Write Naked [Hardcover]

Peter Gould (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 2008

Sixteen-year-old Victor, a thoughtful loner who tries to live his life “under the radar,” wants to test out the saying “You have to be naked to write.” When he sneaks off with an old Royal typewriter to his uncle’s cabin deep in the Vermont woods and strips off his clothes, he expects Thoreau-like solitude. What he gets is something else—both funny and, as his high school English teacher likes to say, “transformative.” For he discovers a face in the window watching him—Rose Anna, a homeschooled free spirit with an antique fountain pen and a passion to save the planet. Their unexpected encounter marks the beginning of an inspired writing partnership—and a relationship as timeless and eager as the Vermont woods in spring.

A strikingly original debut novel that introduces two storytellers with different kinds of tales: one—in Victor’s unforgettable voice—a quirky, contemporary love story; the other—by Rose Anna—an ecological fantasy featuring a tiny heroic newt. Together, the teens explore the possibility of connections – to one another, the woods outside, and the world beyond.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Refreshingly lacking teen angst, Victor is a pensive, authentically innocent 16-year-old who seeks the isolated privacy of his family's Vermont cabin. He lugs an old Royal typewriter along with him and begins to write—in the buff—testing the idea that "you have to be naked to write." And it works; his words flow fast and smooth, until he spots a girl watching him, free-spirit Rose Anna. The teens meet at the cabin to write together, clothed and carefully respectful of one another, although Victor knows that Rose Anna also comes alone to "write naked." He is intrigued by her passion for nature and Wicca. Gould weaves a spell of nearly chaste sensuality, far more provocative than graphic sexuality, particularly in the emotionally charged yet controlled conclusion. Victor and Rose Anna are complex characters, coming to terms with the familial and personal forces shaping them into maturity. Despite minimal plot, the story holds readers' attention through their powerful character development and simmering romantic tension. Other aspects of the novel are less successful. The Vietnam vet who sells the teen the typewriter is overbearing as he holds forth on the immorality of war. Victor unflinchingly records his own flights of imagination, fleeting attention span, and faltering perceptions. In clumsy contrast, Rose Anna's story is a juvenile ecological fable of three newts traveling to a "summit meeting" on global warming. The didactic, condescending tone of her tale brings the exquisitely subtle intensity of the book to a screeching halt.—Joyce Adams Burner, Hillcrest Library, Prairie Village, KS
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Review

“Refreshingly lacking teen angst. Gould weaves a spell . . . particularly in the emotionally charged yet controlled conclusion.” —School Library Journal

“The engaging youthful narration is authentic yet rich with sensual detail and figurative language . . . . Young adult readers will not want to put down this exceptional debut.” — VOYA

“Gould offers a sophisticated novel featuring two cerebral teens.” —Booklist

“There is an authenticity . . . and burgeoning wisdom that celebrates youth in a way that is utterly plausible, subtly breathtaking and a privilege to behold.”—Rutland Herald

“WRITE NAKED is the story of a boy and a girl; a cabin and a dog; a typewriter and an old fountain pen; intertwined stories, a shared journey, and the future of our planet. Peter Gould -- like his endearing protagonist -- is now someone whom I'm dying to know.” —Richie’s Picks

“Peter Gould’s WRITE NAKED takes the reader on a sensual journey into the heart, mind, and soul of sixteen year old Victor. Gould¹s protagonist is painfully honest, disarmingly innocent, seductively endearing, and astoundingly patient. We are privileged to witness his awakening. And our own. Hunker down under the radar, undo your armor, and read it.” —Karen Hesse, author of the Newbery Medal book, OUT OF THE DUST

“Write Naked appeals on several levels—most definitely as an offbeat romance but also as a story about a couple of sensitive teens making their way in the world.” —Bookslut.com

"I enjoyed WRITE NAKED alot . . . I liked how calm it was."—A YALSA YA Galley Teen Reader

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); 1st edition (May 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374384835
• ISBN-13: 978-0374384838
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,610,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, January 29, 2009

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Write Naked (Hardcover)

In a world full of technology, Victor is elated when he finds an old Royal typewriter at a garage sale. Doesn't matter that he isn't a writer.

Not one to hang out much with friends, Victor comes across an old book while going through items from his mom's hippie community living days. It recommends one write naked in order to find the "story within."

He figures he has nothing to lose...until he looks out the window to find he's being spied on. By a girl.

Full of voice and innocence, WRITE NAKED takes the reader on Victor's journey of self-discovery of a world he didn't realize existed, until he allows himself to stop and pay a bit more attention.

While I found myself annoyingly patronized by the theme of global warming and the "world-coming-to-an-end" lecture, I did enjoy the voices and the bonding of the two main characters.

Reviewed by: Angie Fisher

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enchantment in the Very Real World, July 8, 2008

By 

A. A. Burrows (Brattleboro, Vermont) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Write Naked (Hardcover)

This is a book not to be missed. I kept thinking as I read, this is a book for young adults but I can't put it down. The world of Hobbits has that effect. Harry Potter does. But those are very different books. Write Naked is a simple love story about a very real boy and girl coming of age in a very real Vermont town. I live there. I'm in love. So I can vouch for the reality of it all. Well, to tell the truth, I came of age ages ago, but that is my point. This is a book full of enchantment and full of insight and so full of deep reality that it will enthrall young adults and anyone who is still alive to the mystery of our ever evolving and endangered world.

Have you ever found a special place away from the world of everyday, a secret garden, a cave leading to the Earth's depths (and maybe a troll or two). Kipling, who lived and wrote many of his best books in Brattleboro, knew all about the lure of such places. Victor's cabin is like that, a real place, a hideout deep in the woods where he can be out of the public's sight and mind, "below the radar," where he can write naked. What does that mean? Well, use your imagination. Victor does. He thinks a lot. And he shares his imagination, his thoughts, and his cabin in the woods with his new friend, Anna Rose. He writes on an old Royal typewriter. She writes with a real fountain pen. These are real tools, but like the magical wardrobe or Alice's rabbit hole, they lead us to discover the real world behind reality.

I don't want to spoil it for you, because this is such a fun and very funny story, but "Write Naked" is profound. Ouch, I said it. But, please, don't be put off, scared. Peter Gould has a lot to say, at all levels, and yet, as one would expect from one of the great mimes of our time, he speaks with a minimum of words and a maximum of charm. The implications of the book are very serious, but the love and delight keep shining, like foxfire. Ok, it is a book about love and loss and hope and tenderness, new love and family, learning at many levels, and the discovery of intimacy. Just imagine all of that brought to life with a gesture and a smile.

You might guess that "young adults" will take all this for its surface pleasures, missing the messages. I think not. Knowing several of them (and remembering my own "coming of age"), I am certain that this is a book that will entice and be revealing to readers of all ages. It's not a boy's book, not a girl's book. It is a wonderfully human book. Whether you are 12 or 82, in Manhattan or Stinson Beach, starting on page one you will be at home in Victor's woods. I loved this novel, every page of it. It is a book I want to share and yet keep and read again.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Magical Mystery Tour de Force, July 5, 2008

By 

Elin Schoen Brockman (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Write Naked (Hardcover)

Usually, it takes five pages - sometimes as many as ten - before I know for sure that I'm going to fall in love with a book. But in the case of "Write Naked", I was only a page-and-a-half in when I fell head over heels - upon discovering that this is not just the story of a boy becoming enchanted with a girl (and vice-versa). The boy is also entranced with a typewriter. A "really old" Royal..."like a little word factory that's actually still in business, not boarded up like the old factories down in town. And it's noisy like factories used to be, with thumping metal...and the chime that goes off at the end of every line.."

I could go on and on quoting Peter Gould bringing just this one character - the typewriter - to life in the mind of Victor, his quixotic, brainy, empathic, nostalgic, wistful, witty, totally delightful and unforgettable teenage protagonist. Victor, you see, has a tendency to "do what Miss Roth my English teacher calls `personification'", a trait he shares with the bewitching Rose Anna, the girl of his dreams. And it does seem as if he's dreamed her into being at first. But what starts out as a magical mystery tour of Victor's and Rose Anna's imaginations and anything-but-everyday lives quickly travels into territory that's all too real (our endangered environment, the legacy of Vietnam...).

As they write their way - he with his typewriter, she with her grandmother's golden fountain pen - deeper and deeper into communion with the universe and with each other, we meet one adroitly drawn character after another (Gould has an amazing ear for dialogue and eye for the tell-all quirk.). Among my favorites: Victor's little sister, Claire ("She's always wearing her soccer clothes...She sheds bits of dried grass wherever she goes") and (from Rose Anna's fertile pen) a trio of very highly evolved - and involved - newts named Oona, Amoss, and Solomon Andrew.

And my favorite line? "Grownups always bring along more stuff than they need." That's what Victor thinks as he observes Rose Anna's dad bumbling around in the dark with a flashlight when there's a perfectly good full moon to see by!

Readers who are themselves coming of age will be captivated by this story (or stories - because Rose Anna's newt tale could be a book - or movie! - in itself). But this is definitely a book for all ages - and for the ages.