Impossible Vacation (Paperback)

by Spalding Gray (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Protagonist Brewster North careens from Provincetown to the Himalayas searching for Eden in this work of darkly comic performance art on the page, executed with great elan by acclaimed monologuist Gray.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Brewster North needs a vacation. But first he needs to find the stability from which to take a vacation. In this disturbing tale, Gray relays Brewster's quest to reconcile himself to his mother's mental illness and eventual suicide, while his own behavior begins to reflect his mother's as he treks across the planet. Brewster seeks vacations from vacations in this pursuit to find ultimate meaning and contentment. The reader follows him from modeling to acting jobs, from his ascension of the Himalayas to his descent to the depths of the Grand Canyon, where he confronts his own dark psyche. Along the way, Brewster finds Meg and develops the relationship that allows him to recover from his bouts of depression. Through Gray's tale, the reader comes face to face with the disturbing aspects of mental illness and finds the courage to overcome the terrors of that state of mind. For most collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/92.
- Brack Stovall, Carrollton P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1 edition (April 27, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679745238
• ISBN-13: 978-0679745235
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #796,709 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impossible to never forget, September 4, 2003

By	Inez Rosa (North America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Impossible Vacation (Hardcover)

"I just accepted that as a part of my life, accepted that forever I would always be a little in the place that I was not.." With that begins the melancholic search of meaning for the main character of the book Brewster North. After having received a monkey mask from his uncle's adventures in Bali at a tender age of 5, Brewster longs for that Impossible Vacation. Knowing for a fact that wherever he goes he can't escape the ghosts of his past, present and future. The book is beautifully written and at times the voice of the narrator Brewster comes to take you over and it feels as if you're there watching his painful time on Earth. The closests I can think of is Holden Caulfield in Cathcher in the Rye, but unlike Holden he is searching for a place he knows he can find but yet leaves it as it is, a longing. Brewster takes the reader on this unique trip around the world, where he not only goes to various groups to learn new things but to enjoy those painful moments of longing to be where the soul really wants to be. The problem is that Brewster's soul is restless and madness boils in him and he is disillusioned by mankind, the world, the people around him and yet he still has that hope to find peace somewhere in the crazy world. I must admit that pain Brewster suffered comes close to all the pain one must deal with on this world; all the people that come in your life and go, the search of belonging, and finally to rest it out, will bring hope to many who read this book. The madness, the vignettes of Brewster's thoughts on suicide at a young age, saving bugs, walking stoned while starring at a sea of bright stars, and to the smiles and dark figures he meets in every part of the world is something to look forward to in every page. He sees smiles, groups of people, people ice skating and he sees himself as a the landscape being bigger than his whole self. In all this book is highly recommended for that restless mad soul, or anyone who wants to escape that happiness for awhile and face the truth of reality on this world. The book is not for the close minded or people that get offended easily, its filled with raunchy scenes, but in all a book that is intelligent and dark as the narrator himself. What a guy!

"If I was out in the world I could only be in one place with one sunset, but HERE I could skip from Provincetown to Santa Cruz to Alaska to India and follow the sun around the world......"
-Brewster North

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for Spalding Gray fans...., May 31, 1999

By A Customer

Spalding Gray brings his hyper-self reflective, kenetic, neurotic style to a novel. Autobiographical fact jousts with fabrication in this quenticential candid Grayfest. This work illuminates much of Spalding's earlier works and may (or may not) answer, to some degree, the question "What makes this guy tick?" Word to the wise.... expect the unexpected. Not for the prudish or the easily shocked. Enjoy!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great read!, January 6, 2000

By	Jill K. Porco "Jill, the reader" (Laurel, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Even if you've never read or heard any of Spalding Gray's monologues (Monster in a Box and so on) like me (I plan to remedy this soon!), you will love this book if you like semi-autobiographical fiction or memoir types of books. By the end of the book, you will understand better what makes Spalding Gray who he is today. I summarized excerpts of this book to my fiance who *has* read and heard some of his monologues in person and he kept laughing and saying it was so autobiographical a work... In short, Brewster North, the main character, is a thinly-disguised alter ego of Gray himself.

The novel is comic in parts (for example, the author's hilarious description of Brewster North's experiences in a Zen ashram in India) and tenderly tragic in other places--his mother's descent into madness and her subsequent suicide along with its effects on him. We feel the pathos right along with Brewster right as he experiences it in the novel.

Gray portrays a character who has an interesting and checkered life and we want to keep reading to find out what happens to him all the way to the end. The author also makes the book an easy read as he can tell a story well and make the experiences vivid for the reader in his descriptions and rendering of dialogue.

The only reason I don't give the book a 5-star rating is because it almost seeemed too cluttered with vignette after vignette of various travel and life experiences. Gray should have spent more time exploring the main theme of the novel--that it is impossible for the main character to really take a vacation from the complexities of his life even though he really wants to. And I think Gray drives this point home most effectively with Brewster's trip to India (I think the Mexico trip could have been condensed more with the focus centering on the fact that the trip is when he learned of his mother's suicide. He could have left the other events of that trip out.) Gray should also have spent more time exploring the impact of the mother's suicide on the main character as that seems to be at the center of Brewster's thoughts in the novel--trying to work out the implications of his relationship with his mother in his life over time, particularly after she dies.