In 1971, William Peter Blatty wrote The Exorcist, which served as the basis for one of the most frightening, shocking and controversial movies of all time. Thirty-nine years later, Blatty penned Crazy, a novel that wistfully touches on the budding hormones of young love, being a precocious kid in school, having an angel watching over you, and living - and dying - happily ever after.
Not quite a vulgar display of power, then.
The Crazy Story of Joey El Bueno
In 1941, a young kid named Joey El Bueno is living his contented life in Manhattan when he meets Jane Bent, a girl who seems to know everything about him. While Joey finds himself intrigued and captivated by this girl nobody else seems to know, but whom everyone has heard of, he keeps this budding friendship a secret from his hard-working father, still grieving over the death of Joey's mother. How can Joey possibly explain that Jane treated him out to an afternoon at the movies? And that Jane sounds like she knows what will happen in Joey's future?
The truth, as the title says, is crazy.
From the Devil to 8 Year-Old New Yorkers
William Peter Blatty evidently knows a thing or two about messing with his readers' heads. Unwittingly or not, The Exorcist opened the door to creepy/haunted children becoming a horror fiction staple; Blatty's 2010 Dimiter was a supernatural, surreal whodunnit where you weren't sure who the characters were, let alone who actually did it; and Crazy is a deceptively innocent, simple story of nostalgia and youth (when twenty-one years of age was considered old) that is anything but simple.
A Wandering Storyteller
A part of that is because of Blatty's style. He paints such a vivid, detailed, colorful picture that it's occasionally difficult to actually see the picture. Case in point are the tangents on which Joey El Bueno, narrator extraordinaire, embarks. They're funny, they're incredibly witty, but they come in the form of such long and broad run-on sentences that I would frequently forget the point on which El Bueno had started.
You Never Forget Your First Love
But the picture itself is gorgeous. Joey's puzzlement over the feisty and mysterious Jane Bent calls to mind the first rush of hormones when your eyes fall on the gal (or guy) sitting on the other side of the classroom: confusion, interest, uncertainty, a dimly-understood but undeniable need to know more, to discover. Joey's world of hot dog stands, paper routes, cinemas and restaurants charging a few dollars for their goods & services makes the past seem less like a sepia photograph and more like an invitation to once more experience the power, the possibilities and potential of your childhood.
Crazy Train
The resolution of the novel - the identity of Jane Bent - comes a little too suddenly, a last-page addition that makes sense when you look back on the novel, but still seems rushed. Blatty spends a lot of time building Jane's mystery up, and communicates this well through Joey's befuddlement and frustration; to have it resolved as quickly as it is leaves us frustrated, too.
Verdict: Not Guilty
It doesn't detract from what is ultimately a charming, touching novel. Blatty knows full well how to make his readers respond to his words, whether by scaring them, inspiring them or enchanting them. Crazy sings to the witty, snappy 8-year old New Yorker in all of us, but also to the part of us that sees above the world's bitterness and cynicism, and sees things like love, things like hope. Things like a freckle-faced girl with red pigtails who knows us better than we know ourselves.
William Peter Blatty, Crazy: 8/10. Intoxicating and mesmerizing (occasionally too much so), Blatty's novel will stir the imagination, the memory, the heartstrings and the soul.
Publishing Information:
- Blatty, William Peter. Crazy. 2010, Forge Books. ISBN: 0765326493.
Michael Perera - The only rule in writing is honesty. If you're honest, the words will write themselves.
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