Customer Reviews

Vintage: A Ghost Story

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Vintage follows the accepted conventions of the ghost story: an unhappy soul haunts a section of highway not realizing that he is dead and so causes problems for the living, the plot of the novel is how the ghost is allowed to rest. But Steve Berman's added a neat twist--actually two twists. The first is that the main characters who experience the haunting and then try to do something to help the ghost are modern day goth teenagers with a penchant for dressing outlandishly in black (with maybe a little mascara for effect), drinking and drugging with reckless abandon, and driving their parents crazy. The novel is told in the first person of one of these teenagers; Berman has got the jargon and voice down pat to introduce the reader to this goth Holden Caufield with a cellphone and taste for ecstasy and peppermint schnapps.

The second twist is that the main character is gay; he's living with a liberal-minded aunt because his uptight parents told him to leave when his homosexuality was made embarrassingly public. He's got a job working in a retro fashions and used clothing store and made friends with several teenage girls, including a young lesbian couple, who frequent the store looking for goth costumery. And the ghost that's haunting the highway on the outskirts of town was himself a teenager of the 1950s who died mysteriously after his own homosexuality was made embarrassingly public--maybe he was murdered; maybe by the guy he was in love with; maybe in an act of homophobia.

There are twists and turns in the plot. The resolution is delightfully satisfying. Even the ghost is happy by the end and can go to his rest. And the teenagers turn their goth fascinations toward adulthood.

The most interesting and well-written section of the story revolves around the protagonist's infatuation with the ghost--and the ghost's with him. It's not giving away too much to reveal that the ghost died longing for love and conflicted about his sexuality and so when the goth teenager shows up dealing with the same issues, a strange relationship develops. The description of their lovemaking is both arousing and exciting and creepy and, literally, chilling. For the ghost's affections turn out to suck the life and warmth out of the living boy and he has to struggle against his own conflicts with growing up gay to avoid following the ghost into icy death.

Vintage: A Ghost Story certainly plays on the gay interest with consciousness on the margins. It's a fast read, entertaining, and just delightfully chilling. The reader too will be happy, warmed up, and satisfied when the steaming hot peppermint-flavored cocoa is served at the end--and gay love saves the day.

Vintage is the perfect book for the isolated gay teenager in all of us; it takes some of the standards of coming out fiction (getting thrown out, straight girl best friend, burgeoning love) and reinvents them in unexpected ways. This character is wry and sad, tender and smart in a novel that is powerful because it works as a love story that set my heart a flutter (can only imagine the effect it would have had on my 14-year old heart), as a gothic tale with ghosts, dusty libraries and vintage clothing, and as a narrative with real, dynamic and surprising relationships and verifiable emotional resonance.

I don't usually read horror or paranormal, so I was surprised that I liked this book as much as I did. At first, it seemed like it might be a bit like the Demi Moore movie, Ghost, because of a burgeoning human-ghost relationship, but it quickly becomes much, much darker and the main characters are much more richly developed. There are some similarities to The Sixth Sense, but as the narrator is a teenager, this is just as much a story of the search for love returned (both familial and romantic) as it is fear of the spectral.

I read very slowly, and I very rarely stay up all night finishing a book, but I did with this one. (Kind of silly since I'm a scaredy-cat and, even though the story wasn't immensely frightening, I didn't want to turn off the light when I finished.) Perhaps some readers will be a bit frustrated with the narrator's initial introspection, but keep reading, as after the first few pages the story quickly becomes gripping. I think more and more grown-ups are discovering that YA fiction often hits them in a more deeply personal way than typical adult fiction, and this book, like Weetzie Bat or Tithe, is a good example of that.

Had I been a little bolder, I might have been one of the very tiny contingent of "dress to depress" Goth kids at my high school - the ones that wore duster coats and black nail polish, listened to "How Soon Is Now" by The Smiths, drew beautiful pictures on their notebooks, and all went off to Sarah Lawrence College. However, even though I didn't wear the pain on the outside, I'm fairly certain that I felt the same torment and isolation. And while I feel this story would most likely appeal to more than just despondent souls (especially since it's something of a romance), I have half a mind to buy a copy for my high school library in the hopes that someone there now will have a chance of feeling understood.

Steve Berman's Vintage: A Ghost Story is an amazing story, simple as that.

Do you like goth kids? Ghosts? Gay romance? Either way you answer, it doesn't really matter.

Steve writes a story so fantastic that I guarantee you'll eat it up from first page to final sentence.

The voice is impeccably accurate, the story is one we can all associate with.

Who would think that a book that seems to play to a very specific niche audience (gay, goth, ghost) could in fact be enjoyed by anyone of any age?

I'm not kidding. Pick up Vintage: A Ghost Story now. You won't put down Steve Berman's book until you reach the end.

Then you'll most likely pick it up to read it again.

A story of lust and revenge, outsiders and group dynamics, love, life and death, "Vintage" has it all. Narrated by a charming young gay man, we are shown how buried internal conflict has a way of manifesting in our daily lives: our hero's success relies just as much on his struggle to come to terms with himself as it does in negotiating the supernatural forces that mean to do him harm.

Put on a pot of coffee and unplug the phone, because once you start "Vintage" you'll have to ride this painful, scary and moving tale to its surprising yet inevitable conclusion, even if it takes you all night. One thing's for sure: You'll never hear the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" the same way again...

Vintage is much more than a ghost story. It's a tale of misunderstood goth youth trying to find acceptance, love, and belonging.

The story begins with the un-named narrator leaving home to live with his aunt. He struggles to make new friends and build new family ties while unwittingly attracting the attention of local spirits. When those spirits begin to interfere, he's forced to make some changes for everyone's benefit. The process is not without some surprises, and left me wondering what would happened next...

Vintage sparked my imagination with its vivid imagery. It's kept me thinking about the "what if's" behind every unexplained noise and feeling I've had since reading it. Hauntingly wonderful.

Steve Berman's novel is a skillful brew of Goth fashion, gay teen alienation, a sexually predatory ghost from the legendary past (the 1950's)and an improvised exorcism into which the author has blended a suprisingly sweet coming-of-age love story.

Steve Berman's writing is captivatingly creepy and endearing at the same time. His characters take on a life of their own (even the ghosts), and draw you into their world on a leash of curiosity and interest.

The small details are what I appreciate most in this novel. For instance, the staring man in the graveyard near the beginning of chapter one; it didn't occur to me that he wasn't alive until I read the book a second time. Also, the fact that Second Mike wears First Mike's hand-me-downs--Second Mike is fifteen, and we find out later on that First Mike was eleven when he disappeared. This helped me visualize Second Mike's appearance better. The fact that he is obviously small for his age sort of mirrors his personality; he's essentially a replacement for his brother, and you get the feeling that he doesn't exactly fit the part.

Another thing that reached out and grabbed me was the protagonist's quirky musings on life. Like in chapter one when he decides that he'll become a basement-dwelling savant, and later, during the sequence at the club with the girl all dressed in blue. Things like that give a great insight into a character's mind.

Overall, Vintage is an excellent read: charming, often unnerving, and incredibly well-written. I look forward to reading more of Berman's work.

Vintage kept my interest from start to finish--I devoured it in under a day! The protagonist is heartbreakingly touching from his own self-doubts to his longing for love and his desire to be honest with his aunt. Completely real and lovable.

The plot fascinated me; I was never sure what the ghost was going to do, or indeed, anyone, without anyone breaking character or acting in strange ways. I believed in every single person in the book.

Excellent book!

Vintage: A Ghost Story is a rare find among what I'll call the use of the supernatural in plots. This one has the usual stuff about ghosts and ouija boards, and how to allow a ghost to rest. But I knew it was going to be a ghost story, and so I gave it a chance. I didn't bargain for the creepy feelings that ensued, even when the main character meets the ghost, Josh, in the dark, out on Highway 47. From there the ghosts that appear are both fascinating and frightening on a truly visceral level; and even though there is at first a burgeoning love between Josh and the main character, how this writer achieves believability is so well done as to make one gasp when ghost and the living make physical contact. It is the true gem of this story and is very well done. I don't like to summarize the plot in my reviews. Others do it quite well. My interest here is to say that the writer has done a remarkable job on many levels, creating likable characters, setting, and most of all a believable and wonderfully creepy, frightening, and memorable ghost story.