War Boy [Hardcover]

Kief Hillsbery (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 26, 2000

Kief Hillsbery's War Boy is a transcendent literary feat. Told from the perspective of a deaf-mut teenager an charged with the feavered intensity of youth, it is a brilliant evocation of the search for family that will forever alter your perception of what it means to connect.

Fleeing an abusive father, fourteen-year-old Radboy takes to the road with Jonnyboy, and older friend and mentor who has become the only person he believes he can trust. On the bus headed out of town they hook up with Finn and Critter, a couple of speed-freak boyfriends who take a shine to both of them. They also meet Ula, who is mourning the death of her fiance and taking a trip across the United States in his memory. The five become fast allies, united by persoinal loss and by the allure of intimacy only friends in the throes of conflict can understand. When Jonnyboy drops out of sight, Radboy stays behind in San Francisco, where the underground world he has been introduced to inspires his own burgeoning sexual and emotional desires.

Radboy's freinds rally around him, putting their restless energy to use in a scheme to destroy a company that is ravaging the redwood forests. But their plans, fueled as much by drugs and paranoia as good intentions, go horribly wrong, and the violent events that ensue bring a powerful awakening for Radboy, one that he never set out to experience.

As hard-edged as it is emotionally authentic, War Boy is pure literary adrenaline--an utterly engrossing reading experience from a major new voice.Fleeing an abusive father, fourteen-year-old Radboy takes to the road with Johnnyboy, an older friend and mentor who has become the only person he believes he can trust. On the bus headed out of town they hook up with Finn and Critter, a couple of speed-freak boyfriends who take a shine to both of them. They also meet Ula, who is mourning the death of her fiance and taking a trip across the United States in his memory. The five become fast allies, united by personal loss and by the allure of intimacy only friends in the throes of conflict can understand. When Jonnyboy drops out of sight, Radboy stays behind in San Francisco, where the underground world he has been introduced to inspires his own burgeoning sexual and emotional desires.

Radboy's friends rally around him, putting their restless energy to use on a scheme to destroy a company that is ravaging the redwood forests. But their plans, fueled as much by drugs and paranoia as good intentions, go horribly wrong, and the violent events that ensue bring a powerful awakening for Radboy, one that he never set out to experience.

As hard-edged as it is emotionally authentic, WAR BOY is pure literary adrenaline--an utterly engrossing reading experience from a major new voice.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Oregon native Hillsbery invests his insider knowledge of West Coast subcultures in his energetic debut novel. His narrator, Radboy, is a 14-year-old deaf skateboarder with serious family trouble: his father murdered his mother, got away with it and now wants to do away with his son. Radboy is rescued by his superskater friend, Jonnyboy, who's a decade older, and who inflicts maximum punishment on Radboy's dad. Soon the two escape hometown Monterey and are off to San Francisco. Radboy knows Jonnyboy is "kweer" but doesn't know whether that makes him nervous or jealous, especially when Jonnyboy takes up with a singer named Rourke. The "boyz" also befriend Ula, an eco-radical Swedish nurse, whose sister has been hurt in a bomb attack. Irish skinhead Finn and his lover, Critter, are both crackheads, but they offer their pad for Radboy and Jonnyboy to crash in. Even though Jonnyboy disappears with Rourke, Radboy knows the drug den is better than going into a foster or a boy's home. Radboy comes off cool with his hyper, quickly jotted vernacular: "kewl with a k," he likes to say on paper to his fast friends. But he acts tougher than the smart but vulnerable child he is. Eventually, the young hero and his crew embark on an ambitious scheme to bomb an anti-environment corporation. It turns out, however, that crackheads don't make the most effective political terrorists. The"Nocal" post-punk atmosphere, which embraces anarchist violence, Green politics, "grrl power" and hard-core drugs as blithely as it worships "underground" heroes Kurt Cobain and Lou Reed, can be grating with its forced edginess, but against the novel's hard-core heart stands Radboy's decency and will to survive. 5-city author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

There is little love in 14-year-old deaf "sk8boarder" Rad's life. His drunken father has just been acquitted of killing his drunken mom, one brother is in "Chino," his sisters are lost to a born-again church. So it is no surprise that when Johnnyboy, "kweer" and 24, takes up with Rad, "He was more like a sun to me with a warmth I could feel." When Dad tries to slit Rad's throat and Johnnyboy intervenes, nearly killing Dad, it's time for the boys to hit the road. They land in San Francisco, where they create a loose family among a gay skinhead, a pair of speed-freak boyfriends, and a knockout Swedish nurse cum terrorist named Ula. Comparisons to Dennis Cooper are inevitable, although fortunately Hillsbery lacks Cooper's onanistic energy and literary posturing. War Boy, above all else, is a realistic and affecting portrait of Rad. Written in beautiful prose that is alternatively frenetic and poetic, it captures perfectly Rad's unique voice. For larger fiction collections. Brian Kenney

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (April 26, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688171419
• ISBN-13: 978-0688171414
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,480,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thorn Kief Hillsbery's novel What We Do is Secret (Villard) is a finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award in fiction. His first novel, War Boy, was published by HarperCollins and translated into German, Spanish, and Catalan. He recently received a Hertog Fellowship to assist author Brenda Wineapple with her upcoming book about Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. He teaches creative writing in programs at Columbia University and lives in Manhattan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forget Holden, Radboy's the Real Thing, April 30, 2000

By 

Jared King - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Boy (Hardcover)

War Boy is The Catcher in the Rye of NOW! I'm 17, and I know that if they put this book out in a cheap paperback that teens could afford they would sell a million copies. Radboy is someone my generation can really relate to, especially compared to a preppie like Holden Caulfield back in my grandpa's time when there wasn't even rock and roll.

This was the first hardback book I ever bought, after reading the review in the Post, with quotes that made it sound like my best friend talking to me, instead of a writer talking down to me. But that review didn't cover the most important things about War Boy. It's about figuring out what's right and wrong and how to make your life count for something even when the cards are stacked against you. And it's about believing in yourself and following your own feelings instead of what society expects. Don't be scared off by the drugs and the queer characters, or the radical ideas. They're in there to challenge you to put aside your prejudice and learn from people who aren't like you. This book doesn't TELL you drugs are bad--it SHOWS you. But it also shows you why some people take drugs, and makes you understand, instead of just condemn, them.

I know the author must be at least 30, but he's stayed in touch with the good and bad parts of life as it's lived by somebody half his age. War Boy is very realistic about fears and emotions and desires. Unlike Rule of the Bone, for example, that tries to be all kewl wih a k as Radboy would say, but comes across like some old pothead hippie's idea of what it's like to be a teenager. For instance, in that book the narrator is 15 and thinks about sex ONCE for two pages out of 400. A 15 year old male? Radboy isn't obsessed with sex, but it's treated in a natural and sympathetic way, not ignored. Also, it is tied to love. To understand what a moral book this is, you have to read it. The promotion doesn't give the right impression. But it is never preachy. It is very funny, in fact. You will never forget Radboy. As I said, he is the Holden Caulfield of the 21st century.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ADDICTING!, June 15, 2000

By 

Christian "Writer/Human" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Boy (Hardcover)

I couldn't help but compare reading this book with snorting a huge line of the same chemicals the characters in this addicting novel were so fond of. And if you extend that metaphor out further, you'd eventually realize that each "line" of amphetamine that was heartily devoured in this story could be compared to the reader devouring each line of text in the same addicted manner.

"Radboy" thinks differently than anyone he knows. He has to, to survive. Only 14, and a deaf-mute, he lives moment to moment on the street, never sure where his life is taking him. He fled his abusive father, but not before his father attempts to kill him for falsely testifying against him in the "accidental" death of Radboy's mother. He is rescued and taken in by "Jonnyboy", another street survivor, and sworn "meth" addict...or tweeker. Jonnyboy and Radboy become good and fast friends, mainly because on the street, there aren't many you can trust. Through Jonnyboy, Radboy learns quickly the ways to survive, and is introduced to Jonnyboy's various friends, whom Radboy takes to hanging out with when Jonnyboy disappears for days at a time.

The story is told solely from the perspective of Radboy in a hyperkinetic narrative that free-associates its way to a brutal and nail-biting climax. The narrative device is at first off-putting, but lends itself perfectly to the story once the rhythm is found. We find ourselves following Radboy and his exploits almost as if we ourselves are amped up on speed and anxious for action. In this, his first novel, Kief Hillsbery delivers a fantastic new perspective to the world around us, and wraps it up in a tidy moral story about trust, real family, and friendship. I eagerly await his next book!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Underground Masterpiece, December 7, 2000

By 

Chet Makinster (Seattle, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Boy (Hardcover)

The comparison to James Joyce in another reader review isn't overkill, believe it or not. The language of War Boy is dazzling and startling, beautiful and (yes, sometimes) challenging. The characters leap off the pages, fully realized and unforgettable. It doesn't matter if you've never ingested a controlled substance or listened to a note of alternative rock or had the briefest conversation with a sexual minority. You will hope with them, fear with them, laugh with them and root for them. Oprah and the other apostles of tolerance are missing the boat by not promoting this novel: War Boy walks the walk; it doesn't need to talk the talk. Kief Hillsbery deserves far more attention than he's received for his remarkable debut. By turns moving and hilarious, robust and tender, sweet and sinister, it surges everywhere with full-blooded life.