As of late, I’ve been deep into Adam Gnade‘s pocket sized novels ever since we received a large box of them from Kansas, where the author resides. Gnade (pronounced GUH-NAH-DEE) writes about coming of age in America, friendship, and being involved in alternative music scenes in the early aughts, a time when smartphones hadn’t been invented and the world felt less chaotic and broken.
After Tonight, Everything Will Be Different drew me in with its cover: a picture of a hand pouring hot sauce on a giant burrito inside a taqueria. Maybe I was hungry that day, but something nudged me to buy it (we sold two other copies in the same day, perhaps there was something in the air). After Tonight… is set in San Diego, CA centered around the main character’s memories of growing up in the beachy California town where his parents owned a seafood restaurant. Each chapter is centered around a specific food memory and how the meals or snacks comforted James and his pals after late nights at punk shows, bars, and nights out when the only thing that mattered was being in the moment and escaping reality with chosen family. Despite each chapter being centered around food, the book reads more like an autobiography filled with visceral memories and the pain of early adulthood when you and your friends move on, go to college, or stay put in your hometown and waste time trying to figure out who you are and what you want to be. Gnade has a poetic way of retelling memories that pull the reader into his world by making them relatable and tender.
When you make sense to someone it is a lovely thing. What you are doesn’t tire them or make them nervous or scare them off. They see you and you make sense. Your weird shit makes sense. Your fears and delusions make sense. The things you love make sense. If you don’t make sense, it’s like a bitter flavor in a thing that should be sweet and it’s confusing to people. They don’t get you, and because they don’t get you, you’ve got no chance of being their friend. At 16 I want nothing more than to make sense to people, but I don’t make sense to anyone.
This beautiful paragraph is from the chapter titled “BURRITOS, VARIOUS.”
The second book in Gnade’s pocket sized series of America is The Internet Newspaper. In the sequel, we follow James for three days in the year 2000 as he temps for a local internet newspaper in San Diego writing clickbait articles about cats and listing local music events. At night, he’s raiding the alcohol cabinet of a stranger’s home with friends while they house sit and driving to Tijuana with his coworkers for a press junket and getting drunk on the company dime. The Internet Newspaper captures a time when the internet was a place where information was less available and more casual, not all encompassing like it is today. The book is not just about the internet and the experience of having your first grown-up job, but about the main character’s life as a twenty-something punk having fun with friends while battling debilitating depression and suicidal ideation.
As I savor the last few pages of The Internet Newspaper, I look forward to reading I Wish to Say Lovely Things, Gnade’s follow up novel about love in all its many forms.
tl;dr Adam Gnade makes reading fun, inspiring, accessible, and cool with his badass autofiction novels.
*xo~Angel~xo*
