Author's new book takes square aim at Beaverton
‘Paranoid Park’ author Blake Nelson’s new teen novel is about rebelling against SUVs
A few years ago, while visiting his old hometown of Beaverton from New York, author Blake Nelson found inspiration in an unexpected time and place – the headache-inducing afternoon gridlock on Highway 217.
Here are these polluting cars, these tank-like SUVs, these brainless soccer moms, these surly teenagers, he said he remembered thinking. All of them hustling and bustling in the heat in their metal cocoons, traveling nowhere slow.
Oh, how it must be awful to live in a concrete-covered suburb like Beaverton, he thought, with little to do and everywhere to drive.
But then he thought deeper. Don’t most people live in suburbs? Isn’t his ‘walk everywhere’ New York lifestyle the unusual one? What are these people’s stories?
Putting pen to paper, Nelson quickly wrote down the beginnings of what would later become “Destroy All Cars,” his new, often humorous, and sometimes touching new novel. It is satirical of Beaverton and suburban life in general, yet manages to avoid being cutting. Nelson feels he can criticize Beaverton because in many ways, he is Beaverton.
“I just like to make fun of people sometimes,” he said in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home, before reasoning, “I try to be a good person in other aspects of my life.”
Nelson, an adult and young adult author with nine published books under his belt including “Girl” and “Paranoid Park” is a Jesuit High School alum who currently lives in Los Angeles.
His most recent story follows 17-year-old James Hoff through his troubling junior year of high school. He rants and raves about environmentalism and how we are all killing ourselves with our rolling smog machines. As he rages against society and capitalism, he yearns for the love of his ex-girlfriend Sadie. James’ soft side is slowly revealed in between his humorous rants.
One day after a mall visit he writes, “I love the rumor that the air in the malls is oxygen enriched to make you stupid and make you buy stuff. Why are you there if you’re not stupid and going to buy stuff?”
Later he opens up in an essay: “No matter what we do, Nature remains our protector. Even as we ignore it, contaminate it, destroy it, Nature offers us sympathy and love. It comforts us in our darkest hour. We do not deserve this. And still it is offered.”
Nelson, who wrote “Paranoid Park” which was later made into the award-winning Gus Van Sant film, created James as a complicated character, one who you want to root for as he grows and learns about himself.
Growing up in the “unique environment” of the Pacific Northwest had an effect on Nelson in deep ways. All but one of his books have been set in and around Portland. It was his stomping ground and he still feels a bond with the area, he says.
Locals will recognize the locales that James and his friends visit in the novel – they waste time at Fred Meyer and suck down coffee at Shari’s Restaurant.
“Cold and gloomy today. Dark when you leave for school, dark when you get home…” the narrator writes in his journal. “This is not good for you … Portland, Oregon, is one of the darkest places, too. It’s a wonder we don’t all kill ourselves. Oh, wait, we already are.”
As Nelson worked to craft the character and came up with the book’s unique narrative style (it is told as a series of journal entries, school essays and internet postings) he began to relate to his angry teenage character.
“The kind of stuff the guy does in the book is the stuff I did in high school,” he said. “I really felt like I was that kid. I was really in his brain.”
Being in his 40s now and writing for the young adult market, as Nelson has done with all of his recent novels, means trying to understand youth culture. He feels he has found his niche, giving voice to the young.
As Nelson’s career continues to flourish (he is currently doing rewrites on his next novel, “Movie Night”) he says he feels more and more comfortable with his position in life as a young adult novelist. Even if it is a different literary path than he envisioned all those years ago when he first started writing.
“My goal was to be a literary author, like John Updike or something like that,” Nelson said. “I’m never going to be John Updike, but who knows? Maybe somehow I’ll become really well known and it will pay off in the end somehow.”
Yet it feels that Nelson has already found what he is good at. Getting into the hearts and minds of youth, like James, and sharing his stories with the world.
“That’s all I’ve ever really wanted,” he said.