Nick DiChario

Valley of Day-Glo by Nick DiChario is a post-apocalyptic novel where tribes of natives are all that's left in a dry, desolate wasteland where the white men, or Honio’o, all perished (along with the yellow and dark skinned people)in the Great Reddening. Broadway Danny Rose is a member of what is left of the Gushedon’dada tribe. He and his mother, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, are taking his dead father, The Outlaw Josey Wales, to the mythical Valley of Day-Glo. His father told stories about the existence of the Eden-like valley where death becomes life. The dangerous journey to the valley takes them through the lands of other hostile tribes.

Now, if that description makes you think this is a sad, serious tale of struggle and woe, then you need to know that Valley of Day-Glo is at times entertaining, philosophical, humorous, original, and warped. DiChario himself calls Valley of Day-Glo absurdist fiction, and while it is absurd it is also much more. In the introduction, Nancy Kress says to DiChario, "You have a very warped mind."(pg 9) but she goes on to say: "His warp may be fanciful and wildly inventive, but his cross-threads are deadly serious. They are love and the price that love exacts, violence and the grief it causes, striving and the ways that striving can be twisted by the larger world. Nick's tapestry is a life-like design of brilliant, heart-breaking colors, including that imaginative warp." (pg. 10)

Nick DiChario is a very talented writer, and Broadway Danny Rose is an unforgettable (and rumored impotent) hero who seemingly stumbles through life constantly being confronted with human stupidity along the way. This is a highly original novel in many ways but also archetypal in others. Oh, and definitely read the "Book Club Guide" at the end of the novel. It will be well worth your time... maybe.
highly recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/
… (mais)

File somewhere between "Pym" and "This Book is Full of Spiders." Yet another on the dystopian list, set apart by its Native American narrator and the focus on past and an imagined future Native American culture. There is an inevitable comparison to "The Motel of the Mysteries." May find its way into the literary canon due to its "tropes in a blender" attitude, which I suspect there will be much more of. Lightly satirical (and very welcome) send-up of a book club guide at the end. I can see the comparison between DiChario and Vonnegut, but DiChario's brutal vision is tempered with an odd sot of innocent optimism. This may be due to the character of Broadway Danny Rose - an innocent, wide-eyed cynic, surrounded by people who are prisoner to some sort of paradigm or another, trying to see the world as it is.… (mais)