totally pissing my pants, man. Sorry.'
"The manager twiddled the ends of his mustache.
"He went, 'Well, that's not very sanitary, son.' Now I was his son. 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave.'
" 'Whatever, Dad,' I said. I was his son, so he was obviously my dad, right?
"We were one big happy Pizza Hut family."

UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG is the emotion-filled story told to us by Steve Nugent, a lovable and confused sixteen-year-old Gifted and Talented student who is tall and skinny, tends toward the socially inept side of the scale, and who, when we meet him, has ended up in a facility after his mother dies from cancer and his big brother kills himself shortly thereafter.

"I'm from East Foote, which is on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. Foote is on the Iowa side, and it's about ten times the size of East Foote. To put it in perspective, before I left, most people in East Foote had to go stand on this old livestock promontory just to get cell phone reception.
"So I'm currently in residence at this place in the middle of Michigan called Burnstone Grove. There are about thirty-five kids here. About half of us are drug addicts, and the other half have tried to check out of this world in one way or another. Probably a third of us have dabbled in both pursuits. I don't entirely fit into either category, so I'm what they call a Gray Grouper. The Red Groupers are the junkies, and the Blue Groupers are the suicide kids. There are only seven Gray Groupers, and we're generally kept here for a month or two before we're either shipped back home or sent to another, more affordable, facility. The Red and Blue Groupers can stay here for over a year sometimes. They get to see the seasons change and everything. So far it's been nothing but snow and ice and frozen trees and this very low-looking iron sky."

As Steve spends his time with the Groupers and staff members at Burnstone Grove, he reveals to us the circumstances which led up to his current residency.

"That's when this bailiff guy entered the room with the judge. The bailiff was pretty weird-looking. He had a shaved head and wore these yellow safety glasses, like he'd just returned from a rigorous go of it at the Foote gun club or something. The judge was pretty old, at least sixty-something, and his black gown made him look like some sort of geriatric Halloween creature in drag."

UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG is a very personal and often humorous story. We're charmed by a whole sideshow of quirky characters, including Steve's brother's wretched drug buddy, Dantly, Shannon Lynch, the young man at Burnstone Grove who can stuff $1.87 in change up his nose, and ten-year-old June, who may haunt my dreams for some time to come.

But above all, this is a terrifying and heartbreaking story about a sensitive kid with whom we can so easily identify, who's had so incredibly much to deal with.

"Suddenly the steering wheel was vibrating. For a second I thought that something had broken--an axle or the steering column or whatever--but then I realized it was me. I looked at my hands and they were trembling so bad I thought the veins in my wrists would burst."

A Richie's Picks Best of 2004 selection.

In Under the Wolf, Under the Dog, Rapp brilliantly tells the story of a misguided young person who overcomes death and dysfunction within the ever-constricting nature of lower middle class suburbia. What makes this book work so well is how honest the main character is with the reader. Though his behavior is at times questionable, the reader wants to work with him throughout the story because Rapp creates a loyalty between what the protagonist is doing, and what the reader wants him to do. Understanding pain through a younger perspective, and an intelligent perspective, encourages and reiterates how much more advanced the young mind is despite what some adults may think. Under the Wolf, Under the Dog is humorous, heart warming, and truly enlightening, and turns a troubled teen into a hero of sorts; a hero that deserves to be respected, and be happy despite his and his family's shortcomings.

This book is just amazing and beautiful. There's really nothing else more to say. Reading it is the equivalant of an out of body experience. It leaves you thinking.

Ignore the fact that others have already mentioned this, and let me be the first to compare Adam Rapp's novel UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG to J.D. Salinger's CATCHER IN THE RYE. Of course, their characters Steve Nugent and Holden Caulfield are different, but they're alike in the way HoHo's know they're related to Ding Dongs.

Critics have called Steve names like "marginalized" and "outcast," but if that's Steve, then that's Holden as well. Which it's not. I'd like to see those critics try to deal with the death of their mother, finally watching cancer finish its job in her upstairs bedroom. I want to see them overcome a group of delinquent friends trying to deal drugs and rob the Piggly Wiggly market. I want to see them discover their brother hanging by a necktie down in the basement. How would they handle it and would that make them "marginalized"?

Here's the thing -- Steve is just a Gray Grouper at Burnstone Grove filling his journal with the past to hopefully make sense of the present. He's in love with Silent Starla, a Blue Grouper who isn't silent like everyone says. He's just a sixteen year old trying to recover from a life where "you have to deal with stuff on your own and that's all there is to it." It's this search that leads him to contemplate the universe and drugs, religion and the purpose of life, and "that particular part of the morning `between the wolf and the dog' when the sky is so deep blue and spooky or whatever that you can't tell what's what."

That's where Steve is. It's the reason he's at Burnstone Grove instead of the Gifted School he ran away from. And it's the reason the unique voice in his mind will howl in your brain, bringing you to laughter, and God help you, tears.

Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

Usually, I hate it when people compare books to Catcher in the Rye, but here it's obviously deserved--not only because you can see the parallels between Holden and Steve's journeys with your eyes closed, but because, like Catcher, this book is amazing. It's a trainwreck that's great because it's so painful and real (and sometimes funny), and by the end I really didn't care that it was a Catcher ripoff, because it's just so good.

This book is written perfectly. I love all of Adam Rapp's novels and this is deffinately one of his best works. I recommend to it to anyone who is looking for a unique style of writing and beautifully unfolding plot.

A WONDERFUL read. It brings tears because of similar experiences. Steve seems real and it's as if he's there and your friend. Your troubled yet trusting friend who's always there to lead. Even if it's down the wrong path. A brutal but brilliant story that touches the heart andd leaves a smile in the end.

I first picked up a copy of UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG at Book Expo America, which was held in Chicago in 2004. I pulled it out of my bag to read on the El, which was going from Washington to Jefferson Park, and I became so absorbed in Steve Nugent's story that I almost missed my stop. But that is what Adam Rapp does best: tell stories that are at once despairing, brutal, true, and hopeful.

Like THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, this is a retrospective story told by a resident of a mental (and, in this case, drug rehab) institution, but Steve has been through a lot more than just getting kicked out of boarding school. Steve is a Gray Grouper at Burnstone Grove, neither a drug addict nor suicidal, but someone who cracked slowly under too many stresses. He lost his mother, and then his brother; through these deaths, when Steve needed him the most, his father became more distant.

With an unapologetic eye for detail, Rapp takes us through Steve's discovery of his brother's dead body and the crimes he commits afterwards. Instead of revulsion, we as readers feel sympathy for Steve, who is as sensitive and captivating as he is observant and honest, a good person in a series of bad situations. The supporting characters --- including Mary, the beautiful pianist Steve has a crush on, and Shannon Lynch, a manipulative resident of Burnstone Grove who can put $1.87 in change up his nose --- add color and dimension to Steve's experiences.

There is humor here for those who need to laugh in the most difficult situations and hope for those who need some kind of happy ending. It is a serious but never melodramatic book that will stay with you once it's finished, and will spark thought and pathos. In this reviewer's opinion, UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG is one of the best books of 2004.

--- Reviewed by Carlie Webber

This book is not for the squeamish. It's a heartbreakingly beautiful story told from the point of view of a 19-year-old boy who is in a home for kids who are drug addicts and/or have tried to commit suicide. It is the "journal" he is asked to keep that forms the novel. It is devastating in its honesty. The point of view is extraordinary, both raw and lyric. The narrator has an intensely personal sense of humor and of the absurd. As tragic as the novel is, it is also very, very funny. I think this is one of the best and most intelligent novels I have read in a long time. It is certainly one I will never forget.

This is the greatest book I have ever read. It has honestly changed the way I look at life.