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 Click for words events Author Visit Joe Meno
Local author and playwright Joe Meno has seen his star rise considerably
over the last few years--a Nelson Algren Award in 2003, a cultural and
critical hit with the novel "Hairstyles of the Damned" and a solid
collection of short stories in last year's "Bluebirds Used to Croon in
the Choir." Now he's back with "The Boy Detective Fails," his take on
the aftermath of being a boy detective--what could happen if one of the
Hardy Boys grew up.
The story debuted earlier this year in play form for the House
Theatre--at some point while writing it, however, Meno knew it would
work best as a novel. Billy Argo, his hero, is a star kid detective who,
assisted by his younger sister Caroline, solves the biggest mysteries in
his Jersey town, from "The Fatal Orphanage Arson" to "The Mystery of
the Singing Diamond." But as all kids do, Billy and Caroline grow
up--Caroline's lonely wandering after Billy leaves for college leads her
to take her own life, and Billy, devastated and detached in his
detective mode, is sent to a mental facility. Ten years later he's out,
a man now, but in his head he hasn't grown--he's still out to solve
mysteries, most importantly the death of his sister. It's a deep bruise
of a book, written with genuine melancholy and grief over the loss of
wonder.
"I just thought about a child detective as an adult and just how
interesting that would be," Meno says. "What kind of job would he
have? How would he go about in the world?"
Meno invents a surreal, mysterious and dreamlike world for "The Boy
Detective Fails." Buildings disappear without warning or reason.
Villains pop up and vanish without a trace. He plays with the text--some
pages are blank, some with just one word. Things go missing. There's an
alternate story line that continues at the bottom of each page, written
in code--a cutout decoder ring on the back flap helps you decipher the
tale. In Billy's head, there's a solution to everything--he just has to
find it. But since he's older, he might not.
"I wanted to write about a hero who fails," Meno says. "The one
thing everyone has in common is that they eventually fail at something.
I'm way more sympathetic with them than with a winner. I sympathize way
more with President Bush now than I did when he was first elected. Cause
I've blown it in my life many times, and that's the only part of him
that seems human."
Meno explores youth and nostalgia--common themes in his work. "To
me the idea of this book is a coming-of-age but in reverse," he says.
"In most of those stories a character realizes something that changes
him, usually about how complex the world is. Here the character realizes
how disorderly the world is but finds something important in the lack of
order. There's something about when you're a kid, where not knowing all
the answers is great. There's a sense of adventure. Can you think of the
last time you were on an adventure?" Joe Meno reads from "The Boy Detective Fails" September 14 at
Hideout, 1354 West Wabansia, (773)227-4433, at 7pm.
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