Customer Reviews

Vacation

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The world has, since the inception - intentional or otherwise - of humankind, always been a dubious plane of existence. You'd be hard-pressed to find an author, poet, artist, musician, politician, holy man, or everyman who has never spoken out concerning the human condition, from the tiniest fib to the most horrific act of genocide. Newspaper columnists, Sunday preachers, eastern philosophers all dissect the meaning of life in their various fashions - but Jeremy Shipp's Vacation, a first-person tour de force that takes place in an alternate universe and / or future-in-the-making, actually takes the human condition and turns it inside out.

On the surface, Vacation is about a disgruntled English teacher named Bernard Johnson who goes on Vacation (yes, proper capitalization) with an ex-student, once-male, now-female friend and discovers the world is not what he initially thought it to be.

Okay. Simple enough premise - you see it all the time in various forms of literature (well, maybe without the sex change). Peel away that superficial layer, though, and you soon find yourself entangled in a labyrinth of spiritual testing and social commentary unflinchingly portrayed by Shipp's characters. In this world, society exists in two major flavors: the Tics and the Meeks, the former being the well-to-dos of the industrialized nations, the latter being the poor, the exiled. Using this metaphor, it quickly becomes obvious the Tics are our own pop culture, the pill-popping, credit-card-wielding, overfed, and over-stimulated masses who have been shielded from the terrible truths of the world in a sort of global propaganda scheme to bolster big business. The Meeks are, well, everyone else - a grassroots conglomerate of militants who have cleansed their bodies and minds of all social poisons. Somewhere in between is the Garden, an external haven lead by Noh, who seeks to seed truth back into the world, one mind at a time.

Bernard's adventure plays out in the classic escapist fashion - on crack. Indeed, much of his transformation has to do with the altering of his mind, the skewering of his perspective, so that he may glimpse the dream he's been living from the outside. He goes on Vacation, falls in love, becomes a tool for the Meeks, and ultimately helps to realize Noh's vision of social revolution - but don't expect any of this to be A-B-C, for the strength of Shipp's narrative lies in his ability to toss the ball to his characters and trust that their decisions, their reactions will guide the story true. The underlying meaning is present throughout, but it is quite obvious from the start that you, the reader, are just as responsible as Bernard in coming to your own conclusions.

Shipp's style in Vacation demands an agile approach, as various scenes shift seamlessly between dreams and reality - often without warning. I'm reminded of S.P. Somtow's Riverrun Trilogy: one quarter real, three quarters surreal. Considering the concept, I can't imagine it any other way.

Vacation is a potent social theory, a spiritual hopscotch from start to finish. With interesting scenarios and thought-provoking dialog, it is a compelling reason for fans of psychological fantasy to look up Jeremy Shipp.

Jeremy Shipp takes the reader on a psychological head-trip through
the eyes of Bernard Johnson. A thirty-five year old intelligent
man with a wild, incredible imagination. Bernard is tormented
with his dreams, fantasies, and nightmares. The reader is taken
through the door of a magic carpet ride of adventure, but the ride
doesn't end there. The ride continues from the magic carpet of fantasy,
through the doors of the haunted house of fear. Each reader will be
taken through the same journey, but if they dare go a second round,
they may experience a completely different feeling than the first
ride. Vacation is a thought-provoking, surrealistic first time novel,
created into a dark fiction masterpiece. This adventure story through
the mind of Johnson is disturbing, provocative, and challenging.
Shipp covers every segment of human emotion to perfection, leaving
the curious reader in total darkness. Reading Vacation is like
watching one of Alfred Hitchcock's brain-teasing movies, where the
reader is left confused. This unpredicting story of one man's
journey is a powerful, bizzare, roller coaster ride into the human
psyche. Vacation demands the reader to begin this journey once again,
and for each reader that takes a second ride, Shipp's mission is
accomplished. His sole intention is to make sure the reader hasn't
missed anything. The reader is left with questions, not answers,
and is forced to solve this puzzle of mystery. Is Bernard Johnson
battling with depression? Does depression take over? The author
draws a fine line between fantasy and reality through the wandering
mind of Bernard Johnson, as he struggles out of his comfort zone.
I recommend this novel to all readers who enjoy dark fiction,
combined with challenge, and suspense. However, one must be as daring
as Jodi Foster was in "Silence Of The Lambs." Bear in mind that she
was warned, "Don't let Hannibal get into your head!" May I remind you
that he was a clever psychiatrist, and she was forced to take that
daring risk. Shipp invites his readers to take that risk, while riding
that roller coaster of madness through the psychological journey of
Vacation, reminding readers that the greatest risk in life is not
taking one.

Geri Ahearn I.O.M.
Author of 6 books
Author Geri Ahearn, INC.

Hey, how would you like to take an all-expense paid year-long vacation around the world in the name of "finding yourself"? What if it meant leaving behind your loved ones, your career, everything you ever felt secure in? What if it also meant leaving behind your regrets, your bad memories, your addictions? What if you could talk to angels and become stronger, achieve more than your wildest ambitions? What if you had to be completely broken down and painfully rewired first? Would you do it?

Jeremy C. Shipp's book VACATION is a well-written voyage of self-discovery in a not-so-fictitious world of Big Brotherism. It's not a long book, but it will make you think. And thinking is good.

Not because of this outstanding book, I just wanted to brag.

Jeremy Shipp's greatest work yet. It's more subtle in it's bizzarity than Cursed and longer than a piece of string. Vacation is a book that makes you suddenly stop reading, back up a few lines and read it again as your brain catches up with what just happened and goes WTF?

Vacation should be required reading in schools were education is more important than indoctrination, and used for indoctrination purposes in all other institutions.

Vacation was my first foray into the bizarro fiction genre. I wasn't sure what to expect when starting this book, but soon realized that all expectations simply fly out the window anyway. Bernard Johnson, a 35-year-old English teacher decides (in an early-mid-life-crisis kind of way) to spend the next year of his life "finding himself" during a government sponsored world Vacation. On this Vacation, Bernie meets up with a beautiful woman who used to be one of his male students; is visited by his dead sister; and finds himself dumped into an alternate reality where the ultimate battle for truth and freedom is unfolding. Hold on for the ride of your life, the twists and turns never end and constantly leave the reader having to reshuffle what they think is real and what is a dream. This expertly crafted story manages to be both phenomenally deep and highly entertaining all at the same time.

If you could take a year-long Vacation, all-expenses paid, would you? Would you be afraid of the journey? Or would you be afraid of what you may find at the end?

Jeremy C. Shipp addresses these questions through Bernard Johnson, a man who lives in the shadow of many. His father, his girlfriend, the world. His life is spent trying to be what is expected, what is normal. He sometimes thinks of himself, but he has no idea how to express it, often out of fear of the all-consuming forces that surround him. So he decides to finally take his one and only Vacation, just to get away from his mundane life and see the world.

What follows is a journey of personal discovery and adventure that is equal parts surreal and too real. The fantastic elements are kept to a minimum, there to keep the story moving in favor of the human drama. The people he meets, the truths discovered, and the realizations made will change Bernard, and perhaps the reader too.

What Vacation offers is a little grain of truth, couched in fiction. What you thought you knew may not be what you will find here. Mr. Shipp, like one of his characters, leads you to the information. You, however, will have to find it.

This novel has everything: a bored rich boy, terrorists, drug wars, and many less describable things that do more than border on the fantastic--they sneak across and infiltrate the fantastic and bring it to its knees, gasping for more rough treatment. It is truly a VACATION from tedium and the expected, and every page is a pleasure. Jeremy Shipp is a fine writer.

Raw Dog Screaming Press is to be congratulated, once again, for publishing such a wide and varied array of brilliant writers. Their catalogue is beyond impressive, with titles from such figures as Mickey Z and the great Tom Bradley (see my amazon review of his astonishing LEMUR). Jeremy Shipp is right at home with these wild men, and adds his own inimitable skill and strangeness.

Let's cry out in unison for lots more novels from RAW DOG SCREAMING PRESS!

An author strives to transport his readers to another world; that of his imagination. Jeremy Shipp achieves that goal is this short novel. But it isn't an easy world he conveys.

His premise is simple. A jaded man--dissatisfied with his career, his lover, his life--goes on vacation in search of redemption. Shipp's writing style is stark and plain. In many ways his style reminds me of the English writer Magnus Mills.

Bernard Johnson, the son of an "Education Expert Extraordinaire, has gone from being a frustrated teacher to becoming an even more frustrated writer of lesson plans for other teachers. He's bored with every aspect of his life, including his hot girlfriend Hillary.

The only recourse is the vacation--though this is not what one usually envisions as a holiday. There are some similarities. Bernard does go to exotic locales, he does indulge in adventurous activities, he does change habits and attitudes as ordinary tourists do. But this is no ordinary excursion.

This vacation is no mere change of scenery. It is, in fact, a change of person. Shipp provides a stimulating venue with plenty of magic and metaphysics along the way.

Vacation is a surreal trip into a world you might not want to encounter. What goes on just beneath the surface will grasp your imagination and have this simplistic story haunting your mind for days after you've finished the book.

I loved this story. It was entertaining, and there's plenty of substance to ponder when the book isn't in your hand. Jeremy Shipp has a storytelling style all his own. It's a fun, well-crafted book that I recommend highly.

As the title says, I really could not get into this one. Maybe it's just me but I thought this was an extremely slow read, downright boring at times.
Despite this, I really liked Sheep and Wolves and plan on giving Mr. Shipp's other books a try as well.