Customer Reviews

Wormwood, Nevada

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
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In early June, Tyler Mayfield and his wife Anna embark on a journey from Nebraska to Wormwood, Nevada, where they hope to start anew. Tyler, a teacher, has been alerted to a job opening in the area, and he uses that as an incentive to begin a new life with Anna, a former Miss Nebraska beauty queen. However, they have no idea how drastically their lives --- and the lives of the citizens of Wormwood --- would be changed.

During the long drive, with his wife asleep in the car, Tyler glances in the rearview mirror of his Volvo and catches a glimpse of a figure with "dark, almond-shaped eyes staring back at him, cold and unblinking." When Tyler looks again, it has disappeared. Just who is this figure? And why does it remind him of his brother, Cody, and Cody's disappearance all those years ago, which still consumes Tyler to this day?

Tyler assumes his backseat vision has occurred because he is overtired, but the appearance of the odd passenger is just the start of a strange, cosmic adventure for Tyler and Anna. When the couple arrives in the middle of the desert, they are greeted by Tyler's Aunt Bernice (aka Bernie) and her lovable dog, Roscoe. Bernie is the person who got word to Tyler about the teaching job in Wormwood, and she has invited him and Anna to move in with her until they can save money to buy a place of their own.

Bernie is a chain-smoking, hard-drinking cafeteria worker --- one of the "Hairnets" --- at the local high school. She has lived in the desert for decades and knows how it affects visitors and even long-time residents. Not long after the couple's arrival, she warns them that the "heat gets to people." But the two seem to be doing well enough: Tyler begins teaching summer school remedial composition, albeit to suspicious and unwilling students, and Anna finds a job at a local casino.

Things begin to change, however, when a meteor streaks across the sky. It lands in the middle of the Taco Thunder parking lot and leaves a deep crater. The blast from the landing propels Mr. Diaz, the owner of the restaurant, into a dumpster blocks away. Mr. Diaz is in shock, but thankfully he survives. After he returns home from the hospital, he abandons his restaurant to become a sentinel at the crash site, warning the denizens of Wormwood that "the end is near."

Things turn deadly in Wormwood after Tyler and a new friend strike out in search of meteorite fragments and witness a raid on a meth lab. And it isn't long after the meteorite lands that Tyler's visions return and Anna's nightmares begin...along with a feeling of impending doom that pervades her waking hours.

WORMWOOD, NEVADA is my first introduction to David Oppegaard's work. It is a haunting novel with a vivid setting and memorable characters, a story of cosmic love, loss and yearning. While I haven't read his previous book, THE SUICIDE COLLECTORS, I've added it to my reading list now.

--- Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt

Tyler and Anna Mayfield leave Nebraska when he accepts an English teaching position in Wormwood, Nevada where his Aunt Bernie resides. The town is in the middle of the great basin desert, sixty-seven miles from any other hamlet.

As they near the town on the second day of the boring drive Tyler nearly crashes their vehicle because he saw something in the back seat; but nothing is there. He continues to see odd beings. He believes are aliens or he else he thinks he is going insane as Anna never sees them. Instead she has nasty nightmares that the end of the world is near although she thinks it is a psychological fear of growing old and no longer able to win the Miss Nebraska beauty pageant. When a meteorite crashes nearby, the townsfolk believe the end has started while Bernie introduces Tyler to a local astronomy club who believe aliens are remaking the world in their image.

This fast-paced science fiction thriller hooks readers from the opening scene when Tyler swears he saw a strange looking essence in the backseat of the car and never slows down although the end seems somewhat less exhilarating than anticipated with the build up. Anna and Tyler are fascinating protagonists as she fears aging and he never recovered from his older brother vanishing years ago. However, ironically in spite of being the leads, neither holds the plot together; instead the town of Wormwood with its isolation serves as the focus. Fans will enjoy David Oppegaard's entertaining thriller as meth labs meet ET.

Harriet Klausner

I found this book intriguing, & not really sure what the author was trying to communicate...it seems a mixture of science fiction (rather weak in that area), New Age, & sort of the flow of life (strong in that part)...the parts don't come together easily though, & my feeling is the author is better at conceiving single-event scenarios rather than constructing a compact full-length story. However, it is definitely different, very esoteric, & it's refreshing that a writer exploring a direction where reader acceptance is uncertain; we need them, there are too many 'mainstream' authors.

David Oppegaard's second novel was an excellent read! I enjoyed following the journey of Anna and Tyler as they look to expand their life's options, and the meaning of their lives as well, all within a town who's edges are unraveling. Books that blend the personal journeys of ordinary individuals within a context of extraordinary, supernatural events, can be both insightful and thrilling. Wormwood, Nevada comes through in both those respects. Oppegaard's seemingly straightforward prose, shelters a complexity of ideas, that will haunt you long after you're done reading.

"Wormwood, Nevada" is a strange, smart and wonderful book. I read it really quickly, but now I want to go back and savor the details and the small and large ways Oppegaard plays with genre conventions. Such a fun read!

Having read Oppegaard's first novel, "The Suicide Collectors", I had high expectations for his sophomore effort. Luckily, "Wormwood, Nevada" was up to task. His characters probe surprising depths (as well as the author's trademark sense of humor) in the clever dialogue filling up the otherwise quiet, colloquial space of the Mayfields' new city. Sweet, melancholy, and exciting all at once in its post-meteorite adventure, "Wormwood, Nevada" is a very rewarding read.

This book is more consciously literary than most science fiction novels, which is where I find both its strengths and weaknesses. It goes to great lengths to make its main characters (Tyler and Anna) and its title location believable. In many ways, it is more about the problems that come with marriage, moving to a small town, and coping with one's past and future than it is about meteorites and aliens from space. It's really a book for the newer rather than the traditional science fiction fans.

At 246 pages, it's a quick read but it might have helped to be longer. The supporting characters are interesting, especially the town's sheriff, Merritt Jackson and Tyler's principal student, Skull. Others like Aunt Bernie, Mr. Diaz, Felix and Clyde have potential. But only Tyler and Anna are as fully developed as I would like.

For once the cliche that a book is not for everybody applies. I would recommend Wormwood to a book discussion group whose interests go beyond best-sellers and classics, one whose members are interested in writing and would like to see what works and what doesn't. Often a flawed novel can teach more about writing than a good one.

This charming short novel has fun with SciFi cliches..but there's more.
I picked this up at random from the new books shelf at the library, and at first was disappointd when I realized it was a science fiction book. I truly do not care for this genre, and stories about weird small towns where aliens (possibly) invade are a dime a dozen and really pretty tedious. So my expectations were low. But, I decided to read the book anyway and was pleasantly surprised to find it was really fun and at times emotionally moving. The characters were completely believable, altough the events surrounding them were so absurd. The story weaves together many familiar elements of countless sci fi TV shows, movies and books. But it cleverly sidesteps the obvious plot devices, gently spoofs the cliches, and ends up with something original and oddly moving.

Tyler and Anna Mayfield are newlyweds who have moved out
of their hometown in order to make enough money to
properly settle down. Tyler, an English teacher has been
offered a job in Wormwood, Nevada, a small city in the
middle of a desert with blistering heat and lonely
conditions. They are given shelter by Tyler's aunt Bernie.
At first the move seems normal with Tyler spending time at
the bar with friends and Anna chatting with Bernie and
others, but then suddenly everything changes when a
meteorite lands in the middle of the town. The whole town
begins to panic and turn itself upside down with insane
men predicting the end of the world and stupid teenagers
sacrificing animals to "please the gods." Tyler begins to
teach summer school classes and starts to go on adventures
with buddies and joins an alien visitation club after
seeing "alien" heads. Things take a turn for the worse as
tragedy strikes with loss of a life. As the town begins to
settle down the most shocking event happens: an earthquake
strikes. What will happen now? Is it the end of Wormwood
as they know or will the tragic events keep plummeting
down?

My favorite component to this story is its setting; the
author vividly describes a desolate, dry and burning hot
town. This description was so complete that I felt as
though I experienced the climate in Nevada. The characters
in this story have different and interesting personalities
such as Clyde the obsessive drinker with a carefree
personality that adds adventure to the novel. Throughout
the book the plot really drags, details upon details end
up explaining the same ideas. Although it is a fairly
large book the plot is not complex at all, it is mainly
just going through the typical life of someone who has
just moved to a new town. The author tries to include
flashback in reference to both of their high school days,
but the flashbacks used don't provide much useful
information about personalities of characters. The
beginning of the book was fairly interesting but as it
neared a close the quality of writing declined. It went
from talking about Tyler's adventures in the start, to
aliens coming down to take over the world in the end.
Compared to many other science fiction books I have read,
this is far, far down due to its lack of action and
unrealistic feel. Throughout the book no reference to
science fiction is made besides the occasional statement
about the world ending, until the end when you are thrown
into a world of aliens. I wouldn't recommend this book to
anyone who does not enjoy extreme science fiction due to
amount of fantasy involved.


Reviewed by a young adult student reviewer
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I stumbled upon Suicide Collectors a while back. That book had me from the first scene. I couldn't believe my luck finding that Oppegaard had a second book released, Wormwood, Nevada.

I picked Wormwood off the shelf knowing full well the sophomore slump many writers experience. It's not a rule that a writer's second published work falls flat, but it happens often enough that when a second work remains captivating, true to that writer's newly established style, and continues to be utterly original and thought-provoking, indeed this writer becomes an exception. David Oppegaard, in my opinion, is one of these exceptional writers.

I don't want to cheapen his work by saying he's some amalgam of two shining and already successful writers--say, Stephen King and Pete Dexter, or Philip K. Dick and Paul Theroux--because to do this would be to ignore Oppegaard's spry inventiveness, an originality he seems to be developing in his own right. It has something to do with genre writing, sure, but it's much much more than this. Like all good science fiction, what David asks of us is not to look at his world as a place to survey, admire, get sucked in to (though his work has this added bonus), rather he asks us to use his world as a lens to look within and to find the humanity in the strange. Wormwood has aliens, but it also has heart and love and truth. All the right things of literature.

With his first work being apocalyptic, his second, science-fictive (adj.?), Oppegaard seems to be bending the genres, blending them, grasping hold of each one and squeezing all the literary juice out of them until he's left with a distinct cocktail that is wholly original.

If Oppegaard had more work out there, I would own it.