Title: John Dies at the End
Author: David Wong
Publication Info: St. Martin's, 2009
My Tagline: Sex. Drugs. Mutant Meat Monsters.
This book, I told a friend of mine, is quite possibly the most ridiculous book I've ever loved. It tries extremely hard to be nonsense--and in places, it succeeds--but there exists, too, a level of adventure and self-reflection that makes it absolutely impossible to stop reading. Throughout reading, there were many, many times when I had to look up from the pages, blink a few times, and say to myself, "What the fuck just happened?" It was, from start to finish, one hell of an interesting ride.
"Expect tentacles." --John
Here's the general idea: a bunch a kids try a drug. A drug they call "soy sauce." And this drug makes wild, unnatural, possibly demonic stuff happen in a their smallish Midwestern town of "[Undisclosed]". We're told the story from the first-person point-of-view of young twenty-something David Wong himself, who spends a long, grueling time trying to explain the events following the soy sauce escapade to a non-believing reporter. David and his friend John can't quite make the aftereffects of the soy sauce go away--not in their heads, not in their town, not in whatever parallel dimension seems to be sending mutants their way at every turn--and they set out to save the world.
That's all I'm going to tell you as far as summary, though, because I plucked this book off the shelf at the library with absolutely no idea what it was about, and I'd like for everyone to have that same naïve approach to the story and the same opportunity to have their minds blown every which way to Sunday. According to the back of the book:
"The important thing is this:
The drug is called soy sauce, and it gives users a window into another dimension.
John and I never had the chance to say no.
You still do....
None of this was my fault."
Personally, I like overly-implausible novels that craft themselves like they're written documentaries of true stories. David Wong, we know, is a pseudonym for Jason Pargin, the senior editor of Cracked.com, but chooses to have his character tell us the story. It adds a certain urgency to an oddball story, and even though I know there is no such thing as meat monsters (right?) and any of the other creatures that arise in Dave and John's adventure, the author shows a strong faith in the readers' ability to suspend disbelief far enough to entertain it all.
I was pleasantly surprised by both the depth of the novel's character development and the strong overtones of philosophy that appear here, even as they're scraping monster-goo off their demon-bashing baseball bats. David shows incredible loyalty to his friends, a sense of reluctant but innate bravery, and an admirable arc from regular-kid to stalwart leader. I genuinely like him, and I really like John, and it absolutely feels like I'm running straight into disaster with a bunch of stoner college friends I chose for myself.
There's some nihilism, some existentialism. There's a heavy dose of Big Question asking--Don't we all die alone? What else is there? What's the point of it all?--but it's fed as naturally as possible in an outlandish situation. My guess is, if you found yourself staring into a portal to another dimension, you'd start asking yourself the tough questions, too. Even if, previously, you, like Dave, were just a kid working at the video rental store looking for a good party and a date with a pretty girl.
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| Movie still from John Dies At the End. |
The blunt, simple writing style makes it feel like a conversation, and yet it crafts the most incredible imagery. A book like this wouldn't be possible if the author went easy; you've really got to see the multi-eyed, tentacled, writhing monsters in order to understand what the hell he's talking about. I found myself never once, in all the many strange instances that occurred, struggling to envision exactly what was happening. It's a testament to the skill of the writer, really. It's with a rare and unbound hand that he illustrates, peoples, and performs the story before you. It's now I hear, this novel has been turned into a pretty big movie from the same guy who directed Phantasm (featuring Paul Giamatti), and if you've ever actually seen Phantasm, that should give you a pretty good idea of the imagery necessary here.
I say with some heartfelt dedication: go read this book. It's not like much you've read before, I promise. It's 466 pages of lunacy, peppered with laugh-out-loud humor and smart references, held up with strong characters and satisfying, substantial themes. I can't stop raving about it, which is fitting, because probably you're supposed to be somewhat raving after finishing a book about mind-bending insanity.
